RWBY - The Pen and the Sword
by TwoChimpsWithoutOne
Summary: -For the Record- Surviving a plane crash? Not enough. Being hunted by super predators? Not even close. Hopping worlds? Why not? I'll see that, and raise getting recruited by a woman who fashions herself a goddess. OC/I
1. Prologue

_AN_

 _Before you panic and hit the back button after seeing the 'OC/I' tag, I ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt and follow along for a bit. I plan to go a bit off the norm for this one, and a plan for the whole ride through._

* * *

 _Prologue_

* * *

Telekinesis was defined as the manipulation of objects with the mind. Pyrokinesis was the ability to create and manipulate fire. Illusions, the ability to bend light and warp sound to suit one's desires. Once, this was considered the stuff of fiction, and as such, no one believed it was possible, or even believed in the nigh illimitable possibilities such skills would allow. Nebo Aldric, however, had learned much, much differently during his time in this new world. Awakening his abilities and being exposed to many others had been trials in and of themselves, to say nothing of the training it took to hone his own to the degree he did, and in the time he'd had to do it, too, but the result was nothing short of fantastic. Everything he lacked in strength, he made up for in skill. Creativity. Lateral thinking.

Unfortunately for Aldric, as he watched a small flying metal deathtrap of a locker blast through the air under its own power, he wasn't entirely certain if his skill would measure up. Certainly, he thought, he was powerful, but there was a definite hierarchy in this world, and no matter what anyone said, experience ensured that even now he wasn't entirely certain of his position in the pecking order, at the moment. Perhaps if he'd had more time, time for his body to adapt, for his powers to age, for him to develop a complete understanding and a far lesser fear of them, things would have been different, but he'd hardly had two years to go from Clark Kent to Superman. He'd had to learn fast, and sacrifices thusly had to be made.

The dark-haired man watched silently as the locker hurtled through the sky, containing within it a person who, very soon, would gain the ability to change the world through sheer convenience of existing. Sure, he'd done a lot of things these last eighteen months, some overt and some not quite as, some stupid, some and intelligent, but this had been the first change he'd gone out of his way to make.

 _Well..._ Thought Aldric, as he wiped through his shaggy hair, a hand that reflected the moon above with a metallic sheen. _That's you taken care of._

He turned up to Beacon Tower, the enormous building that loomed above him and likely was the man-made roof of the world.

 _But how do I take care of you?_ He thought, as he watched a bright flare of red-orange light begin to raise through the building, hurtling upwards, towards the office of the academy's likely deceased headmaster. Placing his hands in the pockets of his cassock, Aldric casually strolled towards the base of the tower, humming whatever it was that struck his fancy as he made his way inside, very well aware that he was likely, and literally, marching to his death.

 _I guess I'll just have to wing it._ He thought, as he entered the abandoned, trashed tower.

The tower's lobby looked like a tornado had gone through it, with large scorch marks blackening the area around the elevator behind the main receptionist's desk. To his left and right were the waiting areas, the televisions blank and the couches overturned. He thought he heard running water, but he couldn't see any broken fountains, or anything the like. Ignoring most of the devastation, Aldric entered the trashed elevator. In the center of the floor was a large, boulder-sized hole, warped and bent as if it had been melted. Looking up in the cramped space showed a similar hole in the lift's ceiling.

 _Oh yeah... Lady in red came through here._ Thought the teen, as he removed his right hand from his coat and held it out in front of him, his gray palm facing the ground.

He snorted. "Going _up..."_ And with a brief frown, the elevator began the long ascent. A loud, horrendous grinding noise accompanied the trip, sparks flying in all directions.

It took him two minutes to make it to the top, and after forcing the door to the headmaster's office open, he found his goal simply standing there, waiting for him, a smug smirk pasted across her face, her deep orange eyes glowing with energy, and her raven hair falling in thick curls over her shoulders. Replacing his hand in his coat, the dark-haired fighter strolled inside.

"Hey, Hot Stuff." Said Aldric, "am I too late?"

She regarded him with a curious glance, "I must admit, I expected to see the other one." The young woman said, as she smoothed out a wrinkle in her tight, form-fitting red dress.

"I gave her the night off." Said Aldric, as, outside, a massive, demonic dragon with a black visage and a pale white exoskeleton detached from the building and took off, its enormous wings creating loud gale-force gusts of wind with every beat, as it circled the tower. "Like your pet. Always wanted a dragon."

"What do you, of all people, expect to accomplish by coming here?" The woman taunted, "it is pointless. We've won. I have the Fall Maiden's abilities... Her power. Even you cannot stand to me." She smirked.

Aldric frowned, and shrugged his shoulders, leaning up against the wall as he did so. "You know... That's one thing I've noticed time and time again, during my brief tenure here. You all operate on the idea that power is everything. The strong survive, the weak die out. You are correct in thinking that you have more power than me - hell, right now you probably have more power than I _ever_ will..." A pause, "unless I survive, then I'll have _time_ to see how big that bonfire is, but I digress.

"There's one thing you guys don't quite understand... One thing that would have gotten the red-head killed, had I let her come up here. The best counter for raw power, is skill." He said, as his blue eyes slowly darkened to a deep, dark onyx. "You treat science and aura as two different subjects. Mutually exclusive. Despite having all of the tools necessary to prove that wrong six ways from Sunday." He lifted his metallic fist, inspecting it with a blank expression.

"I was blessed, when I figured out what my semblance was. I was blessed even more when the good witch of the south came out of the woodwork and taught me some tricks. Very powerful, indeed." He lowered his hand to the zipper on his overcoat, and began dragging it upwards, unfastening his coat and letting it fall around his ankles. "And yes, I am stalling." He added, as he shoved off from the wall and took a few steps towards the raven-haired woman. "From what I understand, I'm about to fight someone who got her powers right from God." He said, stretching his arms out.

The woman's smirk didn't falter, but he did notice, just faintly, how it drew away from her eyes. "You could leave, you know. Few would know. Fewer still would fault you."

"You kidding?" He chuckled, "I would. She would... Probably." Aldric countered, running a gray, metallic hand through his shoulder-length hair. "I never leave a job half done. Method acting, Shalashaska, and all that. Besides, you may be more powerful than me... May have _always_ been... May always will be. We both know the biggest thing working against me was always _time..._ But what you have, in overwhelming power, you lack in skill. Your body is only used to _half_ of the power you currently possess, and even then, it's a stretch.

"Me, however, I've bled, sweat, and worked for everything I can do, and I'll let you in on a secret... As I said before..." He said, as the dust on the ground, and the bits of metal from the destroyed elevator, all began to levitate around him, soon swirling around him as if orbiting his body. "The greatest counter for strength, is skill." Some of the items began to disintegrate, flaking away like embers from a fire. "All the power in the universe cannot help you if you cannot hit the man you want to kill.

"So tell me... You who fashion yourself a goddess." Said Aldric, as he cracked his gray, sheening knuckles, and crouched down low into a fighting stance, as a wide grin began to grow across his face.

"Do you bleed?"

The woman's eyes narrowed, and she began to levitate, as the very air around her distorted from the sheer heat she was generating. Her eyes were covered in massive auras of fire, their shape reminiscent of the wings of a butterfly. The ground underneath them, and the air around them, shimmered and shook as the two combatants pulled out all of the stops, and drew all of their strength, one to be rid of a pest as fast as possible, and one in the hopes that he may, just may, be able to survive this whole ordeal. All across the academy, and even down in the kingdom, many paused a moment and turned their heads to Beacon Tower, as the Fall Maiden, and Beacon's Master, drew out everything they had. A flaming bonfire versus a napalm campfire, their combined energies were enough such that even civilians, with little aura to speak of, could feel something was off. Aldric felt the weight of the raven-haired Fall Maiden's power crushing him, but he didn't let his grin falter, as he rang the bell.

"You will." And the two launched at each other.

* * *

 _Eighteen months previous._

* * *

Somehow, over the all-penetrating white noise of constant conversation, phone calls, text messages, and TSA announcements, the snoring of a teenaged boy could be heard. Snoozing on a bench, with his head hanging over the back, a dark-haired, pale-skinned teen was surrounded by luggage and a messenger's bag, filled to the bursting with wires, sensitive electronics, and a pillow, resting on his lap. The teen had so many possessions surrounding him that he took over the entire bench, and attracted more than one curious eye, though few truly thought that everything he surrounded himself with was his - he was so thin and lanky, and his clothes so baggy, that he had the general appearance of a stick, barely even able to hold up the bag hanging from his neck.

The teen was awoken suddenly by a kick to his left foot, his head snapped up and his glasses were sent askew as he tried to shake the sleep from behind his half-lidded eyes.

"I didn't do it." Drawled the teen, through a yawn as he stretched both of his arms. "Unless I did. Then I did it." He paused, "what did or didn't I do?" He looked up to the figure that had awoken him, being greeted by the visage of his short, though thickly built father, whose dark, shoulder-length, meticulously brushed hair absorbed all of the sunlight that would have otherwise thrown him into deep, detail-masking shadows.

"Just a few more connectors, Nebo." The teen's father responded, a sympathetic look in his deep gray eyes.

"I think my jet-lag is jet lagged." Said the teen, who hand-brushed his unkempt, brown hair back behind his ears, and readjusted his glasses. "So... Started in Germany, brief layover in south wherever... Connector to bum-squat whatever'sville... Where the hell are we?" Nebo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stood up, his messenger's bag swinging heavily from its strap around his neck.

"Somewhere where people speak better English than the folks back home." Said Nebo's father, as the two shared a grin.

Nebo adjusted the fit on his light gray hoodie, before dropping both hands into its pockets. "'Bout to board?" He turned to his rear, where the bright blue sky beat down upon the small passenger jet sitting right outside. "Thing looks small... Damn it, we're not getting far, are we?"

"Well, far enough that we're going over the ocean, after we get on."

"Hm..." Nebo yawned again. "Ergh... 'Get _on_ the plane, get _on the plane..._ Fuck you, I'm getting _in_ the plane!" Nebo grinned a one-sided grin.

There was a brief chime in the intercom above them, before a voice spoke. _"Now beginning pre-boarding for Continental Flight Six, Three, Six. All passengers please be ready..."_ Her voice was quickly drowned out by the teen, who chuckled lightly.

"Now, what does it mean to pre-board?" He quoted again, causing his father to roll his eyes as the two of them unplugged their various electronics and grabbed their luggage. _"To get on, before you get on!?"_ Nebo laughed.

"Are you done?"

"Maybe." Said Nebo, as the two weaved through the aisles of chairs and got in line as dictated by their tickets, soon being flanked on their front and back by dozens of people. "Wanna sit by the wings." He added, through another yawn. "See, it's uh, more structurally sound, there." He explained, "middle of the plane has to support the weight of the wings, and all that."

"Oh, I thought it was to support your fat ass, kiddo." Said Nebo's father, before a brief slap on the back.

"Nah, we both know who's packing on the pounds, pop." Said Nebo, as the thick line began to move.

"Gonna try and take a nap when we get in, see if I can't beat the lag." Nebo said, as he swung a backpack over his shoulders and let it rest on the top of his messenger's bag.

* * *

Three hours later, well after Nebo had plugged his headphones into his tablet and let whatever movies he had downloaded start playing, he awoke to the feeling of violent, quick shakes and quakes. The entire airplane was shaking around him, causing him to slowly rouse from his unconscious state, and to be greeted by the sight of a bombastic fight between the reds and blues of the appropriately named Red vs Blue.

Nebo grunted lowly, catching the attention of his father, who was reading a book on his phone. "Turbulence?" Nebo inquired, not even taking his earbud out. His father nodded, not even looking up from his book. "Rough shit..." Groaned the teen, who shut his eyes again. "If we crash, don't die without me, fat man."

"Fat man, or bat man? Besides, you know as well as I do..." Said his father, though the teen was already falling asleep again by the time he spoke. "Now is not the time for dying. That comes later."

 _"Fuck you... Fat Batman."_ Whispered the snoozing teen, which caused his father to grin.

* * *

Back and forth with slow, wide swings, and the sound of cloth clenching and straining. In his half asleep state, Nebo smiled, wondering if he were on the porch swing again. Though something felt off about the experience, as if he were heavier and pressing down against the swing more, he didn't mind too much, he liked the feeling of sinking into the cushions. Though the tight, compressed feeling on his chest, as if there were a bundle of rope, or a seatbelt fastened too tightly, he could do without.

He heard something begin ringing, and waved his hand idly to his side, muttering something about just needing a few more minutes. The odd thing, however, was that he wasn't hitting the phone he usually laid next to his head. Much the opposite, his arm seemed to be heavier than his body, it took more effort to bring it back down, towards his chest, than it took to lift up and wave around. Odd.

 _Status report. All engines ago. Prepare wake up. Preparing to wake up, captain! Wake up. Waking up, captain!_ Groggily thought the sleeper, who opened his dark, blue-gray eyes and blinked out the sleep. His vision was blurry and the back of his head hurt as he exposed his eyes to the light, and all of the browns, greens and reds of the environment around him.

 _Oh... Damn it, did I fall off of the swing?_ Thought Nebo, as he clenched his eyes tightly, and laboriously lifted his hand to wipe at them. His hand came away bloody, perplexing the teen, who blinked a few times as he stared at his bloody hand, still swinging back and forth as he did so. _That's weird... Did I get into a fight, then?_ He wondered, _no... There aren't any raised voices, or the smell of Rick pissing his pants... Come to think about it, it smells weird._ He inhaled deeply through his nose, the act briefly intensifying all of the blurry colors around him as he took in the earthy smells of nature. Upon exhaling, everything came into a much sharper focus, and it came to his attention that the sky looked an awful lot like a forest's ground, thick with grass and vegetation.

 _Hm... Do Nanna and Poppy have a tire swing?_ He blinked again, the ringing in his head slowly fading away. _Wait... I wasn't at their house... I was in Germany. Oktoberfest, translating for my Dad. Where..._ He groaned, and tried to turn to his side, when he realized that gravity was actively pulling him to the sky.

He blinked once, his heart slowing down and leaving a slightly empty, pained feeling in his chest as he came to a realization.

"Oh... Fuck no..." Groaned the teen, as he turned his dark-eyed gaze down to his chest, where he was pressing tightly against the hastily redone straps and belts of the seat from the airplane. "Oh... My god..." He breathed, turning his head as far around as he could go, and finding that he his chair, and the metal bits, wires, and beams that had secured it to the plane, was tangled up in a tree, multiple dozens of feet above the ground, of which he was facing, chest-first.

"Oh..." His breaths were coming faster, as he lifted his head and saw, directly in front of him, a massive path of destruction carved out of the dense, thick forest that surrounded him.

Some trees were on fire, some patches of grass were scorched, the ground was torn apart in a massive fissure, trees were smashed to pieces and ripped from the dirt, and in the distance, some few hundred meters away, was the massive, deceptively _massive_ wreckage.

"Oh!..." He could barely even speak, let alone articulate anything more than sheer awe, as, near the crash site, there was a brief, but loud explosion as one of the plane's turbines went up, the shockwave powerful enough to shake the teen, even as far away as he was.

"Oh... Sssssssssshit!" Nebo swallowed thickly, his first instinct - and indeed, his first action - being to go for the buckles on his seatbelt, but he forced himself to pause and think, to calm down. If he undid his restraints now, all he would succeed in doing is falling several dozen feet to the ground, crack his skull open, break a few rips, and likely do some lasting damage that couldn't be properly treated for however long it took the rescue crew to show up.

Rapidly glancing around, Nebo reached upwards and firmly grasped the thick branch from which he and his seat were hanging. He pulled once, twice, and after satisfying himself that the branch that was already supporting his weight, could continue to do so, he reached down with his free hand and grasped at the seatbelt. With one thick swallow through a bone-dry throat, Nebo pulled at the belt and undid his restraint. Instantly he swung forward a few feet as he was now being held up only by his slightly bloody arm. With a yelp of fear, Nebo grabbed at the branch with his other hand, and forced himself to stop swinging, as he came face to face with the fact that he hadn't thought this far ahead.

His head snapped to his left, where he saw the trunk of the tree he was hanging from. It was thick, at least the circumference of an average tire, meaning he could wrap himself around it and slide down. The phrase 'if need be' did snap to his mind, but the need _did_ be, as this was literally a life or death, holy shit he was in a plane crash and could die if he didn't start climbing for his life right now, situation.

"Well..." He said, to no one in particular, as he started swinging from side to side, throwing one arm out and carefully sliding along the branch, towards the trunk. "Think of this this way, Aldric... Get picked up by the rescue team..." He grunted, passing by his life-saving chair as he swung across the branch. "Have dad sue the airlines... Get two big, fat, massive settlements - one for you and him." He grunted again, getting closer to the thick trunk, as the sounds of birds flying overhead passed through his ears. "And have more money than all of your friends _combined."_ He reached the trunk, and found that there was a smaller, thinner branch, just a few feet below him. Gingerly, he placed a foot on this branch, and found that it could _just_ support his weight. "Maybe take Rick out to Momocon... Or fly out to Austin, go to RTX...

"Nah, too fuckin' hot. Go to Comic Con. CJ's always wanted to go to that... Few hundred K, maybe a million if you're lucky... You could bring him." He inhaled and exhaled rapidly, before letting go with one hand, a brief cry of fear escaping his lungs as now all of his weight was on one leg on a thin branch, and one over-strained arm with rivulets of blood streaming down from multiple lacerations and bruises. "And, now you get to shut dad up. All that time, watchin' the discovery channel..." He grunted loudly, swinging around and gripping the tree trunk with his free arm, wrapping it around and holding on as tight as he could. "Man vs Wild... Survivorman... Mythbusters... How it's made... Uh... Shit... Pawnstars? I dunno. Fuck." He said, slowly snaking his next arm around the tree.

"Internet, too. Find my luggage, tablet's got one of those... Emergency apps, on it. And a first aid manual. Is it really paranoia if it actually fucking happens?" He asked himself, as he slowly, with a terrified clench in his gut, began shinnying down the tree, a few inches at a time, smearing his cargo pants and his dark shirt with the sap and the dew that covered the dark brown bark.

"Of course..." He groaned, "that's if your fuckin' thing didn't get smashed... But it may work..." He swallowed through his dry throat, "I was sitting next to the wings, after all, and look at _my_ ass! I'm alive!" He laughed, "survived... A fucking... Plane crash. In the middle of a jungle..." He slid further down the tree. "Where there could be lions... Tigers... Polar bears... Smoke monsters... Plot twists and questions you won't understand even after binging it all in a week." He let all of the air in his lungs go in one long, hysteric laugh as he unintentionally slid down a few feet, coming to a halt when he hooked his right leg on a branch. "Ah... Goddamn it... Um... Okay... Look down."

He looked over his shoulder, and saw that he'd made more progress than he'd initially thought, the ground was only a few feet away, now. In any other situation, he'd be willing to take the risk and just jump it, but he didn't know how bad his injuries were, so he played it safe and kept sliding.

"What would Indiana Jones do?..." He asked himself, "er... Actually, fuck that. What would Nathan Drake do? Dude's survived crazier stuff than this." He laughed to himself, as he felt his butt hit solid ground.

"Oh, thank _sweet god!"_ The teen cried, as he disengaged from the tree and fell onto his back. "Ha! Take that, death! Fuck you!" He said, squinting his eyes. Was that his chair? Was it getting - _"Shit!"_ Nebo rolled to the side, his chair slamming into the ground where his chest had been just a few moments earlier.

"Ha! Haha... Whew. Gotta try harder than that, asshole." He said, from his position on his hands and knees. "Nathan Drake... Nathan Drake..." He shook his head. "Alright... Go to the crash sight, stay away from the engines... Look for survivors, find the fuselage, the black box, any radios, stuff like that." He nodded once, "you can do this."

* * *

It took him five minutes to huff and puff his way to the crash sight. The lanky teen was left a sweat-slick, wheezing wreck by the time he reached it and fell to his knees. The plane's engines had long since exploded, and though the fires were intense, they hadn't spread to the fuselage, meaning that the inside was, for all intents and purposes, safe. On the other hand, however, both wings had been sheered off and blown to pieces by the impact and subsequent explosions, and Nebo gagged and nearly vomited when he noticed body parts strewn about the area. What he noticed upon forcing himself back onto his aching feet, however, was a severe, terrifying lack of voices. There was no screaming, no panicking, no cries for help or dashing rogues taking charge and coordinating recovery efforts, just an eerie silence broken only by the sounds of roaring fires and smoldering debris.

Breathing deeply, Nebo shook his head. _"HELLO?!"_ He screamed out, his loud, hoarse voice bellowing over the noise of the fires.

He received no answer.

 _"HEEEEEEEEEEELP!"_

Still nothing.

Nebo's shoulders slumped forward, but he fought the urge to collapse again. If he stopped moving now, it would only become all the more difficult to get moving again. Clenching his jaw, Nebo powered through the despair by reasoning that, he had been torn from the plane and survived, so someone else had to have, as well. He stomped heavily towards the wrecked, torn apart, and partially scorched fuselage. He put out a few of the smaller fires he came across by kicking dirt over them, and when he made it to the fuselage, he took one look inside and had to back out again, this time succumbing to the urge to vomit, as the very first thing his eyes had beheld him was the bode of some poor woman, whose neck was most certainly not supposed to bend that way, and who had to have been a chain smoker since the age of two, given the enormous, gaping, bloody hole in her throat.

After emptying his stomach through his mouth, Nebo stood again, holding his blood-stained, sweat-slick head, which still felt hot to the touch despite it all. The teen steeled himself, and entered the fuselage again, now at least having the wherewithall to ascertain that he was entering from the rear of the plane, and it was tilted on its side, such that he didn't have to climb over the cargo hold in the belly to get to the passenger's section, though that also meant the tail, and however much had been taken with it, was unaccounted for. Inside the gray, shadowy fuselage were dozens of bodies, none of them moving an inch even as he tried calling out again into the plane. Nebo thought he remembered that the plane hadn't been filled to capacity when he'd boarded, which meant the fact that there were empty seats meant nothing, and were perhaps a red herring, given the amount of seats with bodies still in them.

 _Six... D._ Thought Nebo, as he forced himself to step over the ruined aisles and walk past the dead people, _Six D... Six D. Six D, six D, six D... Row six, Aisle D. Aisle six, row D... God damn it._ He reached the row and found what he was looking for: The window seat, which had been torn out after the wing had been torn _off,_ and the seat next to it, which was completely empty.

His father was somewhere out there.

Nebo looked up to the big, gaping hole in the airplane, right in front of him. Beyond the ripped apart, scorched environment around him, it was clear he had crash landed _far_ from any kind of civilization, there were trees and mountains for as far out as he could see, stretching for dozens of kilometers in all directions, and it didn't help that the air was being choked by the smoke and smoldering bits of wreckage. Nebo shook his head, and stooped forward, reaching under the seat that he had, before the crash, been sitting behind. Words failed to describe the tidal wave of relief he felt when his bloody hand latched onto the familiar strap of his messenger's bag. He yanked it out from under the chair, but didn't bother checking anything in it as he slung it around his shoulder, nor did he bother checking the baggage compartment above him for his bookbag. His messenger's bag had the important, tech bits that he might be able to actually get a use out of, whereas the bookbag had books and a few emergency pairs of clothes.

 _Okay... Pilot's cabin. Find a radio, or an emergency transponder, or something..._ Thought the stranded teen, as he turned to the front of the plane and started walking, a determined scowl on his blood-dripping, sweat-slicked face.

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

"Well... Hello there!" _Drawled a deep, rumbly southern accented voice, with a light inflection on it so as to try and sound somewhat positive, or even friendly, as a large figure slowly backed away from the camera and revealed himself to be a lean male, of seventeen to nineteen years. The man sat down on a chair that looked like it had been ripped out of an airplane, and clapped his hands on his lap._

"So... Uh... I guess I'll call this... 'For the Record'... Aaaaaaas you can tell..." _The man spoke, his eyes wide and shining with equal parts terror, hysteria, and disbelief._ "I'm alive!" _The cackling of a fire and the warm orange light bathed his features as the fire in front of him grew in size, though the man seemed unconcerned, likely because he had set the fire himself._ "But, you're watching this. Probably not surprising, and all that... So, let me explain.

"I'm... Nebo Aldric. I know, I know." _He cut himself off, waving his hand and nodding a few times._ "Really odd name for some white kid from Connecticut, but my Ma was bible-belt, born and raised, and the fat man..." _He paused, a pensive, almost remorseful look flashing across his face as he frowned, before he forced himself to continue._ "My dad... Sorry, inside joke. My dad was a big softy with a bigger beer belly. She wanted a bible name, and, lucky me, I got Nebo. Short for Nebuchadnezzar... I think. My buddies just call me Aldric... Or Morpheus, if they're feeling particularly vindictive, but I digress." _He shook his head again, cleared his throat, and sighed deeply._

"I am a survivor of International Flight, Six Three Six. Unfortunately, I have reason to believe, at the moment, that I may be the _only_ survivor, as the plane's been smoldering since high noon and no one else has come stumbling over here." _He said, indicating the dark night sky that surrounded him._

"Now... I woke up about... Eight or nine hours ago. Had to shinny down a friggin' tree to safety, and then this thing..." _He patted the chair he sat upon._ "This magical, evil fucking thing, tried to kill me right after it finished saving me. After I woke up, I came to the crash sight, but everyone I found was dead..." _He paused,_ "yeah... Dead." _He nodded to himself, preceding another long sigh._ "I picked up the emergency supplies from the pilot's cabin... Got the radio, some flares, all that jazz. I tried the radio, and though it turns on, I just got snake city. Nothin' but _hisssssss."_ _He drawled out._

"So... Uh, I currently have no way to charge the radio's battery, so I'm only going to turn it on twice a day - once at high noon, once before I turn in for the night. But, the fuselage of the plane is... Mostly intact... Save for a few..." _He waved to his front, indicating a plane that wasn't in view of the camera._ "Obvious exceptions. Here."

 _Aldric leaned forward and picked up the camera, turning it around to face the plane, which was barely lit up by the man's campfire. There were multiple large gashes ripped out of it, both wings and the tail were gone, and it was tipped over at a light angle to the ground._

"See what I mean? So..." _He placed the camera back on the ground and turned it to face him, before he leaned back, and wiped his dark brown hair back behind his ear._ "Going to take inventory tomorrow..." _He sighed,_ "I'll feel real bad about it - make no mistake about it - but it's life or death, right now... So I can't think of it as looting the dead, but merely taking what I need to survive. My first order of business is to get all of the luggage and put it in a central location. Hopefully I can sort through all of it and get some kind of system going before nightfall tomorrow.

"Any food, water, medicine, power sources, things of that nature, I'm going to separate from the clothes. I think I remember something about planes having emergency transponders, so hopefully I've got GPS satellites looking for me... But I have to prepare for the worst." _He explained,_ "so, after I finish taking inventory, my next order of business will be getting rid of the bodies. I'm in the middle of what I think to be some kind of rainforest, so it's pretty hot and humid, here. I doubt I'd have more than a week before the bodies start smelling, and if I don't do something before then, I'd have to evacuate this area, and forgo the shelter the fuselage provides." _He leaned back into the chair and groaned, before he lifted up his arms and inspected them._

"Going to have to check these injuries of mine, too. So far they haven't been bad, but if they go untreated, the little things will stack up quick." _Aldric chuckled mirthlessly, his deep voice overwhelming the crackling of the fire._ "Who knows? Might've been a surgeon onboard, I'll be able to raid his go-bag. Probably just have to settle for the next best thing... Air marshal. Get his gun, run out of food, start hunting. Thank you... Grandpa Charles - uh." _The teen sighed again._ "I'll leave it at that, for now. 'Till next time." _He leaned forward and his hand covered the camera's lens, before the video cut out._

* * *

Aldric never, once, remembered his dreams, though he always knew he had them. The first night after the crash, he knew something was different about the way he slept, in that there had been no dreams whatsoever. He had been so exhausted that his mind hadn't even conjured up phantoms to haunt him with during his unconscious hours. He awoke after six hours of sleep, the sun was just beginning to raise into the sky. The dark-haired teen stretched his sore, aching body, and after a few moments of staring off into space, in the general direction of his long since dead fire, he got to work.

It took him until noon to empty the main passenger's area of all of the luggage. He'd appropriated the drink and concessions carts to help expedite the process, loading them down with luggage and wheeling them all out in bulk before going back for more. After tossing out all the luggage from under the chairs and in the overhead containers, his next, obvious target was the food and water, which he placed in one large pile next to his chair. The medical supplies were easy enough to carry out, unfortunately - only a few first aid kits and a single, smashed AED. He also found a few dozen small bottles of alcohol, which he also placed with the medical supplies. After the medical supplies and the alcohol, he looted everyone for their tech and utilized a few of the emptier bags and suitcases to store all of it in, such that, if it rained, they wouldn't _all_ be destroyed.

Around noon, the increasingly sore teen went back to his chair to retrieve the emergency radio. It turned on without a fuss, and though the interface was largely foreign to him, Aldric had enough common sense to guess his way through it, after some fiddling. He spent a good fifteen minutes, searching the airwaves and polluting them with his voice.

 _"Mayday, mayday, mayday._ " He spoke, clearly and calmly, making his voice as deep and his accent as suppressed as possible. "I am a survivor of International Flight six three six. I have crash landed in an unknown location, and will broadcast every day at high noon. If you read me, please respond, I have no method of charging my radio and am in need of medical help." That was good, right?

There were no responses, and after his watch told him a good half hour had passed, he shut the radio off, and got back to work. It was well after five o'clock before he emptied out the belly of the plain of all of the luggage stored inside, and the moon was in the sky by the time he got everything sorted out into general piles of half-organized belongings: Tech, clothes, water, food, medicine, and miscellaneous, like books, soaps, or sewing supplies. He finally called it a night after he downed some of First Class' dried steak, and a glass of orange juice.

The next morning, Aldric dipped into the medical supplies to deal with his injuries. First, he took a few pain pills to deal with his headache and the pains in his chest, before he grabbed what he prayed were the alcohol swaps, and disinfected the areas of him that had been cut open. He wasn't very experienced with bandaging _anyone,_ let alone himself, but common sense went a long way - or at least, he hoped it did - and he had the worst of the worst bandaged up, and counted himself very, very lucky he didn't have to perform any stitches.

After a hearty breakfast of water, pretzels, and a few crushed skittles from his messenger's bag, he began to take inventory and sort everything out.

* * *

-For the Record-

"Alright... For the Record, Day... Three." _The video picked up as the first one had, with Aldric backing away from the camera after making sure it was stabilized, and collapsing into his increasingly well-worn airline seat._ "So..." _He picked up a clipboard, and gave the camera a peek and a sly grin, before he tapped it twice with a marker._ "That way I don't have to rely on tech." _He looked back down and cleared his throat,_ "thirty two, thirty ounce water bottles... Which goes out to about twenty eight liters. Three dozen cans of various soft drinks and juices... Three dozen salvageable bottles of alcohol -" _He peeked back up to the camera, "-_ uh, _jesus,_ these people drink -" _He looked back down,_ "sixty salvageable bags of various, small airline snacks, including pretzels, peanuts, and other assorted dry goods... Fifteen first class meals of varying types, including chicken, bargain-brand steak, etcetera...

"A cubic ass load of pants, shirts, and socks in my size, and an even bigger number of clothes _not_ in my size -" _He looked up again, "-_ there _had_ to be some kind of pornstar on this plane, by the way. I found _this_ monstrosity, and a few others like it... I figure, if I need a good amount of smoke for a signal fire, I'll light those up." _Aldric picked a bra whose cup size was almost as big as his head, and displayed it for the camera._ "And no, there weren't any lardballs in there, in case that's the explanation you're thinking up. And _yes,_ actually, Aldric, the rugged survivor, is single. So when I get back home, ladies... _" He couldn't keep a straight face, and broke down into laughter, before tossing the bra away._

"Damn it... I rehearsed that one three times. Anyways, four pairs of monstrous bras... A literal _bag_ of condoms, that I actually think came from one of the stewardesses, given where I found it - IF airlines, might wanna start checking these things." _He chuckled,_ "more fuel for a signal fire. Anyways, tech. Got about... Sixteen laptops, two macbooks, a few apple laptops, fifty two cell phones - of which, thirty are of the same brand as mine. Android all the way." _He said, giving the camera another sly look,_ "damn thing survived a plane crash, I don't think I'll ever sell it... And yes... Uh... People who make androids, I am open to bribes, if you want to give me free phones for the rest of my life." _He looked back down to his list, the orange light of the fire casting him in a warm glow, and catching the clipboard, drawing his chest into deep shadows._

"Got one and a half dozen tablets, all of which are of similar models to mine, though only half of them have removable storage. Chargers for all of these things, though I have no source of power at the moment, gonna have to work something out, there... One hand-cranked radio, for some reason... A bunch of DVD's I doubt I'll get use out of... A lot of books and flash drives, the latter of which I'm willing to bet has the Bra's casting footage on it." _He looked up and pointed past the camera, as if there were people there listening to him._ "Ten bucks a pop! Who's interested? Anyone? Ah..." _He waved them all away,_ "anyways...

"Not all of these have removable batteries, but I think I've got enough supplies here to rig up some kind of charger... Kids! Stay in school, take all the science and engineering classes. Joe, fuck your Marching Band, shop class is helping _me_ out. Anyways, got the radio, and maps from the captain's cabin. Our flight path took us out to sea, so I may be on some island, somewhere. Joy..." _Aldric groaned,_ "got a few first aid kits, and various bottles of pills, ranging from actual, literal opiates - including one bottle of _oxycodone! There's a goddamn druggy on this plane, guys! -_ to various allergy and pain meds... Oh! Damn, I almost forgot...

"Haven't found the sky martial, yet, but boy did I find someone just as good." _He put down the clipboard and reached to the side of his chair._ "So, I dunno what this crazy bastard was hoping to do... Maybe he wasn't going to do anything, but _Jesus,_ this is a big knife." _He pulled up a knife, wrapped tightly in a leather sheathe._ "The sheathe says Gerber... So I guess it's expensive." _He unsheathed the blade and inspected it in front of the camera._ "Two serrated edges, a pretty damn sharp point... Fuck, this guy was ready to kill people." _He shook his head, and sheathed the blade before setting it down._

"So, here's the deal. If I ration everything out, I can reasonably expect to survive... A month, out here on my own. Maybe a bit longer if I cut back to the bare essentials. But that's not taking into consideration possible medical emergencies, the appearance of other survivors, rain, and things of that nature. So, I should say about two weeks to be safe. Two weeks of supplies before I'm in dire trouble.

"So... After I figure out how I'm going to bury everyone, my first goal will be to get myself first a good place to hunt for food and replenish my water supply. I'm also thinking that the reason the radio isn't working is because of all of the trees around me... So here in a few days I'm going to gear up and try and hike out, find some higher ground and try it there. In a perfect world, it'll work, but just in case it doesn't, that's why I've got all these efforts as a fallback plan... Aaaand a pill-bottle full of oxycodone." _He sighed, briefly breaking eye contact with the camera._ "I... Really hope I don't have to use that oxycodone.

"But I digress, I'll also be bringing the flare gun with me, just in case I see any planes or helicopters fly by during my hike. So... 'Till then, I need to find, or improvise, a shovel. Because I _really_ don't want to give up the fuselage. It's the biggest, most recognizable thing here, and burning it like a funeral pyre would just be accepting defeat. So... 'Till..." _He paused, and looked past the camera a moment, as the sound of the fire filled the camera._ "The fuck? Did you hear that?" _He turned down to the camera,_ "sounded like... Twigs, or... No, it was louder than that. Sounded like branches breaking... God, I hope there aren't any bears around here. I don't want to test out my Dicaprio impression." _He reached forward and cut off the camera._

* * *

 _I should go to bed... I should go to bed... I should go to bed... God damn it._ Aldric knew he heard something, and if it was some kind of wild island-animal, he wouldn't be safe just going to bed with it out there, watching him.

So, Aldric grabbed a nearby, dried branch, and wrapped an unused dress around its end, before setting it ablaze and creating his improvised torch. He held the torch aloft, casting a great ring of bright orange light around him, as he started off in the direction of the noise. He made it to the edge of the clearing the pane had made upon landing, and listened again, focusing past the crackling fires and the distant bugs. After a moment, he heard another few snaps and the sound of feet hitting the ground. He turned around, and froze as his eyes beheld the first living thing he'd seen in days.

An enormous creature that seemed to be made of the night itself, its thick, black fur absorbing all light that touched it and its exoskeletal growths covering its head and extremities. The creature was twice Aldric's size, and at least four times as burly, having the appearance of a wolf mixed with a gorilla. Its eyes glowed a bright, blood red beneath its skull-like mask, and it breathed heavily as it regarded Aldric, and Aldric, it. The two seemed to be at an impasse, neither knowing what to do, yet also clearly not willing to make the first move, at the risk of pissing the other one off.

 _Just... Uh... I... Um..._ Thought Aldric, his dark, blue-gray eyes wider than they had ever been in his life, as he beheld the demonic creature. _Is... what..._ It looked familiar, but he knew for a fact he had never, _ever_ seen anything like this before, he would remember something this terrifying - and it _was_ terrifying. One look had Aldric quivering in his boots, and with the way it seemed to absorb the light and steal the warmth of his torch just screamed of evil. The demonic creature just _emanated_ can-not-be with its every breath, and Aldric realized, it was salivating.

It was looking right at him, and _salivating._

This fucking thing was hungry.

 _It was hungry for him!_


	2. Close Encounters of a Grimm Kind

Chapter 1

* * *

There was no urine in his pants.

Aldric stared at the gorilla-sized, wolf-like monstrosity, with its pale white exoskeletal extremities and its light-absorbing fur, his blue-gray eyes wide and locked onto its snout, which was flooded with saliva. This thing had clearly evolved to hunt game much, much larger than it, Aldric wouldn't hesitate to say this creature could take down a rhinoceros, or an elephant.

There was no urine in his pants.

The creature, its bright, blood red eyes locked to Aldric's blue-gray orbs, began growling lowly, as it lurched forward onto its haunches, and then onto its paws. Its muscles bulged thickly underneath the massive mane of black fur, its voice deep and throaty, managing to fill the air and drown out the sounds of fire from both the campfire and the torch. The hungry beast took one tentative step forward, as if testing the crash survivor.

There was now a little urine in his pants.

 _Okay..._ Thought Aldric, as he felt his chest tighten and his heart rate skyrocket, adrenaline already starting to leak into his system. _This thing is bigger than a bear. I don't think my kickass new knife will do goddamn anything... But the flare gun..._ He took a slow, tentative step back.

The beast took another step forward.

 _Going to have to break for it... Need to distract it..._ Aldric's eyes briefly flickered down to his torch, which glowed a bright, warm orange, its heat warming the arm which held it. Aldric swallowed deeply, and turned his blue-gray eyes back to the wolf-bear. _I throw this... I either piss it off, or stun it. The gun is right there in the back pocket on my seat. I just have to pull it out, aim, and fire._ He took another step back, to which the wolf-bear took _two_ slow steps forward.

 _"JESUS!"_ Deeply roared the teen, reverting fully to his southern accent as he reared his right hand and chucked the torch with all of his strength.

The torch flipped end over and as it flew through the air, casting its light everywhere in a bright display. Aldric turned tail and sprinted as fast as he could, the monster charged forward an instant later. It slammed into the torch, fire-end first, briefly managing to stun itself as the fire burned its eyes and charred its exoskeletal head piece. Aldric yelled in fear as he heard the thing bellow out in rage, its roar sounding like a mixture between that of a wolf's howl and a lion's roar, managing to settle deep into Aldric's chest. The wolf-bear continued its charge, and caught up to Aldric before he'd even made it to the camp fire. The wolf-bear slammed its head into Aldric's back like a bull, sending the dark-haired teen flying several feet through the air, ass over teakettle.

Aldric slammed onto the ground with a loud 'oof' and rolled to a halt just at the edge of his firepit. He felt the ambient heat burning and scrambled away, but when his head snapped back to the wolf-bear, he barely had a second to push himself out of the way of its enourmous, knife-sized claws. He managed to dodge the life-threatening things, but not without injury, as he felt them drag across his right arm and tear a few hunks of flesh off of the side of his ribs. The pain was like nothing he ever felt - like hot fire at the edge of the torn flesh, and cold ice on the nerve endings of the muscles that should have never been exposed to open air. Aldric immediately felt blood start leaking out of his arm and his chest, but his opponent hadn't expected him to dodge at all, let alone so quickly, the result being that it clearly overshot its target and stumbled forward, right into the fire.

Aldric, his eyes tearing up, felt a few embers hit his back and his pants, and patted them off quickly as he watched the creature yell, scream and howl in pain. The crash survivor leapt to his feet and sprinted around the thrashing creature, as it clawed its way out of the fire, sending burning logs and hundreds of small embers in all directions, creating a veritable shower of fire. The bleeding teen reached his chair and shoved his hand into the pocket on the back of the seat, his hand closing around the grip of the flare gun. He ripped it out and flipped around, but was subsequently tackled by the enraged, severely burnt wolf-bear. Aldric felt several of his ribs snap and his wounds tear open wider as he hit the ground and felt the weight of the unearthly creature above him. Barely even conscious through all of the blinding pain flooding his system and overwhelming his endorphins, the dark-haired crash survivor recoiled as the wolf-bear shoved its head right in front of his and roared, as if proclaiming its victory and dominance to the human beneath it, demanding he surrender.

Unfortunately for it, the puny human, however injured he may be, was armed, and therefor, was not defeated.

His ever-increasingly pale arm shook as he gripped the flare gun as tight as he could, and whipped it up, right under the beast's stomach. Knowing better than to shove the barrel of the gun into the beast itself, as that would essentially mean he would get shot with the burning projectile too, Aldric let it hover a few inches beneath the beast as it raised its dark, clawed hand high. He pulled the trigger and the flare buried itself several inches into the beast's stomach, instantly burning and whistling, though the latter was severely muffled and dulled, sounding more like someone blowing their nose as the projectile was surrounded by blood.

The creature reacted instantly, leaping back off of Aldric and howling in pain as its stomach was slowly engulfed in flame. It finally decided now was the time to make its retreat, as it was being burned inside and out. It pounded the ground and tore at it as it sprinted away in a savage, wounded manner, leaving the severely wounded human to collapse, spread-eagled on the ground, breathing heavily as blood poured out of his system and, despite his every instinct telling him to fight it, to get up and try to treat himself, he succumbed to the pain and lost consciousness, his first battle being a resounding draw.

* * *

"You've got to be kidding me." Spoke the light-toned voice of the lone male in a trio of fighters, "I _do_ not believe it." He emphasized, as he stared over the edge of the cliff the trio were standing on, peering out into the distance and into the clearing created by the titanic aircraft's crash.

"He survived." Said one of the man's companions, who brushed her pale green hair out of her face, and settled to sit down on the edge of the cliff. "No aura... No real weapons... Clearly no combat experience... It's worth _something."_

"But I refuse to believe that _he'd_ be the one to survive. There were any number of people in that pocket that would have been better suited than that skinny kid." Said the man, who shook his head, his unkempt, gray hair fraying about back and forth. "You _really_ think he's worth it?" He turned to his left, towards the woman who stood proud and tall at the center of their trio, her long, raven hair falling in thick locks around her shoulders, and her deep red dress reflecting the moonlight above and the pale, distant orange fire light below.

"Regardless if he is or isn't, he is still alive, which locks us out from trying again." The woman said after a few moment's thought, her voice clear and calm, though cold and calculating, as she blankly stared down at the prone, unconscious body of the survivor, despite it barely being the size of an ant given their distance. The woman folded her hands behind her back and lowered her gaze, though her eyes remained locked to the injured survivor. "He made the beowolf retreat. They do not do that... I say we watch them. Observe their game. The beowolf clearly had him beat in strength and speed, but he used his skill and cunning to... Survive." She said, after a moment's consideration and a conciliatory nod of her head. "It may be in our best interest to see how he acts without the awakening of his aura -"

"Yeah, about that - am I crazy, or does that guy's aura feel hotter than the fire the grimm took out? Where did he come from? How does he have so much?" The man interrupted, though he petered out and shrunk away under the fiery gaze of his orange-eyed leader.

"Do not interrupt me again." She said, simply. "It is my belief that he comes from a world in which aura is never untapped. Even here, civilians and non-combatants excise that which they build up in their sleep, and huntsman and huntresses through battle. It is how we never gain an overabundance, and why a huntsman who hasn't fought for years wouldn't have more 'saved up' than one who fought every day. But his people, they do not excise it, it just builds. Even just one year of a slow and gradual buildup with no release would make anything seem vast at first glance, and that boy looks close to two decades old... But I digress." She turned back to looking at the crash sight. "Right now, he plays a game. Two predators, one with tools, one with teeth. The winner of this game shall dictate how we move forward. If he survives, we take him and use him a piece in _our_ game... If he dies, we move on. Go forward as if he had never existed."

* * *

He awoke to the feeling of his skin roasting underneath the relentless heat of the sun, and his entire body feeling like he had been thrown around in an industrial-sized drier. His ribs ached and shot jolts of pain through his chest with every breath, the side of his chest and his right arm were almost completely numb, his arm so much so that he could barely even move it. His head felt like it was in a vice grip again, and when Aldric opened his eyes, the light nearly blinded him.

 _Ow... Shit._ Thought the groaning teen. _I've got way worse than a damn concussion... I need to wrap my chest up, pray that keeps my ribs from moving too much._ He slowly, laboriously leaned up, heavily blinking his eyes as he forced himself to acclimate to the harsh light conditions and his newfound sensitivity to them. He noticed, however, that the world seemed blurrier than it should, all of the details fuzzy.

"Oh... God damn it." Said the survivor, as he pressed his hand against the bridge of his nose. His glasses were, somehow, still there, but the lenses had been smashed to pieces. "Shit..." He ripped the glasses off and threw them to the side, as he pushed himself to his feet.

It took him a quarter of an hour to get all of the medical supplies he needed, and to find a quick first-aid booklet to supplant the content he had on his tablet. With a calming chorus of Johnny Cash playing in the background, Aldric got to work. He peeled his shirt off, wincing in pain as it stuck to his blood-stained torso. The sight of his own body torn the hell open made him freeze for a moment, watching as his very lifeblood literally oozed out of his body. After a moment, he finally clenched his jaw and steeled his resolve, before grabbing a bottle of disinfectant from one of the first aid kits, and liberally applied it to a rag. It took him thirty minutes to dab and disinfect all of his wounds, thirty minutes of sharp, biting pain, anguish, and a lot of suppressed screams. He was likely being watched now, he couldn't make it easy on them by giving them blood to smell _and_ a voice to follow. After all of the gashes on his side were covered in the white, bubbling liquid, he grabbed a needle and thread that he had appropriated from some woman's luggage. Unfortunately, in his haste, the only colors he had grabbed were green, pink, and orange. He stared at the three bundles of thread, his right arm awkwardly lifted above his head and exposing his disinfected wounds to the open air.

He chuckled once, "why the hell not?" What else was he going to use it for? Besides, it would make an interesting story. "So... Why do you have _pink_ stitches?" He said, as he grabbed the bundle and threaded the needle. "Oh... Well, funny story: I thought it would make a funny story." He yelped out in pain as he stabbed at the skin, and began the long and arduous process of stitching himself together. "But..." He gasped, "do you even know _how_ to stitch?" He chuckled faintly, "haven't the freakin' foggiest! Just... Winged it." His breathing grew faster and faster, "how hard could it be?" He asked, as he stabbed again, and pulled the two slabs of skin closer, before repeating the process again, and again, blood oozing out from the wound and the holes made by the needle, making his pinching fingers slip more than once.

"Just pinch..." He pinched, "stab..." He stabbed, "pull..." He pulled, the horrifically odd feeling of something foreign literally being dragged through his body flooding his every sense. "And... Repeat." He gasped, "well damn, you're just a regular Bear Grylls, ain't ya?" He said, stretching his jaw as he tried to ignore the pain, and failed for the most part. "Bitch... Please... I'm... Nathan Drake. Do you _know_ what that SOB has survived?" His voice shook as he spoke, "god fuck, I should be recording this." He muttered, before clearing his throat. "Who the hell's Nathan Drake?" He swallowed, as he finished stitching up one gash, tied the knot, and bit off the iron, blood-tasting string. "Ah, ah gad, you don't know who Nathan Drake is?" He asked, as he repeated the process. "Dude, he's like... Uh... Indiana Jones' badass son! - Who, you mean Mutt - No, that was a stupid fucking movie and you should feel bad for mentioning it." He called out scathingly.

The next ten minutes went along similarly, with Aldric talking to himself as he stitched his side, and then his arm. When all was said and done, he felt as if he were fifty percent thread, and both his arm and side felt very, very stiff. He was certain he had done something wrong, but he had followed the book as closely as he could, now all he could do was wait.

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

 _The video opened up in broad daylight, a severely injured Aldric sitting center-frame, as he tightly wrapped his chest in bandages, which were already growing red from blood. To his right was a bottle of orange juice, and his left, a partially scorched flare gun._

"Got attacked yesterday by... Some kind of big, enormous wolf-bear-thing." _He said, groaning with pain as he pulled the bandages tighter, and continued wrapping his torso._ "Heh... _ManBearPig..._ " _He muttered in an exaggerated tone and a shaky voice, before shaking his head._ "I'm starting to wonder if... I mean, it sounds crazy, but there is literally no precedent on earth for an animal like _that._ God didn't play mix and match with his spare parts but once, and that was the platypus. So... Is it really crazy to think I might be... Somewhere else? But... That's crazy, right? We never went near the Bermuda Triangle, did we? We went south, had a layover somewhere in South America. Damn it, where's Bermuda?" _He asked himself, turning his pained gaze from the camera, to off-frame._

"Anyways, it was clearly predatory... I think it evolved to take heavy ass hits - it had some kind of exoskeleton covering bits of its body, and its entire head. I think I'll call it a Cubone." _He muttered, tying off the tightly wrapped bandages as he did so._ "I dunno how many, but I know it broke a few ribs, and -" _He twisted his torso and displayed the bandaged wounds on his side and arm._ "- did a number on my outside... But, think of it this way - now my settlement will only get _bigger._ I've got this BS on _tape,_ I'm not walking away with anything less than five million dollars... And probably an attractive woman on my arms. Ladies like scars, right? Fuck." _He sighed, and leaned back in his chair._ "This damn chair... Second time it saved my life, now. I think it's magic." _He drawled, sarcastically._ "Has to be. No other explanation, like, a string of convenient occurrences, or anything like that." _The pale-skinned survivor chuckled._

 _The next five minutes of footage were nothing but him sitting in the chair to the backdrop of the deep, green forest and the plane wreckage. He simply breathed in and out, leaning his head against the headrest on his chair. Eventually, he cursed._ "I'm going to have to burn the fuselage." _He said,_ "I am in no way, shape, or form, fit to move all of those corpses anymore. I mean, _maybe,_ I can, if I can repurpose the meal cart and the drink cart into some kind of corpse trolley, but that's a big if." _He said, reaching down and grabbing his orange juice._ "I have to dedicate to an idea now... Do I move the corpses and try to shore up the fuselage into some kind of... Hut? In so doing, risking opening my wounds back up or possibly disturbing my broken ribs... Or do I loot everything left of value, burn the thing to kingdom come, and take my chances roughing it in the woods, with only makeshift shelters to keep my safe from the Cubone?" _He opened up the OJ and took a long, deep swig._

"God, I love orange juice." _He muttered._ "Okay... So, the fuselage is my best bet for a defensible, sturdy shelter... But there are tons of structural weaknesses in the form of the windows, the two _massive_ holes where the wings used to be, and the whole freakin' tail section is gone. If I dedicate to moving the bodies, I would then too have to dedicate to sealing the place up, and that would take a lot of scrap metal, wood, and other such stuff, and I've only got a knife, not an..." _He paused, and with a frown, turned his head back to the plane._ "Okay, there _may_ be a fire axe of some sort in there... But that still doesn't preclude the fact that I'm no lumberjack... So if I move the corpses, I'd need to find a place to sleep in there that was safe and moderately hidden from the Cubone...

"So, the overhead carriers, and the captain's cabin. I can stuff myself, and hide in, both of those. The overhead carriers would be less comfortable, but I'd be completely hidden from the wolf-bears. The captain's cabin would be better on a comfort level, but the windshield on the plane was shattered on impact, so a determined, or young, Cubone could get in there - and this is all assuming my injuries don't get infected, and I even _find_ something to seal the fuselage with. I didn't necessarily look for it, but I doubt there's any rope, or bungee cords I could use to bind wood or scrap to the thing. Maybe some cables, and the emergency slide thing..." _Aldric finished the orange juice, and tossed away the bottle._ "Hm... _" He leaned his head back on his magic chair._ "I guess it's clear I pretty much have to clear that thing out and fortify it." _He added, with a sidewards glance to the camera, and a conspiratorially raised eyebrow._ "I mean, the alternative is pulling a Katniss Everdeen and tying myself to a tree every night, and I wouldn't put it past Cubone to climb trees." _He sighed, burying his head in his hands and digging his fingers into his thick, unkempt hair._

"Going to have to take a few pain pills... No, not the oxycodone." _He added, with a brief, assuring glance upward, before going right back to resting his head in his hand._ "I can't help but think Cubone looked familiar, though. Which is odd, because I know I've never seen those things in history or wildlife books, before. Kind of looks like something out of a bad anime, but I digress, I'm not here to figure out the science behind it. I need to heal up, so I can kill it." _Still resting on his hand, his head turned to the left of the camera,_ "I wonder how long all of my batteries will last..." _He turned his resting head back to the camera._ "Where do airplanes hold their fuel? I know this one's probably out by now, but given that it didn't explode... Who knows? Maybe I can get that freakin' thing to turn on, charge that way." _He chuckled mirthlessly._

 _Another few minutes passed by in silence, the survivor staring off into space, his eyes glossed over in thought. Finally, Aldric lifted his head slowly._ "Okay. Gotta move the corpses. As much as I'd rather bury them, it makes more sense to burn them. I apologize for anyone whose religion I'm mucking by doing this, but think of it this way: It wasn't _their_ choice, it was mine. If their god wants to fight about it, I'll explain it to him myself. So... I'm going to try and find the sky marshal while I'm doing this... Pray he wasn't among the folks who flew out of the plane..." _He paused._ "My dad wasn't in the plane. It's been days." _He frowned, but shook his head after a moment._

"'Till next time." He reached forward, and the video cut out.

* * *

Aldric popped a few pain killers dry, and after an hour passed, felt them kick in. It was well after noon when he had finally inspected the whole of the airplane. The drink and meal carts were a no-go, he couldn't find any way to disassemble them and change their function, so instead, he bucked up and began the long and arduous process of dragging each and every single individual body out of the airplane. He took them out several meters from the plane and arranged them in neat rows of eight, individually crossing all of their arms and placing their wallet, purse, or other form of identification on their chests, before going back in for another corpse. By the time the sun was setting, he had gotten all of the corpses, and had to undo his bandages three times to redo any of the stitches he had popped. When all was said and done, he had forty rows of eight people each. During his time inside, he had found the flight manifest and the fire axe, but unfortunately, of everyone he searched, there was no sky marshal, so that either meant he was in the tail section, which was unlikely, or he had been ripped out of the plane.

Now standing above a veritable field of corpses, with a knife strapped to his hip and an axe resting on his shoulder, the haggard crash survivor resisted the urge to collapse onto his rear. Instead, he found the nearest, shovel-shaped piece of scrap metal, and bound it to his axe, before he started digging. Given the lack of length on the fire axe's haft, it was a long, arduous, awkward, and painful process that left the crash survivor sore and exhausted by the time he was finished and had a proper mass grave dug out.

The moon would be at its peak when he finished dragging all of the corpses into the grave, and when he set the fire, he made sure he had his camera rolling. As the massive bonfire roasted and burned the bodies inside, cast everything in the immediate vicinity in bright orange light, and filled the air with the putrid scent of burning corpses, the crash survivor began to individually go through each and every single wallet and ID he found during his efforts, read their names, and cross them off of the manifest, all on camera. Each penstroke seemed final, as if confirming once and for all that the person whose name had just been spoken was well and truly dead.

It took him twenty minutes, and a quarter of his battery, to read off all of the names, and when he was finished, there were still four still to be accounted for, including his own. He cut the video after another silent minute of the funeral pyre, but made sure to also take a picture of it as well, for documentation purposes. After he ensured the fire wouldn't spread if he left it alone, Aldric turned tail and made for his magic chair, which he picked up and hauled into the fuselage. Certainly, he knew that the first class seats would likely be better and more comfortable, to say nothing of being able to recline farther, but the first class seats hadn't been instrumental in saving his life, _twice._

Dragging the chair behind him, Aldric clambered into the airplane. It was much, _much_ emptier now, with all of the corpses and luggage removed. There was an air of stillness, as if, by individually dragging all of the death out of it, he had made it such that the life could not get back in. There was no white noise, no sound of the wind blowing, and even the noise of the outside sounded distant, muffled and silent. He didn't hear any of the insects, the fire sounded distant, it was as if there was a bubble around the fuselage, everything inside sounded silent.

Aldric ran his hand through his hair, and dragged his chair through the plane, into the pilot's cabin. He shut the door and locked it tight, before he turned around and sat on the chair. He laid the axe across his lap, and rested his right hand on the grip of his knife, before he leaned his head back against the chair and drifted to sleep.

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

 _The video opened up with a shaky shot of Aldric's face, the camera bobbing up and down as the sound of feet stepping on metal._ "Day... Er... Four, or five. Day five. So, this morning I decided to try and step up on the airplane to try and get a better signal, and..." _He turned the camera around, revealing a sweeping shot of the treetops surrounding the crash sight, and as he raised it, way off in the distance, a stone structure came into view. Due to the extreme distance, it looked small, but it was clearly man-made and not some convenient natural occurrence._ "You see that? That's _got_ to be some kind of... I hesitate to say 'castle', but it's some kind of stone structure, and if I can see that thing from here, it's gotta be _big._ Like, _castle_ big. And if that's there, that means that people lived here at some point, if they aren't still." _He said, before he set down the camera, and walked onto frame, his dark clothing billowing in a light breeze, and the stone structure still barely visible to his left._

"And I say 'at some point', because if they were... Say, some kind of indigenous tribal culture, they would have seen this crash and they would have come to investigate days ago. But what I'm thinking, is that if I'm going to get a signal on this thing -" _He pulled out the radio, "-_ it's going to be there." _He indicated behind him with his thumb._ "It's close enough that I can trek back and forth, it's tall enough that I might be able to get a signal without having to fight these mountains and plateaus. The _problem,_ is Cubone. He took yesterday off, but I am _not_ going to make the mistake of thinking that thing is dead, so if I make this trek, there's going to be some kind of confrontation between me and it. It'll hunt me, and I'm no hunter... So... If I want to get there, I first have to find a way to kill the Cubone, so I can move on in relative safety.

"Buuuut where there's one of those things, there's got to be more than one, and I don't know if they have a pack mentality and will come back with fifty of them, or if they're like bears and they just do their own thing on their own time. All I _do_ know is that I pissed that thing off, it _is_ still alive, and it's going to try and kill me." _He sat down cross-legged,_ "but I'm kind of in a catch twenty-two at the moment. I'm nowhere near good enough to go full Schwarzenegger and start booby-trapping the forest to kingdom come. So if I want to get to the castle, I'll have to kill it. But if I want to kill it, I need to fight it on neutral grounds - ala, the fucking castle." _He leaned back on his bandaged arms, wincing slightly before he put more pressure on his uninjured hand._ "And I'm all kinds of hurt and dead, at the moment. So my best bet would be to trap that thing first, and then just stab the hell out of it from a safe position. Maybe drop on it with my axe." _He looked over the edge of the plane._

"I've only got two flares left, and there wasn't a sky martial on the plane, so I don't have a gun... Okay, what I need is a weapon, and that means I've got to prepare. I've got a knife and an axe, and I can salvage some cables or some rope from the plane if I want to try and make a bow. Some spears might be good too, but probably just for defensive purposes. I digress." _The dark-haired survivor turned on his rear, and pointed out to the stone structure._ "That's my new goal. I'll leave a note here, next to the magic chair and the manifest, just in case a rescue team shows up.

"'Till next time."

* * *

 _Alright... First order of business, find some kind of something I can use as a bow._ Thought the survivor, after having swallowed down another two pain pills, and walked out into the surrounding forest, knife strapped to his belt, flare gun in the back of his pants, and axe held in one hand, resting on his shoulder. _Need a C-shaped, or at least moderately curved, branch of some sort..._ He listed off, as he gazed around the beautiful forestry surrounding him. _There aren't any damn animals around here..._ He hadn't seen nor heard a single bird, squirrel, or any kind of animal since the first wolf-bear, and though the lack of wildlife unnerved him, he shook it off and continued trekking through the dense woods.

Though his chest ached, a combination of time, his bandages, and the pain pills were helping him to get used to the problem. What concerned him, however, was his arm, which was essentially useless to him until his wounds had healed enough for him to regain a wider range of motion. His feet too were becoming a problem - the constant, ceaseless walking everywhere was taking its toll, he was going to have to check through the shoes and boots he'd looted to see if any were his size. The axe weighed down on his shoulder as he walked through the woods, every so often taking out his knife and marking his path with an 'X' on a tree, large and deep enough for it to be unmistakably man-made.

 _Man... I'm screwed._ Thought the survivor, with a brief chuckle. _Seventeen years, only ever been in two fights, and the closest to a survival situation I've ever come to was camping with Dad, and that lasted for all of two days and there was a freakin' supermarket not two miles away, and here I am just improvising my way through goddamn everything it takes to survive, praying I don't miss something, or screw something else up. I mean, even if I kill Cubone and decide to use him as a food source, I've got to skin him - which I've never done - gut him - which I wouldn't even know how to do - and do god knows what else._

 _Is it all animals, or just fish that you have to take the skeletons out of? Do I have to cut out its brain, too? And what about its bladder, how do I get that out without covering its innards in piss? And even more importantly, how do I know how far down to cut so I can skin the damn thing? And what do I even eat in the first place? Do I eat its muscles, or just its skin? Then how do I not take off too_ much _skin? What's the protocol, here? Do I keep the fur? How do I do that without covering myself in its rotten flesh? How does this work?_ The dark-haired crash survivor shook his head, noting with a slight amount of annoyance that his sweat-slick hair whipped back and forth, hitting him in the cheeks and obscuring his eyes. He brushed his hair back, and made a mental note to go back to the plane and look for a rubber band to tie it back.

He continued trekking slowly through the forest, marking his path and checking the various branches and sticks for ones that would make good arrows, spears, or bows. By the time the sun was high in the sky, he had gotten quite a collection shoved into his backpack, including one long branch that he was now unashamedly using as a walking stick. After a while, he started walking the path he had forged back to his camp, which had remained just as he had left it, though the time away from it had been enough such that he had grown used to the smell of nature, as opposed to the acrid scent of burnt corpses, which still filled the air and made his stomach churn. He dropped his pack of potential bows and arrows next to his pile of supplies, and checked on the smoldering funeral pyre. Most of the corpses were now disintegrated into ash, though some were still black and ashen, waiting to crumble.

Aldric sighed, making a mental note to set another fire later tonight. The dark-haired survivor turned around and went to the plane, where he found a few rubber bands, which he instantly used to bind his unkempt hair, and several long, thick cables and elastic bands long enough to function as a string on a bow. It was during this time that he noticed multiple flies buzzing about, and then he smacked himself in the face when he recalled years of watching television: Wash the blood off, or it will attract flies. So, he spent the time before carving his arrows and testing bows changing his bandages, cleaning his wounds, and also scrubbing off the dried blood from his side and his arm. It somehow hurt more _now_ than it had when he'd stitched himself up, though the wounds weren't swelling up, which the blue-gray eyed survivor hoped was a good sign.

With the moon raising up in the sky and a fresh set of bandages binding his chest and covering his arm, the survivor felt safe enough to go shirtless for the remainder of the day, after he set fire again to the funeral pyre, and sat down a few meters away from it in his magical airplane chair. Half of all of the branches he'd chosen as bows didn't survive the first few tests after he'd bound their top and bottom with the cables and tried test-firing a few of the unsharpened arrows. A quarter of the 'good ones' were too elastic, and simply bent too much when he tested the tension of the tables. When he was down to two long branches left, the rest having been tossed in the fire, he was getting worried, but fortunately for him, the final one was good enough: Pliable and durable enough to not snap under pressure, but also strong enough to resist being bent by his cable.

Now with a tentative bow, Aldric set up his camera and got to work whittling his arrows with the Gerber.

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

 _The video opened up with the sight of the survivor sitting in his chair, a pile of sticks on one side of him, and a clearly improvised bow leaned up against it. One half of him was cast in bright orange light by a fire off-screen, and the other half was set in deep shadow._

"So, day five, still. I've been thinking about this trip. I only popped _one_ stitch today, and that was just doing some walking about. It's obviously not safe to try and do a multi-day thing, walk a few hours, sleep, repeat, due to Cubone's omnipresence... But I'm also not in any current state to do any intense, long-distance slash low-time hiking." _He lifted up one of his legs and tapped on his calf,_ "legs aren't used to it. My calves are starting to swell up a bit. So the question is, how do I cross a long distance, in little time, without a major strain on my body and my injuries? If I had a mountain bike, this would be a non-issue, despite my inexperience." _He drawled on, whittling away at the sticks with his large knife, making sharp, pointed ends._

"And as cool as it would be, there are a plethora of problems preventing my from trying to turn the plane on and just smash my way over there, not the least of which being my lack of a pilot's license." _He pointed at the camera with his knife,_ "the settlement's final value is only going up, IF Airlines. In addition to my five million, I'll want a car, and some kind of golden ticket so I never have to pay for airline tickets _ever again."_ _He paused, before he tapped on the headrest of his chair._ "And this chair. I love this chair. I want this specific chair." _He added, with a large grin and a light chuckle._

"Anyways...So far as I can tell, unless something wants to drop the hell out of the sky, I think my only option is to just hoof it. So... Once I've got these arrows done, and I've gotten at least halfway decent with shooting and aiming this thing, I'll pack some water, food, and ammo, and start the hike early in the morning. Maybe, seven or eight hours after dark." _He said, as he inspected his arrow._ "And I'm not even sure these arrows will be effective against it... So assume a moment that my only effective weapons are the professionally made ones. My knife, and my axe. I think of the two, the axe may be the _most_ effective." _Said the survivor, tossing the newly made arrow to his right, and picking up a new one before he began carving it._

"See, I paid attention in history class. Swords may be more known, but the axes had an advantage in weight. You get that thing swinging, and all of the weight is on one end, meaning when it hits, all of that weight, all of that speed, all of it is focused on the hunk of metal at the end of the fulcrum - the haft. The result is a weapon that could pierce plate armor just as easily as it could pierce leather or anything else. Better yet? You break it? It doesn't just shatter into a million pieces - it still functions as an effective bludgeon." _He explained, "_ now, I'll go ahead and admit, I was a part of the katana crowd until I was fifteen, before I did my homework and decided regular ol' longswords were better. And while I may be a bigger fan of swords, I know when and where to admit defeat, and this thing, it's when and where. Best part is that it's got the axe side, and the pick-head, so it serves a double function.

"So, point is, if this bow doesn't work, I've still got the axe. And if that doesn't work, I'll probably not be long for this world, but I'll still have the knife, too, and that has the advantage in speed." _He pointed the half-finished arrow at the camera,_ "hear that, Cubone? You might bigger than me, but by god, I'm craftier. I will not lose this fight, I _will_ get to that castle back there... And come hell or high water, Aldric's going home.

"'Till next time." _He reached forward and switched off the camera._


	3. In the Shadow of a Colossus

Chapter 2

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

"Day seven." _Came the voice of the survivor, as the video opened up with the familiar view of the magic chair seated in front of the thick woods. It was very early in the morning, to the point that the sky was still dark from the night previous, and Aldric's breath still fogged up the air. Aldric walked onto frame, a large backpack hanging from his back, a new pair of glasses resting on his nose, a bow strung over his shoulders, a knife strapped to his hip, and a pick-head fire axe secured in the hangar loop of the backpack._ "Spent the last two days resting up and testing out my bow. It shoots pretty good, and I land an average of seven out of every ten shots I fire, from a distance of about thirty feet. The arrows are sturdy, and sharp enough that they sink far enough into the trees that I'm feeling more confident in their ability to shoot Cubone dead." _He explained, as he reached up above his left shoulder and flicked at one of the arrows he had sticking out of the backpack._

"I've got food and water packed for five days, and some medical supplies should I need it... And the oxycodone should I need _it._ " _The dark-haired survivor said, as he pulled a rubber band off of his wrist, and used it to bind his hair into a loose pony-tail._ "Oh yeah, and in case you're wondering, I looted some of the luggage and found a few pairs of glasses. They all aren't my prescription, but I was able to improvise a pair that doesn't suck _that_ bad, so now I'm not functionally blind anymore." _He explained, as he pushed up the new pair of glasses that rested on the ridge of his nose._

"Now, my _plan_ is to get to the castle, find its highest point, and try out my radio. If, on the off chance that a rescue chopper lands _here,_ I left a note next to the manifest, explaining who I am and where I went, and I've got the flare gun, so I'll likely see or hear them, and they'll see or hear it... Hopefully it doesn't rain." _He explained, as he leaned over and tapped on his chair, the sound of a hand slapping paper filled the air for a moment._ "Hopefully... If all goes to plan, Cubone will follow me to this castle, and we'll have a neutral grounds in which to fight. It's got the strength and speed advantage, but I'm hoping I can find a place to get a height advantage on it, so I can drop down and chop its neck off with the axe, or stab the crap out of it with the knife... Or, you know, shoot it with the bow, provided it stands up to combat." _He took a few steps forward, picked up the camera, and began walking towards the woods._

"I'm taking a few phones and a tablet along with me so I've got spare recording devices... Though, uh, you know, in case I survive, or take some bad hits, _not mine._ So if they break, and all. But, they're all wrapped up in clothes in case of sudden or unexpected impact... And if the worst case happens and I kill it, but I'm too injured to fix myself up... Well, I've got something to record my last moments." _He sighed._

"'Till next time." _The gunmetal gray eyed teen spoke, before the camera shook as he manipulated it, and shut it off._

* * *

It was easy to get lost in these dense, thick woods. Were one to not have a compass with which to follow the directions, or a knife with which to mark a path, it would be even easier to lose one's way and never get it back, but fortunately for Aldric, he had a compass and a heading he'd looted from the plane, and a knife with which to mark the path he walked, so he could follow it back. Aldric walked with one hand clenching a torch, and the other firmly resting on his knife's hilt. The warmth of the torch he held in his right hand helped to dispel the chill of the dark, early morning air, though it also had the unintended side effect of masking the white noise of the forest surrounding him, so if he was being followed by a certain wolf-bear, he may not know until it's too late.

The ground he walked over got increasingly uneven as he went further and further, to the point where he found hills and dirt-dunes to be common features, with tree roots sticking out like an infectious growth. While he had adjusted to the constant ache in his chest, the survivor had decided to take a few pills to alleviate the pain he was generating with all of the activity, though he was very glad his arm was healing up faster, and he had a much more free and wide range of motion with it than he had with his chest, it made him feel better about his chances in a fight. The early morning air, dark as it was, was only lit by the warm orange light of his torch, as the light of the moon and stars above was blocked out by the trees.

After about an hour of traveling, Aldric heard a pleasant sound start to come in over the crackle of his torch. Marking his path every few paces, he followed the sound until he found its source: A stream in the center of a small clearing in the blanket of trees. It was a small one, with a weak current, but it was lively and didn't appear to be stagnant, making Aldric smile as he pulled out his phone. It was deep enough that it would likely come up to his knees if he waded through it, and with its position in a small clearing of trees, it reflected the stars brilliantly and shone into the early morning fog, giving the entire area a pale white glow. As Aldric unlocked his phone and took a few steps closer to the stream, he noticed something peculiar reflecting off of the knee-high water: Several large, paper white objects that looked as if they were floating in the sky.

Staring at the stream for a moment, Aldric eventually turned his eyes to the sky and started looking for these objects, wondering if he were seeing shooting stars, or perhaps satellites reflecting light from the sun. What he found, however, was something completely different.

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

 _The video opened up shakily, obviously held in the hand of the recorder._ "Okay, so, not even an hour into this trip, and I've already found some weird shit." _He steadied the camera,_ "found myself a small little stream, which is good, now I don't have to worry about water..." _He said, pointing it at a lazily flowing stream that was about a foot deep, and reflecting the pale white light of the moon in its ripples._ "But, uh... Then I found _this."_ _He pulled the camera up and pointed it to the sky. The camera auto-adjusted for a moment, before it finally focused on the moon._

 _The image of the pale white moon in the sky filled the camera, but instead of being a pale white disk shining high in the sky, it looked as if it had been partially shattered, almost as if someone had taken a hammer and smashed half of it off. The pieces were caught in the stellar object's orbit and gave it a look of a broken stone floating in the sky, though these 'stones' were so incomprehensibly large that they would qualify as meteors in their own right. The intact piece of the moon held a vague, if jagged, crescent shape, 'filled in' almost, by the fragments that orbited the main body. It was due to this oddity that the moon seemed to reflect more light from the sun, and cast the sky into a brighter pale glow._

"What the _fuck?_ " _Cursed the survivor, as the sound of crackling flames picked up._ "Now, I know for a fact it wasn't like that last night - er, day six. But how in the hell does _this_ happen in less than twenty four hours? What did I miss? It can't be the moon turning around, it's tidally locked, always showing the same side. And if something hit the damn thing hard enough to do _that,_ then I should be dead right now, because the moon wouldn't have stopped it. Or, at the very least, I should have gotten a freakin' show, an impact that titanic should have lit up the sky like the Fourth of July." _He explained, as he kept the camera on the shattered crescent moon._

"Buuuuuut... It _could_ explain why I haven't gotten any radio signals... If something hit the moon like that, then it either knocked out our satellites, or slammed into the planet... But no, wait... No. If it's the former, that would just knock out wifi and satellite communications, not radio waves... And if it was the latter, I'd be dead seven times over by now." _There was several moments of silence, broken only by the sound of the torch burning itself down._ "Where the fuck am I?" _Aldric asked, before he cut the video._

* * *

"Okay...Faster pace time, now." Aldric muttered to himself, as he shoved the phone back in his pocket, and pulled out the thumb-sized compass. He found his previous heading, and began walking, now at a much brisker pace than before.

As he walked through the forest, and time continued to pass, Aldric kept sneaking glances up to the sky, as if to make sure he hadn't been seeing things, and that the moon really was _broken._ He can't have just _missed_ that, he had been unconscious only for a short time, following the crash, given that everything was still smoldering and on fire when he got there, and it can't have happened during his efforts to survive, there was no, possible way he would have missed something _that_ undeniably massive, right above his head. The tides must have gotten _screwed_ by whatever happened, he reasoned, and if it happened _during_ the flight, it could potentially explain why they crashed, perhaps the gravitic pull of whatever object hit the moon disrupted the orbit of the GPS satellites, just enough that the plane went off course and into territory with trade winds and turbulence it wasn't rated for.

"But... No." Murmured the teen, from beneath the warm glow of the torch, as he marked more trees and kept walking through the forest.

If something had hit the moon so damn hard that it just _broke,_ it would explain why it suddenly had a axial rotation - something doesn't get hit by something that big and _not_ flip around like a drunk idiot in a comedy movie - but if it did happen, then Aldric just plain _shouldn't be alive._ There would be debris from both the moon and the asteroid, which at least had to be the size of the moon or just a bit smaller, and that much debris would either slam into the ground or into the ocean, and it would be like a game of chance with a shotgun: Either hit the ocean enough times to create a tidal wave, or hit the earth in such a wide or tight spread that it smashes apart cities, and god help them if it hit a volcano like Yellowstone. So if the moon _was_ hit, then it should stand to reason that the whole planet was screwed and Aldric should be long since dead, and since he wasn't, this had to be a pre-existing condition.

The sun began to climb into the sky, turning the thick woods from jet black and lit only by the wandering survivor's torch, to a dull gray and lit by the sun _and_ the torch. Then there was the problem of the moon having a rotation in the first place - it just _being there_ had an intrinsic effect on the tides, but it being there and spinning around? Aldric wasn't an oceanographer, but he could make an educated guess and say that it wasn't good. The strangest part of all of it, however, was that its visage, the partial crescent and the shattered, orbiting fragments, it looked familiar somehow. Had he seen it in a painting, or something the like? Maybe a TV show, or a manga? Then why was it in the sky?

Aldric swallowed thickly through his dry throat, as he ambled up a steep incline, using exposed tree roots as a method of climbing. He was starting to worry that he might have gotten hit on the head, first he was seeing odd demonic wolf-bears, and now broken moons. Was he tripping on pain meds? Or had the Cubone hit him on the head harder than he'd thought? Was his brain swelling up? Or was it truly a case of the unthinkable - was he even home anymore? The dark haired teen shook his head, causing his pony-tail to flip around in every direction. No, there was _no way_ he had just hopped dimensions and gone to a new planet, things like that just don't happen at random, and if they did, it would have happened before, people would know about it, and if scientists hadn't already found a way to prevent or fix it, they would be working on it day in and day out. It would be like the next moon landing: Being able to predictably open up wormholes to other planets, it would literally solve the lightspeed problem. No more needing to build up massive rockets, just figure out the coordinates of the planet you want to go to, plug it in, and _bam!_ Interstellar!

 _I must be having a bad reaction to the pain pills._ Reasoned the teen, as he pressed at the back of his head, where it was tender and still slightly swollen.

He continued his hike through the woods for several hours, his feet very sore, his lungs burning, and his entire body covered in a thin film of sweat by the time he stopped for his first dedicated water break. The light had long since broken now, leading Aldric to put out the torch, though he still carried it, just in case. The sweaty survivor leaned up against a large, towering tree and took a deep swig of water, about to think over the moon for the umpteenth time, when he saw something that immediately caught his eye. Though he wasn't the biggest fan of the movie, or the franchise in general, one thing that had stuck with him since he'd seen Prometheus was a quote near the beginning: God doesn't build in straight lines.

In the corner of his vision, nearly hidden in its entirety by the nearby trees, was what looked like a stone column, with clearly drawn creases in between the thick bricks of concrete. Aldric tilted his head and shoved off of the tree, he topped the water bottle and shoved it back in his bag, before picking up the doused torch and making his way towards the column. Upon arriving, he saw that it was essentially a fish out of water, the only column like it in the immediate area, but on a hunch, Aldric leaned down and started brushing at the forest floor. He found that, while dense and thick with grass and vines, and packed in with a thin layer of dirt, when he pulled hard enough and brushed enough aside, it revealed stone a few inches beneath the dirt and the grass. Now thoroughly intrigued, Aldric stood up and went about marking a few trees on the path he had taken, before returning to the ancient, dilapidated road, picking the direction closest to reflecting his heading, and following it.

Not even five minutes passed before he found something even more promising: At one end of this path was a large stone rotunda, clearly ancient and in a state of disrepair, but still standing despite its clear exposure to the elements. Half of the rotunda had been destroyed and was missing, but the ground, half of the wall, and its open top were still standing, the deep, dark gray stones covered in layers of moss, vines, and some tall grass.

"Well... At least I know I'm definitely not the first person on this island..." Aldric drawled aloud, as he walked to the rotunda and stepped into its center, turning on his heel as he took in the house-sized stone construct. Lining its walls were over a dozen small stands, that he noticed were much cleaner than their surroundings, indicative of recent use, though none of them had anything resting upon them. "Eat your heart out, stonehenge... But this isn't nearly big enough to be seen by the plane, it doesn't even crest... Over... Whoa." Aldric trailed off when he made a full ninety degree turn, and saw a long, stretching, wide path laid out before him, flanked on both sides by enormous pillars that jutted out of the ground like stone trees.

The pillars that flanked both sides of the clearly marked path bore a similar design to that of ancient Roman aqueducts, but were a deep gray and made of concrete as opposed to whatever it was the Romans used. Not one to ignore such an obvious invitation, Aldric walked down the long, wide path, looking from side to side as he took in the towering aqueducts. They had to be at least one or two stories high, and even though they were broken and clearly unable to properly perform their function, it made Aldric doubt his 'island' theory, because no island in the universe, unless it was made of factories and concrete, had enough resources to build the rotunda, pave a rode, and make these aqueducts as well. However, wherever there were aqueducts, there had to be a place to ship the water to, and as Aldric kept walking, he found that place.

"Ho... Ho-ho-ho holy _fffffuuck!"_ Chuckled Aldric, as he reached the height of the path laid by the aqueducts, and was given a huge, sweeping view of the gigantic stone city laid out before him.

He had long since left the thick forests, though if that was natural or because the trees had all been chopped down centuries ago, he dared not say, but the thick, dense forest had been replaced by hundreds - no, _thousands_ of towering, titanic stone structures. There were hundreds of large, sweeping bridges connecting dozens of enormous, stone castles and towering buildings with dome tops and more stone rotundas. There were scores of enormous, building-sized towers that lined the whole city, resting just inside the enormous natural quarry that the path led into. Many of the buildings were built into the surrounding mountains and were stretching dozens, if not, hundreds of meters up from ground level - truly, as Aldric looked, the lowest point of the stone city's quarry was so deep down, that he couldn't see it through the rolling morning fog. It was as if someone had told Rome to make Venice on dry land, and to make it as absolutely mind-bogglingly _massive_ as possible. Just on what he could see alone, Aldric was completely confident in saying that this place could fit a few hundred thousand people, at least.

It was _damn_ clear that he hadn't crashed out on some island in the ocean, but that had to mean he was on the mainland, the North and South American landmass. Though that begged the repetition of the question: Where was he? Some kind of Aztec ruins? If that were true, then why all of the Roman inspired architecture?

"Jesus Christ..." Muttered Aldric, as he nervously ran his hand through his hair, and began descending the path, still following the aqueducts, now making his way to the stone bridge at the end of the path. "Where do I even begin? Where the hell am I?" He asked aloud, as he took in the sheer enormity of the stone city that he had stumbled upon.

Aldric pulled out his phone.

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

 _The first thing seen when the video began playing was the enormous, fog-filled stone city. Dozens of towers, thousands of pillars, hundreds of massive bridges and dozens more buildings, all built into the face of the massive mountains surrounding the city, and jutting out from the natural quarry that was so far down the morning fog shrouded it from view. The camera bobbed up and down and shuffled about as the sound of grass crunching underfoot reached its microphone._

"So...Obviously, the Romans and the Aztecs had babies. That is literally the only explanation that makes sense." _Came Aldric's southern drawl, as he slowly approached the stone city, the camera bobbing up and down in time with the sound of grass crunching underfoot._ "The standards for my weird-shit-o'-meter just keep getting bigger, though I can't tell if this beats out the broken -" _As he spoke, the sound of loud, throaty pants, a drum-like beat against the ground, and dirt being torn apart under the intense assault by a multiple legged creature picked up in volume, before finally reaching a crescendo and breaking Aldric mid-sentence. The camera whipped around in a blur of motion, and there was only a second of steady video, if slightly blurry as the camera attempted to refocus, in which a massive, bear-sized animal with heavily burned fur and skin charged towards the camera._

"OH!" _Roared the survivor, who dived to the side as the animal came within range. The enormous beast charged straight past Aldric and attempted to skid to a halt, the sound of something made of meat colliding heavily with stone filled the air as Aldric hit the ground and scrambled back to his feet, cutting the camera in the process._

* * *

"I swear to god, someone out there is _fucking with me!"_ Roared out Aldric, as he dead-sprinted towards the aqueducts, scrambling to amble the bow off of his shoulders.

The crash survivor made it to the giant stone pillars and swerved around one of the corners just in time to dodge Cubone's next charge. Aldric whipped around and nocked an arrow, the muscles in his arms bulging as he pulled on the drawstring. The creature reacted much faster this time than the first, as instead of being carried by its momentum into one of the pillars, it slammed into one of the hills of the incredibly uneven terrain that surrounded him. It had already gotten back to its feet and turned towards Aldric by the time the human had drawn and readied his weapon, and was charging, full-tilt, when Aldric let the arrow fly through the air with a loud hum and a twang of the drawstring.

The arrow spun slightly unevenly through the air, but as Aldric started backpedaling and retrieving another arrow, it slammed into the beast's left shoulder and sank in a few inches, instantly drawing up thick streams of blood as the beast stumbled forward and lost its balance. It slid forward on the ground several feet, and Aldric halted his attempts to draw another arrow, instead hooking the bow back around his shoulders and grabbing his knife, an idea forming in his head as he sprinted directly towards the Cubone.

The angry wolf-bear was just starting to recover when Aldric launched himself forward and into the air, his foot slamming onto the thing's skeletal head and providing him a springboard to leap onto its back. He pivoted on his foot and rotated in mid-air, now facing the creature's front as his momentum carried him backwards. Into the wolf-bear's shoulder Aldric's knife went, as he grabbed a thick bundle of singed fur with his other, now holding onto the animal for dear life.

Immediately, the creature went ballistic, bucking, leaping forward and back, slamming into the aqueduct's pillars, but Aldric was high on adrenaline and his own stupidity, and his grip was strong enough that he could have broken someone's hand. The creature howled out in pain as Aldric stabbed it again and again, practically shanking the monster with the speed and intensity he stabbed it. After a moment of this relentless dual-sided assault, the creature decided it had had enough, and instead of attempting to throw Aldric off, it instead vaulted forward, intent upon taking the damned human on a ride.

 _"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"_ Yelled Aldric, as he was launched up and down on the back of the creature.

It was running so fast that Aldric truly considered it could outrun some cars, it cleared the aqueducts and was halfway across the bridge at the end of the path in the same time it took Aldric to blink. His grip on his knife had been ripped free, and the same could nearly have been said about his grip on the beast itself, due to its sudden acceleration, but he managed to hold on and steady himself long enough to reach forward to the hilt sticking out of its shoulder. Just as he grabbed it, however, the beast made a harsh left turn and nearly threw Aldric off of its back. The terrified crash survivor ripped his knife out from the wolf-bear's shoulder and stabbed down twice more with harsh downward motions, before he yanked the blade from side to side and dragged it along the creature's back, cursing the Cubone as he did so.

 _"Yeah! Come on!"_ Aldric roared, his accent in full display as he stabbed again and again, covering his knife-hand in the creature's dark red blood. _"This the best you've got?!"_ He stabbed down again, the creature howled out in pain. _"I've taken engineering tests harder than - SHIIIIT!"_ The creature literally stopped on a dime by full-on sprinting to one of the edges of the bridges it ran across, and slamming both hands into its raised ledge. Aldric, not nearly strong enough to hold on after an impact like that, was thrown off of the creature like an inexperienced bull rider, his knife still in its back.

Aldric unabashedly screamed in terror as he flew through the air at dozens of miles per hour, a plethora of curse words fighting for usage of his vocal chords, but eventually all coming out at once in a deep, terror-filled roar. The ground was hundreds of meters below him and covered in a dense fog, and thanks to physics, no matter how fast he was moving forward, he was moving _down_ just as fast. Fortunately for him, however, there was an overabundance of stone bridges in the area, and Aldric managed to hit one of them and slide across it and into its ledge, fracturing several bones and rubbing off more than a few layers of skin in the process.

His forearms now rubbed raw and bloody, his face covered in a few bleeding cuts and bruises, and his entire core sore from the impact, Aldric bit through the pain and focused on the endorphin rush, forcing himself back to his feet. He grabbed at the axe, and turned in the direction of the wolf-bear, which he saw was simply waiting on its bridge, as if watching to see if Aldric had died or if it got to continue to play its deadly game.

Breathing heavily, Aldric raised the axe in a threatening, Viking like fashion, pumping it up and down in the air as he shouted out into the air, his deep, southern voice echoing throughout the desolate, empty stone city. _"Come on! I'm not dead yet!"_ He roared from behind blood stained teeth and aching arms.

The wolf-bear, in response, took two steps back, before _launching_ itself into the air. Aldric lost a lot of steam as he saw the creature fly through the air and right towards his bridge, all under its own power. It hurtled through the air like a cannonball, before reaching its arc and crashing down onto the bridge, sliding to its ledge and colliding with it like Aldric, but unlike him, who was streaming blood from multiple limbs and was almost certainly suffering from some kind of head trauma, it was no worse for the wear, aside from the injuries he had inflicted upon it.

"Uh..." Aldric took one step back, and just like at the campsight, the Cubone took one threatening step forward. "Listen, dude... Um..." He looked around quickly, but it was just them and the bridge, the only ways were forward and backward, though he could of course try _down,_ he really, _really_ didn't want to. "All that stuff I said..." The wolf-bear took another step forward, snarling as it did so. "About... Uh... Fuck." Aldric turned tail and ran, but the creature overtook him in a second, and was blocking his way forward a second later, Aldric slowed to a halt, and stared at it with a wide-eyed expression, his lips pressed tightly together and his heart hammering in his chest.

 _"So..."_ He clenched his pick-head axe with both hands, white-knuckle gripping its haft. "Fuck it." He charged forward, bellowing out loudly as the creature met his challenge by sprinting forward itself.

When the two came within range, Aldric swung as had and heavily as he could with his axe, banking on the fact that it, like an animal, wouldn't dodge the attack and would instead just tank it in the hopes of grabbing him. His hopes were realized when he buried the axe deep into the creature's neck, but it still managed to tackle him, burying him under its two massive, clawed paws and crushing him against the bridge. With blood crawling up his throat, and the feeling of his hair spilling out beneath him due to the rubber band snapping from the strain, Aldric bared his teeth and reached up, just barely able to grab the grip of his knife; he ripped it out of the creature's shoulder. He stabbed repeatedly into the Cubone's neck, causing its blood to pour over him in thick streams, but this only angered the beast, and it raised its hand for one mighty slash. Aldric buried his knife into the paw still keeping him pinned to the ground, stunning the creature just enough such that the slash that would have torn Aldric's face off instead tore two deep chunks out of his chest.

Aldric cried out in pain as his chest felt like it was set aflame, but he didn't stop trying to kill this thing. He reached forward with his free hand and ripped the axe out of its neck, freeing up its deep wound to gush out blood unabated. This was the final straw in forcing the wolf-bear to retreat, it leapt over Aldric, back towards the woods, the human's knife falling out of its leg as it soared through the air. It didn't evacuate, however, as upon landing it stumbled forward and slowed itself to a halt, before turning back to face Aldric, blood pouring out of its many wounds and matting down its fur. Aldric struggled for a moment to get up, fortunate that his thickly packed backpack had kept his spine from being crushed. He forced himself to his feet, one hand clenching the haft of his axe, and the other snatching the knife off of the ground. Aldric took two steps to slowly revolve around to face the Cubone, blood oozing from his chest, and a look that could kill in his wide, wild eyes.

He slid his grip on the axe down to a more actionable position, his hair splayed over his shoulders and plastered across his sweaty, bloody forehead. _"Come on!"_ He yelled, rearing the hand with the axe and raising the hand holding the knife.

The wolf-bear charged forward, but before the two could even blink, the air shook with under the volume and force of a loud caw, and the two were covered by a large, blanketing shadow. Aldric's head whipped up to the sky, and the wolf-bear ceased its assault, as they quickly located what was causing the disturbance in their fight: A bird, itself the size of several large buildings, with massive claws on its wings, talons the size of trucks, and its head covered in a similar exoskeleton as the Cubone. In less than a second, the enormous bird crossed the distance between it and the two predators, and it slammed its talons into the bridge. Aldric dived out of the way of its grip, but the Cubone wasn't so lucky, being ripped off of the ground and carried away with a loud, pained howl. Aldric didn't even get a second to rest, however, as the impact with the bridge caused the whole thing to destabilize, and when he took a look behind him, he saw it crumbling to pieces.

Without even the energy to curse, Aldric hauled himself back to his feet and sprinted forward, tightly clenching his axe and his knife as he traveled down the bridge and deeper into the stone city, the bridge crumbling behind him, hot on his heels. Aldric ran faster than he had ever in his life, fight or flight being the beautiful instinct it was, giving him heretofore untapped amounts of adrenaline and ATP with which to fuel this temporary exodus. He crossed the long bridge in just forty seconds, barely making it to one of the enormous towers by the time the bridge had collapsed behind him, but he still had no time to rest, as he dodged to the right to avoid another hit and run from the titanic avian. Aldric circled around the tower, intent on getting to another bridge and continuing his plight, until he saw an archway that led inside. He lost his balance and stumbled as he tried to change directions on a dime, but he managed to make it inside the tower just as the bird came in for another pass. It slammed into the tower when it missed Aldric by inches, but unlike the bridge, the tower withstood the impact, albeit with a terrifying quake and a great deal of dust and debris falling from the walls and ceiling.

Aldric collapsed to his hands and legs inside the dark and stuffy tower and vomited out everything in his stomach, gasping and laughing in abject, hysteric fear.

* * *

"Sixty lien." The gray-haired teen held out his hand, reaching around his raven-haired leader and holding it out towards his lime-haired companion. "He's _dead._ The Nevermore's got him. Case closed. Shouldn't have experimented with the ancient aura sources."

The green haired woman shook her head, "he's still alive." She said, "Nevermore or no, it still counts. I think it dropped off the Beowolf, actually. When it missed him. It may still be there, too."

"Then he's even _deader."_ Said the man, "pay up."

"Double or nothing he makes it past the hour."

"Both of you be quiet." Said their leader, harshly. "He made it to the ruins. He took damage, but his heart still beats. His fear and terror may simply have attracted a larger prey than we had predicted, but it changes nothing."

"Cinder... He's _not_ going to survive that. Some _Huntsman_ can't kill Nevermore. And they've got Aura. If he's got any sense, he's going to just lay down and take an easy way out."

Cinder didn't even turn to her companions, she simply continued watching the battle in silence, noting how, despite - or perhaps, _in_ spite - of the futility of the situation, the man chose not to simply resurface and face death, but make a retreat and stay hidden. Though she could not see him, she could most definitely sense his aura, so tightly bottled up within him as it was, ready to burst like a balloon with only the slightest pinprick. What she noted most, however, was the sheer amounts of fear that tinged his monumental aura, it would shine as a beacon for any grimm in the area. If he didn't hurry, it was very possible that he would have to deal with more than just one nevermore and one beowolf.

 _But he has survived thus far..._ Thought the raven-haired woman, with a small grin stretching across her face. _I wonder what he thinks now..._

* * *

 _-For the Record-_

"Ah Jesus Christ I'm gonna die!" _Was shouted at an intense volume not a second after the camera flared into existence and revealed Aldric, his shirt removed and his chest pouring blood from multiple thick gashes. Barely a second after he finished speaking, the survivor took an entire bottle of antiseptic, and upended it on his chest, screaming so loud and so long that he briefly overloaded the camera's microphone, as it was forced to watch as his wounds were covered in the disinfectign substance, beginning to be covered in pure white bubbles as it cascaded down his chest, visibly steaming up as it did its job and burned at his chest._ "AAAAAH FUCK!" _He screamed out,_ "I fucking hope Cubone is dead, because I've got a much bigger problem on my hands now!

"Goddamn _Mothra_ decided to show up! Gigantic enormous raven bird, I know it's not an insect but fuck you I'm deciding the names!" _He shouted out, as his gaze back and forth between a bundle of bandages and his sewing materials._ "God damn it I don't even know if I have time to at least _partially_ un-fuck myself -" _He turned his wide-eyed, mad gaze to the camera and pointed at it directly, "-_ and if you've got a problem with the cursing, _you_ come fight these things!" _He turned back to his medical supplies, and cursed again before he grabbed the sewing supplies. The gashes on his chest were as wide as two fingers, and though he didn't know if he was even helping himself in doing it, all he knew was that he couldn't leave them gaping open like this._

"I'm going to fucking die if I keep opening and ripping these wounds!" _He cursed, as he squeezed the first gash on his chest as shut as he could, and hurriedly began sewing up, his hands shaking from the adrenaline rush and the pain._ "And I'm really considering at least popping _one_ Oxycodone, if at least to get the good shit in to deal with this _GODDAMNPAINJESUSFUCK!"_ _He screamed out._

"And how am I going to kill Mothra without opening up these chest wounds? Or Cubone if _he's_ still alive! That freak jumped eighty feet in the freaking air, and I stabbed the crap out of it and hit it in the throat with an axe and it didn't budge! _I would not be surprised if - AAH GOD! -"_ _He jabbed his thumb with the bloody needle, but shook his head and kept going, stitching up the jagged hunks of flesh that had once been his chest. "- DAMN IT!_ I _would not_ be surprised if..." _He was breathing heavily, and shaking his head._ "Don't fall asleep... Don't fall asleep. I've lost too much blood, _fuck!" He cursed, as he finished sewing up the first gash._

"Why am I doing this? I am clearly in some kind of demonic hellhole, and I am not Doomguy! I don't even have a gun! How can I kill Cubone and Mothra with two flares?!" _He demanded, the struggle to continue sewing himself up clearly shown on his face, which was scrunched up in rage and getting paler with each passing moment._ "Mothra might be doable with the axe, birds have hollow bones, and I don't care _how_ big its muscles are, those bones must be paper-freakin' thin for that thing to be able to take off like that. Or... Comparatively, given its size... I dunno, there's not a lot of blood to go to my brain at the moment and I'm barely holding on as it is..." _As if to showcase the point, he was starting to slur his words and sway from side to side._ "God... Damn it." _He breathed, as he tied off the stitches and went for the final gash, his hands covered in his own blood._

"But that thing won't ever land if it doesn't have to... So I'd have to pull a Shadow of the Colossus and jump on the goddamn thing if I ever wanted to get at its spine... But _that_ would be so outrageously impossible I don't even want to _think_ about it. And that's all hoping that Cubone isn't still alive!" _He shouted, turning his gaze beyond the camera._

"'Cause if that fucker's still alive we've got a lot of problems. I can't fight anymore - literally cannot. I'll die. But I don't have time to try and heal up, replace even a little bit of blood... _FUCK!"_ _He shouted, his hands shaking so much that he had to try three times before he successfully started sewing the last bit of his chest together._ "Which means I literally _have_ to stay away from them... But my arrows _may_ work on Cubone, even though it clearly doesn't care about height advantages given it can jump eighty feet in the air... And I'm pretty certain Mothra's plumage is so thick that even if I hit its skin, they would have lost so much force and power that they wouldn't even penetrate!" _Despair began showing in Aldric's blue-gray eyes as he took several breaths in quick succession, trying to forcefully shock his body to keep himself conscious, as his slurring gradually became worse as time and his rage and despair grew._

"So... Fuck, so that means all I have is my flare gun. But I only have two flares. And I'm pretty certain it will take two just to _hurt_ Mothra, and one to kill Cubone, so I am... God damn it..." _He shook his head, clenching his eyes tight as he paused in his attempts._ "I'm gonna fucking die." _He looked down at his chest, visibly struggling with the decision to keep sewing or not. He shook his head and kept going,_ "okay... Okay, this tower... I see a doorway over that way." _He nodded to his right,_ "I hope it will take me down... Maybe to some kind of... I dunno, tunnel, or ground level, or something. This place was a city, so it had to have weapons. Given the level of advancement, or lack thereof, what I'm hoping I can do is find a sword, or some kind of armor... No, no, a ballista. _That_ would _fuck_ Cubone up, and could definitely hurt Mothra, but I'd need a clear shot on both... And god help me if they aren't on wheels." _He finished up his chest, which, while still oozing some blood, was at least sealed shut once again._

"I can... _Not..._ Get in another fight. I will _die..."_ _His voice shook and his eyes fluttered, but he shook his head again._ "Can't fall asleep... Can't take the oxy..." _He uncapped a water bottle and, while he smeared blood on the plastic, poured some of the water out to wash his hands, and then took up the antiseptic and washed himself with it one more time, groaning loudly in pain as his wounds began to bubble and hiss._

"Ballista. I find one of those, if it still works... I might... _Might... Might_ have a chance... I fucking hope these were Aztec Romans." _He didn't even bother wrapping himself up in bandages, instead he threw his tattered, blood-soaked shirt back on and threw his sweat-slicked, clumped hair back behind his ears. Aldric groaned loudly as he got to his feet and stole his bag and weapons from the ground, and soon after, the camera._

"And I hope there's a next time." _The camera was switched off._


	4. WWNDD - What Would Nathan Drake Do?

_AN_

 _No real excuses, to be honest. There was nothing delaying the writing of this chapter but my actually sitting down to write it.  
I'll fix that moving forward._

* * *

Chapter 3

* * *

"Nathan Drake, Nathan Drake, Nathan Drake..." Muttered the lone human in the bowels of the ruins many eons older than him, as he pressed one bloody hand to a dark and dusty wall, leaning on it heavily and smearing his lifeblood across it as he descended down a winding, curving staircase.

There was hardly even five feet between the walls in the stairwell he strode down, and with the dust in the air it only made Aldric feel all the more tense and claustrophobic. His only source of light was the cold, pale white light from his appropriated phone, but it took almost all the effort he had to keep it held aloft and to walk, leading to the light bobbing up and down and doing little to help his mounting headache. With the blood he'd lost, Aldric briefly wondered if he would survive even if everything lined up - even if he found a ballista, could lug it up to the top of the tower, load, aim, and fire it, hit Mothra with it, and kill the damn thing. Even if he could kill Cubone without it killing him. He had lost enough blood that his vision was blurred around the edges and there was a dull ringing in his ears, though that could very well be from the repeated blows to the head these past few days.

Speaking of the head trauma, it reared its ugly head as the sound of his boots thunking against the ancient concrete grated at his ears. It was almost unbearable, and made his head throb with every step. His only solace was in the man whose name he was chanting like a montra - some would argue that modeling himself after a death-defying video game character was illogical at best, and suicidal at worst, but he would ask them to take a step back and look at his life. He had survived a plane crash, gotten mauled multiple times by a demon wolf-bear with an exoskeleton, gotten thrown eighty feet through the air, and then had been attacked by a demon eagle, itself probably as large as a navy ship, _also_ with an exoskeleton. Really, the only thing separating him from Nathan Drake was the treasure hunting through ancient ruins - but wait, what was he doing _right now?_

Treasure hunting through ancient ruins.

Checkmate.

 _"Urgh..."_ He groaned, slowing his pace and trying to grit his teeth through another wave of pain. "Yeah... You know what?" He said to himself, as he saw a door coming up. "IF airlines... I want... Like... Ten million dollars. A year. For the rest of my life. I want a space station. I want one of your jets just so I can blow it up." A pause, "actually, no." He grinned, inching his way down the deep, dark, dusty stairs. "Tell you what, I'll make you a deal: Ten million flat fee, but you stuff Cubone and Mothra's bodies for me. If I kill those goddamn things, I don't _ever_ want to forget." Maybe he'd tear off Cubone's outer skull, or take one of Mothra's feathers.

 _Wait..._ Aldric frowned, _wasn't mothra a... Well, moth? Shit._ He crossed to the other wall with a grunt, and slid down the last few steps before he entered the room. _What famous giant birds are there... Are there any? God damn it, you know what? I discovered this thing, I'll name it. If I want to call it Mothra, that's my right. It's in the constitution._ He looked up, flashing the light around.

Well, not exactly what he had been expecting.

Flat stone tables laid out in a perfect uniform grid. Glass beakers, microscopes, other equipment, all covered in thick layers of dust. He was in a laboratory. Did Aztecs even have laboratories? Did Romans? Where the fuck _was_ he?

 _Oh god._ He groaned, deciding to slink forward and see if he couldn't find something resembling a map. _If I got dropped into the Twilight Zone I'll shoot myself._ He thought, idly looking around the lab. He wiped dust off of counter tops, checked under piles of lab equipment, scanned over bookshelves, but couldn't find anything useful.

 _Wait, wasn't there an SCP like this?_ He frowned, staring at what looked like a giant picture frame, though it was coated in so much dust that whatever it depicted was hidden entirely. _Fuck, which one was it? It was a disc... You picked it up, it glowed a color, you touched it to a mirror and got transported to some Lovecraftian fuck-world._ Correction: If he was in the _SCP_ world, he would shoot himself. He honestly didn't know which prospect was more terrifying, as he balled up his sleeve and wiped at the picture frame, praying it was a map. He'd even take a world map, just something to let him know where he was.

No such luck. The more he wiped away, the less likely it was to be a map. It was a simple piece, he quit after he got halfway through, only seeing a large black hilltop, at the bottom of which were four women in long dresses, one green, one orange, one that could either be violet or purple, he wasn't sure, and one such a bright shade of gold he almost confused it for white. Or maybe it was blue. Oh fuck.

 _If I'm losing the ability to see color, that's **not** good._ Aldric looked down at his chest, sure enough - blood seeping out of his incredible patchwork.

And he wanted to kill kaiju.

Yeah, he was totally ready for this.

He sighed loudly, it bleeding into a curse as he slid backwards and fell onto an ancient footstool.

 _So... I'm either in a scientific city... Or I just lucked out and this little tower of mine is a science one._ Yes, judging the entire tower based off of one room was a bad decision, but he was dying. He didn't have the chance to change the variables and retest like a good little scientist. _What do I do? What do I do?_

He could either, A, keep heading down to ground level and pray he would find an armory, risking bleeding out or another encounter with Cubone, if it was still alive, or B, climb _up,_ and channel his inner Wander and try to kick the Mothra's ass. There was always option C, _run,_ but then that left him at the mercy of Mothra _and_ Cubone, but without any concrete buildings to protect him. Not that the buildings would help, considering Cubone could jump eighty feet and Mothra was big enough to clip a skyscraper.

He slid around in his seat and leaned against the dusty lab table. He'd been just a second from leaning forward, when he saw, just at the edge of the cone of light cast by his phone, a twinkle. Curious, he reached over and grabbed the beaker. Inside was a strange, sand-like substance that reflected the light from his phone, in a manner almost like gemstones. Even stranger was that it was _green._ With a light grip at the top edge of the beaker, Aldric idly shook it back and forth as he frowned at it. To his amazement, the motion made the sand inside _glow,_ for just a second, before it dulled down.

Now, geology may not be his expertise, but he was somewhat certain that there wasn't much on earth that could do _that._ Curious, he leaned forward and sniffed at it. No dice, it just smelled like everything else: Stale, dusty air. Aldric may develop lung problems with all the dust in the air, if he survived his kaiju killing spree.

 _I wonder if this is some kind of weird magnesium._ Aldric thought, peering closely at the sand inside the beaker. _Oh, that would make my freakin'_ day. _Just tape some of these to my arrows, and I might be able to stand a chance against Mothra._ Considering avian bones were, by necessity, hollow and more brittle than land-dwelling bones, that meant the shockwave from an explosion would much more easily cripple a bird. Of course, considering just how big Mothra was, he could either have paper-thin bones, or its 'thin' would still be as thick and durable as Aldric's femur.

He really hoped the last option wasn't true.

But how would he test this?

 _Well..._ He thought, giving the beaker another light shake, and watching the green sand inside build its glow. _Seems to be reactive to motion... Maybe I just... Throw it?_ The glow died down, and Aldric shook again. _But where could I -_

* * *

From their vantage point far separated and above from the battle in the ancient city, the trio recoiled when the sounds of an explosion and, following soon after, a thick column of smoke blasted out of the lower levels of one of the central towers. The two flanking their raven-haired leader exchanged nervous glances, before looking up to the frowning woman.

She simply hummed, "instead of asking me each time something happens, let us instead operate under the assumption that, since I can _sense_ his very life, unless I say he is dead, he is not." She said, cradling her chin in thought.

The gray haired teen, however, gave an incredulous look to the smoke flowing out of the tower. The Nevermore orbited around it, having sensed the energy of the dust that had caused it. "But..." He looked at the ancient bridges and canals, seeing the heavily wounded Beowolf charging towards the tower. "If he doesn't have aura to protect him, that's an _explosion,_ Cinder. How is he going to survive that?"

"If he wins... We can ask him, Mercury." Cinder said, her red eyes watching as the Beowolf ground to a halt, its head snapping back and forth as it watched the smoke flow upwards to the sky. "He's survived worse, thus far."

* * *

Oh god, was everything supposed to be upside down? And on fire? Was Cubone back? Did he black out and shoot him with the flare gun? Is it dead?

Aldric groaned, as he was roused back to consciousness. He found himself pressed up against the wall, on his back. He was visibly smoldering, and his ears now rang with a painful intensity, and he felt something leaking out of it. His entire body throbbed in pain, and he coughed out some blood as he laboriously turned over to his chest. Just the act of moving sent lances of pain all up and down his body, he was certain he'd broken his stitches, maybe a rib or two, for good measure.

 _So... Good news, that shit explodes._ He thought, coughing out a dollop of thick, sticky blood. _Bad news... Holy_ fuck _, where do I begin?_ He groaned, hardly finding it within himself to push himself off of the ground, and rest his back to the wall behind him. As a matter of fact, he felt the energy fading from his body.

 _Oh god... Please tell me this will just be a brief little nap._ He thought, as his vision darkened.

It was, but when he awoke, he found himself more exhausted and in more pain than he had been in when he'd fallen asleep. His vision was unfocused and he felt dizzy and weak. Hardly able to string two thoughts together, the only thing he accomplished when he roused to consciousness the first time was lolling his head from one side to the other, before it became too heavy for him and simply fell back to a neutral position, his chin resting against his chest. The next time he woke up, there was little change. He didn't have to wonder if he was dying, he knew he was. No one's shirt got that red if they were healthy. He blacked out a third time.

There was a change when he awoke for the fourth time, but it wasn't for the better. The fourth time he was roused from consciousness, it was to ground shaking beneath his feet. He heard a savage roar that had only grown too familiar to him, but for the life of him he couldn't...

For the life of him, he couldn't...

He couldn't...

Out again.

The next time, he awoke to the smell of burned hair, blood, and bad breath. He cracked his eyes open an inch, and if he'd had any fluids left in his body, they would have filled his pants, when the first thing he was greeted with was cubone looming over him. At some point he'd slid down the wall, now laying on his side. It nudged at him, but he didn't have it in him to resit, and he was pushed back and forth by the animal, as if it were checking if he were alive.

Slowly, his eyes slid away from the massive maw of the demonic bear-wolf creature. He saw, strewn about the grown, other glass beakers, many broken. Through his half-lidded eyes, however, he also saw something perhaps useful. The same sandy substance that had blown him up five blackouts ago was covering the ground. How all of that hadn't detonated too, he didn't even have the brain capacity to question. He did, however, manage to connect the dots enough to know that if he could finger his flare gun and shoot it, yes he may die, but he'd at least take Cubone with him.

It prodded him again, more roughly this time. Fortune seemed to favor him in this, as it made the arm that wasn't pinned to the ground fall over his back, onto his bag, mere inches from his flare gun. He had to build up every ounce of energy within him, focus it all to his arm. He wouldn't really have to aim, either - just fire it in the general direction of forward. Maybe not even, the sparks could ignite it all, if it was so sensitive that shaking it in a beaker set it off.

With a thick swallow through a dry throat, Aldric twitched his fingers. They responded.

Yeah, a big fucking explosion.

What better way to die _was_ there?

With a pained grown, his hand snaked out and grasped the grip of the flare gun. Cubone jumped back with a start, seeing its nemesis suddenly snapping back to consciousness. However, when Aldric swung the gun around drunkenly, it snarled and charged back forward, a second too late. The last thing Aldric saw was the flash of his red flare blasting out of the barrel and over the pile of sand on the ground.

What he wouldn't know was, much like the man whom he modeled his very survival after, fortune, and perhaps something much greater, favored him. The vicious animal's decision to charge him, just as he fired his gun, meant that it was above him when the flare shot, practically smothering him with its weight as it raised its claw. But when the flare ignited the sand covering the ground, the explosion, powerful enough to blast a hole in the building large enough to open it up to the air outside, was mostly absorbed by the monster above him. It took the brunt of the blast with its body and absorbed most of the fire into its fur, leaving Aldric to take little more than burst eardrums, burns to his arm, and multiple broken bones due to the monster's massive weight.

Not unscathed, but only just a bit closer to death than he had been when he'd fired the gun.

The wolf-bear, however, was a different story. Its biology worked in a manner completely alien to the human body. It healed, but far slower, it compensated, but for much less long. Once a threshold was passed, once too much damage had been accrued, this demonic creature simply could not keep itself alive any longer. Since it had taken the brunt of the explosion, many of its hollow organs had been burst completely, and with that damage, it bled out internally in minutes, leaving its corpse to slump onto Aldric's comatose body. Perhaps the most fortunate event of them all, however, came when the bear-wolf's body began to vanish in thick, black plumes of smoke. It filled the laboratory so quickly, and exited so slowly, that most of the flames died down and were snuffed out before oxygen was able to roll back into the room and feed them. By the time everything had settled down, the briefly raging inferno had turned to a few scattered flames, with nothing close enough to provide fuel enough to spread.

He'd nearly died, but Aldric had survived an explosion, that he'd caused, in the ancient ruins he was looking for treasure in.

He _really was_ Nathan Drake.

* * *

The next time he awoke, he coughed. He was so dehydrated that his lungs rattled, his lips cracked, and his tongue was dry and thick. On the plus side, he'd slept so long that the pain had dulled down to an uncomfortable ache. On the downside, there were more reasons than he was just healing, that this was happening, and none of them good.

First things first, he tried to slide onto his back, but the mere act of moving his arm sent lances of sharp, peerless pain up and down, and he cried out in a hoarse voice. He'd broken his arm, and while he may be able to improvise stitches, he didn't know how to set, sling, or bandage broken limbs. Oh, and he was alive. He almost didn't realize that, until he blinked to himself and realized that, if he was dead, it followed that he shouldn't be feeling this kind of pain.

 _Okay... Slowly._ He thought, with a croak.

First things first, as he moved so slowly that he may very well have not been moving at all, he needed water. He needed just a little bit, just enough to wet his mouth and moisten his throat. It took him an hour to shift over to his back and use his good arm to pull out one of his water bottles. It took another hour, of small, Spartan sips to down the bottle. If he drank too much, he may vomit it all up, and he'd only be worse off, then.

Once he was done, he felt just a little energy flood back into his body, so he tried to haul himself back up to a sitting position. He noticed now the massive, gaping hole in the building, and the dark night sky outside. As he gingerly leaned up against the scorched black wall behind him, he wondered how many days he had been unconscious.

Next, he fumbled inside his bag for some kind of food. He had to settle for little nibbles, turning a meal that should have taken minutes, into one that took long enough for the sun to rise and begin to brighten the sky outside. Once he finished his paltry meal, his mind, clearing up, bade him look at the injuries on his chest. His shirt and the bandages were all dark, deep red, but they weren't wet, instead they had dried up, just enough such that the blood coagulated and sealed off the wounds. He was still critically low on blood, but he wasn't losing it nearly as fast as he had been.

Small victories, sure, but the sound of wings beating at the air soon drowned out any good feelings he may have allowed himself.

Right.

Mothra.

One foot, and one arm, really, in the grave, burned, beaten, bloodied, and bruised, and he had to kill a kaiju. He couldn't even look to Nathan Drake for help on this, he'd exhausted that arsenal when he'd blown up his ancient ruins and survived.

 _Would it be... Too much to ask for._ He thought, groggily, as he thought hard about how best to get back to his feet. _Just... Just a little help?_ He asked no one in particular.

Silence.

 _Yeah... Yeah I didn't -_ He blinked as he realized the beats of the wings were getting fainter.

As a matter of fact, he could now see Mothra, just under the edge of the hole in the building, and it was getting smaller. Best of all, he saw it missing more than a few feathers, though it was arguable if he was hallucinating that bit, or just not seeing it , that didn't change the outcome. He'd _won._ He'd kicked Cubone's ass and scared the hell out of Mothra.

He chuckled, but when he did, he saw a gob of blood fly out like snot, causing him to slump a bit.

 _Of course..._ He thought. _Can't win 'em all._ He could hardly move his legs, he'd won the battle, but if Mothra came back, he'd lose the war.

As he geared in for another nap, preparing to let tomorrow's him deal with tomorrow's problems, he heard something faint. It sounded like voices. He hardly dared to believe it, until he heard them growing louder. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but when he closed his eyes and tried to block them out, they didn't leave. They were real.

A rescue team.

Maybe they'd helped scared Mothra away?

"He -" He coughed like a chain smoker, slumping over. _"Here!"_ He called out hoarsely. "I'm here..." He said, his voice whistling out of his throat, before he fell forward and lost consciousness again.

* * *

"He didn't even kill the damn thing!"

"But it _did_ flee."

"Don't help her!"

"You're just mad because you owe me money."

"That too!"

Aside from the arguing voices, the first thing Aldric realized as he slowly roused to consciousness was that he wasn't in nearly as much pain as he had been in. As a matter of fact, pain seemed to be furthest from his mind. His chest, really his entire body, felt as if it were wrapped tightly by bandages, his broken arm was tightly secured in all manner of splints, and he didn't even feel dehydrated. Still wanted water - a lot of it - but aside from a dry mouth and throat, tricking his body, he didn't feel that urge. There was even what felt like a mattress under his back, and a blanket over his body.

He cracked open his eyes, staring up at a night sky, a vibrant orange glow to his right, where the voices came from.

"Our initial goal for him was met. He killed the beowolf. The nevermore was an afterthought, and the shrapnel from the explosion damaged it enough that it decided to flee. That alone is more than what most huntsman can accomplish with many men, weapons, and aura." Came a low, womanly voice, its calm tone in stark contrast to the raised voices of her two companions.

"But look at him!" Argued a male, "really look at him! Do you think he'll survive the week? Let alone what you want him for?"

"I've got to be with Cinder, here." Said a second woman's voice, it lighter than the first one. "The sheer amount of stuff he's survived so far, and all he's done? Now he's got us with him. Literally all he has to do is lay back and heal, he'll be _fine."_

Just what the fuck were these people on about?

"I know you two can sense what is there, boiling, stored within him. Even from so far away it was like a bonfire, but now, next to him? His aura is like a firestorm." Said the first woman, Cinder, he assumed her name was. A strange name, but if they were giving him medical treatment, who was he to judge? Especially considering his _own_ damn name.

"Oh come on. Power gets beat by skill any day, you know that." Said the man.

He may have a point, but seriously - _what_ were these people on about?

He forced his eyes to open further, but that did little to help, as it only opened up more of the night sky to his field of view. He got a nice look at the broken moon, but aside from that, nothing. He groaned, in an attempt to get their attention, and it worked, as conversations ceased and he heard the ground crunch underfoot.

A woman with raven hair now came to loom over him. She was dressed strangely, for a rescue woman. Instead of a uniform, he saw a short red dress that ended just over her knees. Her bright red eyes loomed down to Aldric's blue-gray, her face set in a neutral frown as she looked him over. Through the fog of lethargy, Aldric felt as though he'd seen this woman before.

He groaned, "please tell me you're the rescue team." He said, in a volume barely above a whisper.

She gave him a sympathetic smile, "unfortunately not as you may think, Mister Aldric." She said. "We've done the best we can with what we have. For now, just rest, we can speak more when you've healed."

Much as that sounded like a good idea... "Lady... There's a giant Godzilla out there..." He croaked, trying to sit himself up, but barely even able to summon up enough strength to lean on his good arm. "And I pissed it off." He wheezed, "I don't think sleep is the best option, right now." At least, not out in the open air. If they would stuff him in the pilot's cabin, or in the fuselage, or at least prop him up in his magic chair, he'd feel better.

Her sympathy turned to amusement, "don't worry, Mister Aldric. If the Grimm return, we can take care of them."

As he felt himself losing the battle against sleep, he managed to wheeze out a weak, "the fuck are those?", before he was out again.

Anything from hours to days passed again, when he awoke the second time it was still dark. This time, however, he woke up to hushed voices, a far cry to the loud arguments he'd first woken up to. It was hard to make out what was being said, but there was little else he had to do aside from trying as hard as he could to discern what it was being said.

 _"We're wasting time!"_ The male voice he'd heard earlier stressed. _"Look at him. He's been out three days now and he's hardly improving. You actually think he'll be able to help us? We should just skip this ancient dust nonsense and go get Torchwick. We tried, we got_ that, _we failed. We need to just move on."_

 _"Mercury, for the last time. We're in the home stretch, once he wakes up we'll be ready to wake up his aura, and_ imagine _what he'll be capable_ _of."_ Said the lighter of the two female voices he'd heard. _"With training, he could match Cinder!"_

He heard Mercury sigh, _"now who's being unreasonable?"_ He asked, _"listen. I'm just trying to point out that he very well may turn out to be a liability to our mission, rather than a resource."_

Yeah, the conversation made about as much sense to him, too. On this thought, he tried summoning up what strength he had to push himself up. Remarkably, he found it within him to do so, clenching his chest and sitting up. Granted, when he finally made it up, he found that the effort had sapped him of most of his strength, but he still would call it progress. He looked to his broken arm, seeing it was wrapped up and secured to several cardboard splints. His chest was enveloped in fresh white bandages, and in his good arm he saw a needle, leading up to an IV drip.

 _Guess that's why I haven't died of dehydration._ He thought, turning his eyes over his shoulder. He saw a dark skinned woman with mint green hair, speaking to a tall, pale man with hair grayer than his grandfather's. Both of them were looking at him, the man, whose name he assumed was Mercury, with a reserved expression, and the woman, with a raised eyebrow.

 _Have I met these two before?_ He wondered, as a sense of deja-vu assaulted his mind.

The crash survivor cleared his dry throat, "happen to have some water?" He wheezed.

Mercury exchanged a glance with the woman, who rolled her eyes. "Fine." She said, grabbing a small travel bag and pulling out a bottle of water, before she got to her feet and strode over to Aldric. "Here, let me know if you need more."

 _Nice bedside manner._ Thought the crash survivor, as he took the bottle with a nod. "Thank you." He said, opening up the bottle and taking tentative, small sips. "So..." He coughed, "if you guys aren't the rescue team, what are you?" He asked, his voice hoarse. "Tell me you're monster hunters, I need that right now." He added, with a shake of the head, and another small sip from the bottle.

Strangely, he saw a look of horror dawn in Mint's eyes, and a look of glee in Mercury's, as the man said, "oh, oh please tell me you're always that sarcastic."

"I can't believe there's two of you now." Said Mint, looking over her shoulder to Mercury.

The silver haired man simply grinned and clapped his hands. "Oh I think I may grow to like him, now."

"Shut up." Mint turned back to Aldric, "not necessarily." She said.

Aldric bit back a quip about sexual tension between the two, instead asking, "then where _am_ I?" He asked, after a sip from the water. He gestured upwards, to the moon in the sky. "And what in fuck happened?"

Mint looked up, "what, the moon?" She shrugged, "I hardly know, never bothered to learn." She said, leaning back on her haunches and sitting down. "As to where you are... You're in the kingdom of Vale... Specifically in the Beacon Cliffs." She explained, as if it were helpful.

Aldric stared at her from behind his water bottle, an eyebrow raised and a blank expression in his eyes. Sure, considering everything he'd seen, and his SCP and Twilight Zone theories, he should have expected an answer like this, but that didn't change how incredulous he was.

"Uh..." Okay, sure. "And... Where is that? Exactly? South America? Some... Middle of the ocean maybe?" Yes, he knew he was grasping, and he was pretty sure the answers he'd get wouldn't even be remotely close to what he wanted, but that didn't change the strength of denial. Hell, maybe he'd been dropped into the Marvel universe, he'd get to hang out with Spiderman, shoot the shit with Deadpool, or grab ahold of a cosmic cube, turn him into a supersoldier. That'd be fun.

But unfortunately, that wasn't the answer he'd get. The minty-haired woman shook her head, "unfortunately not... I've never heard of those kingdoms." She said, cautiously.

Aldric frowned, wondering if the hesitation in her voice was telling. "Uh-huh." He said, "kingdoms. Sure." He felt confident enough to take a large swig of water, but he ended up coughing up half of it.

"Hey, come on, don't rush yourself." Said Mint, as she pulled out a cloth and gave it to him. "You took some hard hits." He took the cloth and dried his face, "some huntsman won't go after the Grimm you fought, let alone... Well, alone and without any dust weaponry."

Aldric groaned, trying to sop up some of the water soaked into his bandages. "You keep talking like I'll know the things you're saying, lady." He deadpanned, "how about you start from the beginning. Clearly -" He grunted, shifting position and turning to face her, noting that he was half entangled in a sleeping bag.  
"I'm not in Kansas anymore. Probably not even on _Earth_ anymore... So where _am_ I?" He asked, "what is Vale, what are Grimm, what is dust... Just where the fuck am I?"

Mint-hair frowned and broke eye contact a moment, "I think it would be better if our leader answered those questions for you." She said. "She should be back soon." She looked back up, "I'm Emerald, by the way. He's Mercury."

Aldric grunted, giving them each a nod. "Well, to finish off the roll call I'm Nebo Aldric. My friends just call me Aldric." He leaned back on his good hand, "you're also very close." He added, indicating the space of less than two feet between him and Emerald.

Emerald retreated a few feet, "so can _we_ ask _you_ a question?"

"Shoot." Said Aldric, as he looked around, wondering where his magic chair was.

"What the hell made you decide to shoot a dust lab, while you were _in it?"_ Mercury said, as he looked at the crash survivor from his position near the fire.

"Forgive my snide, but I'd be able to answer that easier if I knew what dust was." Aldric pointed out, "all I knew was that it was _very_ explosive, and I probably wouldn't be surviving the encounter anyways, so I might as well take out the Cubone with me." He shrugged his stiff shoulders, and tried stretching without stressing the bandaging and stitches that covered his sore, aching body.

"I assume by 'Cubone' you're talking about the Beowolf?" Emerald asked, her head tilted and her bright green eyes locked onto Aldric's gunmetal gray.

Aldric gave her a blank look, wondering if she could understand her mistake without him prompting. After a few seconds, however, it occurred to him that he was being rude for little reason. He'd been dropped into the Twilight Zone, ostensibly into another universe, had nearly died, and here these people were going out of their way to save his ass. A little respect was probably required, he reasoned.

So, Aldric shrugged. "The big skull-bone bear thing." He elaborated. "Yes."

Emerald nodded, not picking up on the implications of his earlier pause, though, if the look on her friend's face was any indication, he certainly did. "We call them Beowolfs." She explained to him.

Aldric grunted, with a nod, and took another sip from the bottle. "Well, to answer your question, I didn't really expect to be surviving anyways."

"You should be lucky they disintegrate when they die, else you may have been burned alive."

Now Aldric gave her an unabashed stare of abject, blank shock. "I have so many questions about that alone." How the hell did something just _disintegrate_ when it died? What, did they rot in seconds? Strangely enough, this was all starting to sound somewhat familiar. It was right there on the tip of his tongue.

"Well..." Came a new voice, causing Emerald's head to snap up, and Aldric to turn stiffly to his side. "I hope I should be able to answer them." And he saw, lazily leaping out of the destroyed fuselage of his airplane, a woman hardly a few years his senior. She wore a long red dress, reaching just to her knees, with her raven hair flowing over her shoulders and out of sight behind her back.

Aldric was again struck by a sense of deja-vu, but his mind, so starved of blood and nutrients due to his injuries, still had trouble connecting all of the dots being given to him. The feeling was akin to staring at a question one _knew_ they had been given the answer to, but simply unable to conjure up from the depths of their memories. He _knew_ what two and two added together to make, he had been taught it before, but the answer was just beyond his reach. But if he'd been dropped into the Twilight Zone, then how the hell would he have ever seen any of these people before?

Actually, he had a question more important than that. "There is no way in hell you heard me say that." He pointed out, raising his hoarse voice so it would carry over the distance between him and the raven-haired woman.

Though if he were to be honest, he didn't quite care for her response, considering he'd met a kaiju-sized raven and a wolf-bear with an exoskeleton that could leap eighty feet through the air. Though not without snide remark, he was willing to accept she'd managed to hear his dull response to Emerald's earlier words.

Instead, he pushed on ahead, "and who are you?" He asked, before double-taking and adding on, "and what were you doing in the Captain's Cabin?" He nodded to the airplane the woman had jumped out of.

As she reached closer, the raven-haired woman nodded once, "I am Cinder." She said, "Cinder Fall." _Whoa,_ he'd gotten some bad deja vu, returning again to the 'two plus two' point he'd made. "I was hoping to find something of use in there. I've never quite seen a machine like it, before."

Aldric stared at her blankly, "you people have..." He looked at the weapons hanging from the small of Emerald's back. "Guns." He turned back to Cinder, "but the concept of flight is beyond you?" Sometimes the sarcasm was unavoidable; Aldric chalked it up to being raised by a bunch of potty-mouthed sailors.

Cinder shook her head, "no, we've airships, but your vessel... If I had to guess, it only moves and cannot hover." She sat down in the grass a few feet from Aldric.

Aldric's head recoiled, "airships? Oh Christ, we _used_ to have those, but the only way we could get them to float was by filling them with hydrogen. One exploded and killed a lot of people. We kind of... _Never_ went back." He nodded to the airplane. "We just fill _those_ things with gasoline and use the thrust to take off and fly. They don't float, but they do land, and when they aren't smashed to shit, they do drive."

Cinder's face grew a curious frown, "hydrogen? Why would you use such a volatile fuel when you could simply use dust?"

Aldric used his good hand to make a brief gesture towards Cinder, pointing at her with his finger before he dropped it back to the ground. "And there's the million dollar term again. What the hell is dust?" He asked, "and while I'm at it, _where_ the hell am I?" He felt a pressure build up in his head, and he paused to press at it, until it went away. "I'm clearly not in Kansas anymore... And your friend, here -" He nodded to Emerald. "She said something about the Vale." He lifted his head to see Cinder regarding him, letting him think aloud. "And if I had to guess, I'm not even on Earth - my planet - anymore either. There is no biological imperative _anywhere_ for evolution to create something like that Beowolf. We've got big animals, yes, but that thing..." He shook his head, "it jumped eighty feet in the air, and has an exoskeleton that seems to serve no purpose. Its size isn't so much what I'm worried about as its strength. That thing was about as big as a bear, but a bear can't jump that high and can't hit as hard as it could. It's too heavy and its muscles, while good, aren't that good. The only animals on Earth even remotely capable of jumping that high are animals that literally evolved to jump, and none of them even come close to the height or length that thing jumped. To do so like that, it'd need muscles denser than gold, _and_ the ability to use one hundred percent of the strength they could unleash at any given time, but the latter is unlikely, because they wouldn't survive long enough to reproduce if it were the case.

"And its big buddy, the bird thing, that one makes even less sense. The largest animal _alive_ on our planet was a blue whale, and that only ever measured about a hundred feet. Dinosaurs were hardly bigger than that at their biggest. The largest bird is..." He ran his hand through his hair, idly noting some bandages tied to his head that he hadn't noticed before. "Shit, I don't know, an ostrich? But those things are hardly bigger than people." He stared off into space, not noticing the glint in Cinder's red eyes, as she regarded him with interest. "And that's all ignoring the fact that something of that size shouldn't be able to fly under its own power. It'd need literal gas pockets, full of helium or something, a lot of 'em, just to get it to float in the air so it could use its wings to fly. If it did, it would have exploded when _my_ fun in that little laboratory had hit it. I saw it as it flew away, it was hurt and burned, but it was still alive and not exploded.

"Even ignoring the amount of leaps of logic one would have to make to make those things comply with the laws of physics... Both of them were clearly territorial. The Beowolf was on me _days_ after I crashed here, and the Kaiju thing was on us minutes after we crashed into its little nest. The Beowolf was clearly a hunter, else it would have just abandoned me after I set it on fire that first time. The Kaiju _can't_ be a scavenger, there isn't enough dead in the world to provide it with the energy it would need to grow to that size and keep living once it did, so it has to be a hunter too. That means there's two entire species of demon wolf bears and enormous birds that outweigh _warships_ and dwarf most skyscrapers. We humans, we're crafty motherfuckers, but regular bows, arrows, those kinds of things? They wouldn't even scratch them. Guns may, but not flintlocks, or anything like that, only heavy artillery, the antimaterial stuff that turns people into paste. But we wouldn't survive nearly long enough to evolve technology far enough along to get those, or the tanks we would _really_ need to fight them.

"So, simply put, with those things walking around the planet... And what I shudder to think _else_ could have evolved in an environment that bred _them,_ there shouldn't be a single way possible that humans are around to populate it. Especially not in such numbers to build a city as big as the one I found just back that way." He nodded his head over his shoulder. "The only way we could is if we had modern technology. Tanks, guns, the things I just listed... But like I said, if we evolved alongside eachother, we damn well _should not_ have survived long enough to invent those things. That means there had to either be... Some kind of..." He shook his head, "I don't know, _event?"_ He looked up, giving everyone a look, and noting how they all were watching him think this out with rapt attention. "Had to have happened, to drop them all here when we had the technology to fight and survive against them... Or we had to have found something that _bought_ us that time..." He shook his head, "but that's going much too deep into assumptions territory. So let's go back."

He turned up to look into Cinder's eyes, "to you. I see guns strapped to her hips..." He nodded to Emerald, "gray hair over there, Mercury? He's wearing what looks like body armor. But _you,_ I see arrows on your back." He nodded to Cinder, pointing out the small bundle of arrows sticking out from the small of her back. "So you have technology... But there's the fact that you don't know what an airplane is... Despite it being a logical, cheaper offshoot of an airship, which apparently you _do_ have, but they don't fly on hydrogen." He looked up to the dark night sky above them. "And to top it all off, I don't know how the fuck _that -"_ He pointed upwards, causing all, including Cinder, to look up to the shattered moon, lazily hovering in the sky, millions of miles above them all. "- happened. Let alone how we survived it.

"So, I think I'm within my rights to assume I'm not on my planet anymore. And considering the vastness of space, while it isn't _functionally_ impossible, it is _practically_ impossible for there to be another planet with a carbon copy of humans, speaking English no less, running around it. So I either found that below one trillionth of a percent, or I'm in another universe entirely." He looked back down to Cinder, "so forgive me, Cinder... I do sound short, I know this, and I apologize..." He rubbed at his aching head, "but for God's sake, where _am_ I?"

There was a stark, dead silence for a few moments, after Aldric finished speaking. After she digested everything he'd said, Cinder simply grinned, arced an eyebrow, and turned her gaze over to Mercury, the silver-haired man instantly leaning away from the orange flow of the fire and waving his hands.

"I know, I know, I know." He said, " _maybe_ he has a chance."

Aldric turned his gaze from Mercury, back to Cinder. Cinder nodded, and leaned forward, interlacing her fingers. "I would say you are correct, Aldric." She began, "in so much that you are not on your Earth... However there is much you are incorrect in thinking, and I will do my best to explain it to you. To begin with, our world is one called Remnant." Another series of alarm bells ringing through Aldric's head. "But I would ask you, before I go into detail... If you are any indication, your world is one that exists squarely within the natural law of things. You value education and the ability to work within the physical limits of your universe, am I correct?"

 _Well... You're half right. **I** value those things, but everyone else? Eh, we elected Trump. That says enough._ Aldric gave a sidewards nod of the head, "yeah, close enough."

"Then I would ask, what do your people know of magic?"

Aldric frowned, "like, slight of hand, pick a coin out of someone's ear, magic? Or actual, disobey the laws of physics, magic?"

"The latter." Cinder said.

"So far as we know it doesn't exist outside of fiction." Aldric responded, already not liking where this conversation was headed. "Some think its possible, but others... They like to think that magic is just the science of things we don't understand. Any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from it."

Emerald grew an impressed expression, "that makes more sense than I think it should."

Aldric ignored her, and leaned forward himself, with a light groan. "Are you trying to tell me that magic exists here? In Remnant?"

To answer him, Cinder extended her hand forward, the palm facing the sky. A moment later, the air began to glow with a red, heat-like light, and out of nowhere a bow swirled into existence and came to rest in Cinder's hand. Aldric found himself staring at it, his blood-starved brain too taxed from his earlier leaps in logic to try and think of any kind of explanation for the can-not-be he'd just seen. Her display, however, wasn't the only one. Cinder lowered her hand and nodded to Emerald, who attracted Aldric's attention and soon had it captured entirely, as he saw her split into two, and the two into four. Then one of the four turned to Cinder, a second into Mercury, and a third, into _him,_ before they all faded away with a ripple of light.

He stared at the area the phantoms had taken up for a few seconds, his brain having ground to a halt, like rusty gears.

Aldric sighed, "okay." He nodded, turning back to Cinder. "Magic." He said, dully.

"Damn it, I wish I'd taken a picture of that!" He heard Mercury laugh.

This prompted Aldric to look at him from over his shoulder, "well now I have to ask what can _you_ do?"

Mercury grinned a toothy grin, and after Cinder gave him a nod, he shrugged, and rolled up his pantleg. He revealed to Aldric a fully cybernetic leg, reminding him of something out of a sci-fi game, and prompting him to wonder if their 'airships' weren't closer to his definition of spaceships, and _that,_ single, simple, seemingly innocuous thought, was when it clicked. All the feelings of deja-vu, the sensation that some of the answers he was looking for were _just_ there, barely out of his reach but close enough to tantalize him, they all fell into place. One puzzle piece suddenly brought the entire picture into frame, and he realized why everything around him was so familiar. For Christ's sake, he'd been watching this universe's sister show on the plane ride in here - the entire damn thing was on the SD card in his tablet.

The Beowolf, the Grimm, these three, their 'magic', that gigantic stone city, the world of Remnant, the Kingdom of the Vale, a shattered moon, the answers had literally staring him in the face. If asked, he would never actually tell someone that it took him looking up a man's pants and then zoning out for a few seconds, for it to click; he would instead say that he figured out when Cinder finally let her name drop. It would save a bit of dignity, but he doubted anyone would ask. What were the odds, after all?

 _Well..._ He frowned, turning back to Cinder, and suddenly feeling a lot less safe than he had been moments ago. _About as likely as surviving a plane crash... A fight with a skull-wolf-bear... A point blank explosion... And hopping universes into fucking RWBY._


	5. Operation: Green Hornet

Chapter 4

* * *

He needed a new role model. Even Nathan Drake hadn't dealt with something like this. He wasn't a big enough Doctor Who fan to try and claim him, and though Doomguy sort of came close, since hopping between Hell, Mars, and Earth technically was hopping worlds, he wasn't necessarily comfortable with modeling his continued survival after a man, no matter how badass, who could rip and tear his way through Hell so much and so often that Hell banished him _from Hell_ , and couldn't even make _that_ stick. Maybe Goku would fit, but Aldric ran into a similar problem in that he wasn't a man who could put entire universes at risk because he was bored and wanted a fight. Maybe Batman would work.

No, everyone picked Batman. Because he's Batman. He may be appropriate to the situation - a mortal man being thrust into a world of veritable gods - but everyone picked Batman. Aldric wasn't everyone. Aldric was, technically, an interdimensional traveler. How many of _those_ were walking around? Don't answer that, because he'd already thought of multiverse theory and the thusly innumerable amount of people slipping between universes and dimensions as he did. Aldric would just stick with Nathan Drake for the time being, Naughty Dog's poster boy would work for the time being, and he _did_ have some bigger problems than new models.

For instance, he now found himself in a universe filled with advanced technology, hostile entities, everything that was also a gun, a veritable religious dedication to the concept of more dakka, and demons that wanted nothing more than to eat him alive.

Maybe Doomguy was more appropriate than he realized.

Regardless, his most pressing matter was the trio of superpowered assassins he found himself sitting with. Their leader had seen fit to give him a little time to process what he'd seen, and they all gathered up some food. Emerald was kind enough to scavenge some of Aldric's rations from the plane wreck, and while at first glance it may seem like he wouldn't need to be rationing them anymore, Aldric still ate sparingly and only a minor, injury-dependent adjustment to his earlier schedule.

A part of him _really_ wondered if they hadn't had something to do with him being dropped here. Fortunately, it wasn't difficult to gauge when he was in the whole time of things - Cinder was his best method of judgement. She didn't have the scars on the right half of her face, so he wasn't after the fall of Beacon, and she didn't have the tattoos on her back, so he was before their little fight with the Fall Maiden. A less terrified man would begin considering whether or not they wanted to change things in the world, but Aldric was far too concerned with staying alive. He only had one flare left, and they had aura, so it would do little than blind them. He may be able to use it to steal one of Emerald's guns, but then he'd just be swapping one weapon with limited ammunition for another. He needed a better escape plan, if things turned south.

But, if he operated under the assumption that they had something to do with him being tossed into the RWBYverse, then that meant they likely wanted him for some reason. Well, perhaps not _him_ specifically - as there had been an entire airplane of people from his world to pick from - but him because he was the only survivor of his airplane crash. If he wanted to survive, at least long enough to heal up and then run like hell, he'd need to make them decide they _did_ want him.

So, he had to play their game, see where he fell on the board, and as he munched his way through a plate of chicken, he looked up to Cinder. "So... Remnant. You guys have magic." He said, "would that be how Remnant humans survived against... The Beowolf things? What'd you call them?" He looked over to Emerald, "the Grimm?"

Cinder nodded, attracting his attention. "I chose the word magic as a shared term, but that would be a misnomer. We call it Aura. Your earlier statement, about sufficiently advanced technology, it was rather apt... Aura and Magic are two different things." She explained, "it is a long story... But Aura is tied directly to Dust, the same substance you discovered and promptly ignited, back in the towers." She explained. "To be succinct, when humankind discovered Dust, they were able to use it to awaken their aura, and they used both to fight back against the Grimm. Aura gives us the abilities your world would recognize as magic... Dust, our versions of your technology." She pulled out a small device from a pocket on her dress, it looked like a phone. Aldric caught it, and as he fiddled with it, trying to find out how to open it, she continued.

"It took a very long time for us to reach the place where we are now." She explained, "and this time has allowed us to advance in education and sciences... It was only recently that some very intelligent individuals discovered evidence that there were worlds beyond ours. Not simply planets, but realms and universes."

 _Sweet Jesus, she's just jumping right into it, isn't she?_ Thought Aldric, as he finally managed to crack the phone open and slide it to its full length, the screen opened up and glowed. "Multiverse theory." He rumbled, dragging his finger across the screen.

Cinder nodded in his peripherals. "Indeed." She said, "a... Ritual, we can call it, was created, using ancient auras and semblences, combined with modern theories. We peered through the doorways between dimensions to find yours, and were fascinated with what we saw."

Aldric slowly lifted his gaze, his face etched in a small frown, and one eyebrow arced. "Oh?" _If she's about to call me on my bullshit I'm going to need that flaregun._ He forced himself to remain calm. If he were a threat to Cinder or, god forbid, her albino boss, he doubted either of them would have let him stick around.

Cinder continued, "yours was a world without Grimm, but _with_ Aura." That got Aldric's attention. "The problem, however, was that it lacked Dust, and thus, your humans could never unlock their power. It simply... Built. From the day you were born until the day you died, it built, and built, and built, gathering exponentially more every day you lived. This is a difference between our worlds, as ours, with dust, allows humans to... Relieve that pressure." She said, with a sidewards nod. "We've all a limit, here, that when reached, the aura simply fades away. The only way to gather more is to increase your limits... But one would still radiate that which they have in excess."

"Like a bucket of water." Said Aldric, sliding the phone shut and tossing it back to Cinder. "You can swap out for a bigger one, but once that's full, anything else just spills out."

Cinder nodded, "exactly." She said, with a smile. "Your people, however, you do not overflow. Your bucket simply grows."

 _Like a water balloon that doesn't pop?_ Aldric's frown didn't budge, "so... If I understand what you're implying, you used this ritual to drag..." He nodded to the airplane. "An airplane full of people, from my world to yours?"

"Well, all science is trial and error, Aldric." Said Cinder. "We didn't truly know what would happen when we used the ritual, we merely had to try and hope for the best."

"A lot of dead people would argue with you." Aldric pointed out, looking back down to his chicken and digging at it. "Why did you pull us from our world to yours?" He asked, from a full mouth.

Cinder's low voice responded with, "you see, Aldric... Ours is not a healthy world. Moreover, it is one in which those in power seek to horde it, through fear of the Grimm's existence."

Aldric slowed his eating, now chewing on auto-pilot. His mind, slowed though it may have been because of his myriad of injuries, it was able to reach at least one likely conclusion, and it wasn't one he was fond of. They couldn't be trying to _recruit_ him, could they? Aldric decided to challenge her on this. He'd shown himself to be capable of some Holmesian levels of leaps of logic, and pointing this out wouldn't put his knowledge of the future at risk. It may put his _future_ at risk, but he digressed.

"Forgive me for being frank... And let me follow that up by saying that this doesn't change how ungodly _thankful_ I am for you - for all of you - for rescuing me... But are you saying you brought us here to make an _army?"_ From the way he understood her explaining things, the Remnant humans were regular humans, compared to the Earth humans being analogous to Super Saiyans. Yes, the Earth humans - he'd need a better, shorter term for that - had no use of their aura, but if they could tap into it, they went from low-class warriors to people who could crack apart planets with their minds. Jesus _Christ,_ if his people got ahold of that kind of power the Earth probably wouldn't exist for more than a decade afterwards.

Cinder confirmed his theory with a solemn nod. "We did not at all intend for your people to die, Aldric. We had no idea of knowing where, or when, or even how you would be taken, only that it would open a traversable door between our worlds, as opposed to a keyhole to peer through."

If Aldric didn't know any better, he would have thought she was being sincere. Yes, he knew his knowledge of an incomplete show was coloring his perception of things, and that most anime had one hell of a way of making their villains much less evil than they appeared to be at first glance, but that didn't change the fact that, from the story he knew, he wasn't speaking to one of the 'good guys'. He still felt he had to remain cautious.

"So you brought us here _ostensibly_ to study us and learn from us... But functionally... To recruit us." Aldric said, finishing the last of his chicken, and tossing the plastic plate into the fire. " _Why?_ " He asked, "are things _that_ bad?" Maybe he could be in a unique position here, and he would have to take her every answer with a grain of salt, but the fact remained that he was a fragile mortal man basically being asked to box Superman.

Cinder nodded, a frown playing at her features. "The kingdoms of the world horde the power from their people, and places known as huntsman academies seek to usurp the kingdoms themselves." And now he _knew_ she was playing him, but he couldn't let them onto the fact. "Tensions between humans and faunus... That is to say, animal hybrids... They are rising to explosive levels, in some cases literally. A war, larger, greater, and more deadly than any before is brewing, the people are going to be caught in the crossfire, the Grimm are going to take advantage of the chaos to kill even more, and we seek to prevent that."

Aldric gave her a dull look, before lifting his hand. "One... Two... Three people are going to prevent that?" He said, doing a headcount.

"Well, there are more of us." Mercury supplied. "But we try to go for quality over quantity. People with resources and power, versus sheer numbers."

Aldric nodded, "and you want my ass because of the veritable bomb of aura I've got in me." He leaned forward, "how powerful do you think _I_ would be versus those Huntsman you told me about?" He asked. "From what I gather, not everyone can use this aura... And you mentioned the Hunstman separately from the kingdoms' various militaries. If I'm correct in assuming it's Huntsman that can use aura better than anyone else, then my question stands. How can you expect me to overpower any of them? Do I _really_ have that much in me?" Sure, one could have an overwhelming, irresistable amount of power, but Goku still beat Broly. The fledgling Colonial United States still won out over the British fucking Empire. The UNSC won out against the Covenant. The Spartans won against the Persians. He could go on.

Cinder was silent a moment, before she nodded. "I think you could be, Aldric." She said. "I believe few alive could truly resist you if you knew how to use your power."

 _I return to my point about smaller, weaker forces winning out against juggernauts._ Though he would admit that, though Pyrrha Nikos definitely seemed more skilled than Cinder, she _had_ gotten her ass kicked. "Then let's assume I decide to do this. How would you wake up my aura? Would I even _survive,_ if I have as much as you say?" He would definitely need time to think this through, preferably after a few blood transfusions and a night's sleep.

"It would be a simple process." Said Cinder, "and you would survive. Even previously powerless civilians with no ability to use their aura, can have that influx of power and survive it."

"And if I wanted to leave?" He asked. "Could you send me home?" Or would he have to run, and pray he'd run into a certain academy's headmaster? Start going full Shadow Broker on him and using his meta-knowledge as a currency?

Cinder, however, shook her head. "I do not think so. I did not perform the ritual, and the woman who did... It will be some time before I see her again."

 _Hoooooly shit, Lady Red Eye herself brought me here? Oh sweet Jesus I'm in a tight spot._ Say no, and he'd die. Say yes, and he'd probably die anyways. At least if he said yes, he'd be a Super Saiyan and be able to fight.

He looked down at the fire a moment, frowning. It seemed he was stuck here, no matter what he did. The only way he could hope to go back home was through cooperating with Cinder, and helping Salem. In effect, he'd become complicit in trying to bring about the apocalypse. Not good for the heaven resume. But if he refused, it would be likely they'd just kill him, start over, grab someone else, and then move on, but in this instance they'd have a Super Saiyan running with the bad guys, which would also be unacceptable. It was clear to him that he wasn't in the world he remembered - it was a carbon copy, but something, somewhere, had changed to lead to him coming here. This meant his information, while valuable beyond measure, it would also become out of date real fast, and useless as anything else but a reference guide.

 _But..._ He thought. _Until I reach a point that it does become useless... I could pull off The Departed._ He thought about it in another way.

Instead of refusing to work with them, instead of running, and instead of working with them and going full renegade, what if he chose a third option? Or, well, fourth. What was stopping him from being a mole in Cinder's faction? As long as he played his role, he could just nudge things in different directions, and let the butterfly effect fuck the Lady In Red over. He'd have to be careful, of course, such that it wouldn't doom _him_ too, but he was in a position to pull off a Xanatos Gambit. It certainly wasn't a prospective role model, but the Green Hornet was a damn good analogy for the position he was in at the moment. He could _look_ like a villain, and let everyone think that while he really played for the good guys. The problem would be establishing his contact over on the brighter end of the heroic spectrum.

He needed time to think this over.

He looked up to Cinder and said as much, to which she nodded understandingly. "I understand. This must be quite a bit for you." She looked up to the sky, "I would say we revisit this in the morning?"

"That sounds good." Aldric said, dragging himself to his feet, cradling his injured arm to his body. "Quick question..." He said, trying to remember if he'd stuck his lucky chair in the captain's cabin, or the fuselage. "If I accept and you awaken my aura, will it fix these injuries I've got?"

Mercury laughed, "oh yeah. You'd be surprised how much punishment you can take once you've got aura running through you."

Aldric hummed, "good to know."

* * *

 _For The Record_

 _So, I've switched to writing this out._

 _Why?_

 _Well, it's a long damn story, but suffice to say, I don't trust my rescuers at all, and I've discovered that, while the spoken language here in this new world I'm inhabiting is indeed English, the written language isn't that at all._

 _So they can't understand a goddamn word I write._

 _To make things concise: They somehow opened up a magic portal that sucked me and the entire flight into the world of Remnant. This is the very same setting of RWBY, an anime on the internet. I'm the only survivor and, lucky me, they want me to fight for them._

 _Let me back up._

 _I made it to the ruins, but Cubone - I now know it to be called a 'Beowolf' - found me before I could find anything good. He and I fought, and it chucked me eighty feet through the air. I think I came close to killing it, but then a bird about the size of three or four aircraft carriers swooped in and tried to finish me off. I escaped from them by hiding in a giant stone tower, found a bunch of explosives, and promptly blew myself up._

 _But, proving myself ever worthy of the title 'Nathan Drake', I survived that shit._

 _Barely._

 _Then Cubone decided to come by and kill me, so I blew myself up **again** to kill him. _

_Don't even know how I survived that one, but hey - Nathan Drake._

 _Now I've been rescued by Cinder Fall, Mercury Black, and Emerald Sustral. Three of the baddest bitches around, all of whom work for **the** baddest bitch around. They told me how I came to be here, and then explained that I am basically a Saiyan to their Humans. People from my world - maybe I'll stick with Saiyans, as a means of differentiation? I'll think on that - they do indeed gather the same aura that the humans over here do. However, unlike the humans in Remnant, we **don't stop,** and just keep gathering more and more until we die and it all gets released. _

_The result is, according to them, a being of such intense power that few here could resist it._

 _I did notice how they failed to mention Salem and the Maidens, but I digress._

 _They think I'm a goddamn Super Saiyan, and they want me to help them._

 _Lex Luthor just asked me to help him kill the Justice League._

 _Holy **fuck.**_

 _..._

 _No?_

 _How about, Thanos just asked me to help him gather the Infinity Stones?_

 _No?_

 _I'm running out, here - Hitler just came to me for help invading Poland? I give up. Point is: In the whole spectrum of good versus evil, evil just came to me with a recruitment pitch. An admittedly attractive one - I cannot begin to imagine the kind of shenanigans I could get up to with superpowers._

 _Before you freak out, yes I'm thinking of joining them, but not to actually work **for** them, if that makes sense. _

_Let me put it to you like this:_

 _The Green Hornet operated in such a way that the public and criminal underworld both saw him as a criminal. He used this as a means to more easily infiltrate the criminal underworld and fight it from within. His justification, 'We'll_ look _like villains, but really we'll be the heroes!'. That way, in the inevitable 'Choice', the villain wouldn't have anything on him. He wouldn't bother hanging a truck full of kids off of one edge of the bridge, and Mary Jane off of the other - because he'd think the Green Hornet not a hero, but a villain, and thus would be worried he'd just go for him and ignore the hostages.  
_

 _I'm thinking about using that to justify pulling from The Departed._

 _Simply put, there, DiCaprio got himself thrown in jail and joined an organized crime ring, under orders from his contacts in the Police, his contacts being Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen, such that they could have a deep-cover mole within the mob, working right alongside Jack Nicholson, the big boss. But he did so in a way that **no cop** beyond those two knew about his involvement - to preserve his cover. _

_In other words, I seek to work in the dark, to serve the light._

 _I do this, I get the badass superpowers, and a means to make things for the better._

 _Problem: I have no Mark Wahlberg, or Martin Sheen. I have no contact over in the good guy faction.  
You know what? That's too long. I'll call them the Illuminati. Absolutely no negative connotations whatsoever. _

_And it's more syllables._

 _Fuck._

 _How about the Justice League?_

 _They may have had shitty movies, but they've been rocking the comics recently. That'll do._

 _But getting a name doesn't get me a contact in the League. If and when we came to blows, they'd see me as an enemy._

 _But, I do have an idea: The main character here's uncle, Qrow Branwen._

 _I've been able to determine roughly when I am in the timeline. There comes a point when Cinder will take her group to fight the Fall Maiden - basically a demi-goddess - and steal her powers. She'll succeed partially, but then Qrow will swoop in and, before she can finish the job, grab the Maiden and escape._

 _That right there could be my **only** chance to get my Mark Wahlberg. _

_I wouldn't even have to get his attention, or talk to him. I would just need to set something up, slip him a note, **somehow** let him know that they've got a mole on the inside. Then he brings it to the others In The Know, and... I dunno, through him I can talk to Ozpin, and get my Martin Sheen. Then hopefully we'd be close enough to the Vytal Festival that, by warning them 'something's coming', and imminently at that, I wouldn't tip my whole foreknowledge hand, and could simultaneously help to cut the head off of the snake by depriving Cinder of the remaining half of the Fall Maiden's powers. Maybe find a way to stop her from cutting Remnant's version of the internet, too - let the various countries keep up their communications.  
_

 _In a perfect world, then we'd be in a good enough position that I could stop thinking so hard for myself and let the League do the planning and the thinking for me. I'd keep training, maybe go Super Saiyan God, and we could take the fight to Salem._

 _Of course, this is far from a perfect world, and there's one more 'hero' I have to draw from in order to make sure this crazy-ass plan of mine works._

 _Ozzymandias._

 _In Watchmen, Adrian Veidt ended up turning out to be the whole big bad guy. He orchestrated the hero murderers, got Doctor Manhattan, who was basically God with a big 'G' and was the only one who could stop his plans, to leave the planet, and orchestrated the deaths of millions and the traumatization of millions **more.** However, he did so with arguably good intentions, as his attack couldn't be traced to him or anyone else, would be construed as an alien invasion, and would avert World War 3 and the extinction of mankind. And, he arguably did so in such a way that stopping or exposing him would then be the evil option, as it would bring everything right back to where it was, and would thus send the world down to nuclear war and kill everyone. _

_He was the very definition of an anti-villain._

 _If I'm going to go with my whole 'Departed' plan, I've basically got to model everything I do after him. I am going to have to work with killers and terrorists, assist in the attempted murder of a demi-goddess, and depending on how far things end up going before my changes can take root and have an effect, also assist in the downfall of an entire nation, the apocalyptic destruction of an entire information network, **and** the deaths of tens to hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people. _

_I don't want things to go that far, but the alternative is me dying, or, arguably worse, Cinder and Salem winning, and killing everyone. They already have access to my world through their 'Ritual', after they win here it would not be hard for them to go to Earth and wreck everyone there. While I think that, due to a higher population and (very) arguably more advanced technology, we may be able to hold our own and **maybe** win, the biggest wild card and the biggest problem would be the superpowers they' all be going up against. With that kind of a wild card, my people would be Hell, and these, an entire army of Doomguys.  
_

 _And if that doesn't work for you, just swap Hell and Doomguy for Covenant and Master Chief._

 _It occurs to me now that anyone reading this will either, A, be from this world and not understanding of half of the references I make, or B - be survivors/explorers from my world into here, and likely not even interested in these things, and **still** not understand the references. _

_Shit._

 _Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that I've got to sell no small part of my soul in order to be properly positioned to be able to cut the head off of the serpent, and to put the entire **world** in a better spot to war against Salem, and save more lives than I will end. If I win... Well, Humanity - Fuck Yeah! Then I'll just have to find some way to get over the shit I'll have done. If I lose... Well, I'll die, so I won't have to worry about living with my actions, and there is fortunately one more backup option. _

_Ruby Rose._

 _Goddamn show's **named** after her. Should be a pretty good indicator of who the main character is. Yes, there is the rest of her team, but I would argue them being major supporting characters as opposed to main protagonists, but now I'm going into semantics. Regardless, that's my backup. If **I** fuck up, the laws of Being An Anime Main Character say she's got just as good a shot of not fucking up, and none of the moral ambiguity to boot._

 _The problem, however, is that since enough had changed here to lead to them summoning me, that means that enough could continue to change that my foreknowledge, and thus her all-but-guaranteed victory, could all be thrown out and useless as anything more than a reference guide. Maybe back home, to tell a good story, she would have been guaranteed victory, but now? Now things have changed, and the only thing she'd guaranteed to have is a **shot.** There is no more guarantee, and that's why I can't fuck up, because now things aren't an anime, they're real. I could lose, I could die - she could lose, **she** could die, and then everyone's fucked. _

_What I'm hoping is that I'll get a halfway decent set of powers when they 'wake up' my aura. If all goes well, I'll become Saitama and all my problems will be solved. If it doesn't... Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it._

 _Christ._

 _Well, fortune favors the bold, right? It's how Nathan Drake's ass survived this long._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

It took him a long time of sitting in his Magic Chair to finally fall asleep. Fortunately, this was where his injuries actually helped instead of hindering him - once he did fall asleep, he didn't wake back up until he was good and ready. The sun was high in the sky, the air had warmed up to a sweltering degree, and right in front of his face was the dark skin and mint-green hair of Emerald Sustral.

"Jesus!" Aldric nearly fell out of his impromptu bed, before he carefully scrambled to his feet. "And good morning to you too!" He was silently thankful he hardly had enough blood in his body to suffer from certain 'issues' every man had to deal with every morning.

"I was checking to see how you were faring. It's been two days." She said, a wet cloth in her hands.

Aldric blinked, "it has?" Now that she mentioned it, his stomach felt empty and his throat was once again drier than a desert. "Shit... Sorry." He shook his head, running his hand through his hair, careful to not disturb the bandages. He yawned, "hope things haven't gotten fun while I was out." He waved Emerald out of the cabin.

"If you are referring to the Grim, there was a minor encounter but we dealt with it." Emerald said, leading Aldric outside.

He saw Cinder and Mercury hovering around a small pot, from which a delightful smell was wafting. Mercury noticed him walking first, and elbowed Cinder, before nodding in his direction. Cinder's neutral expression warmed when she saw him, and she stood to her feet to greet him.

"Aldric." She nodded, "I am glad to see you've woken up."

Aldric grinned, "is that surprise I hear? It almost sounds like you didn't even _expect_ me to wake up... Right here." He tapped his chest with his good hand, "that hurts, right here."

Cinder gave him an odd look, "a rather unexpected turnaround from your demeanor the other night, I notice." She baded Aldric sit around their breakfast pot.

Aldric sat, "I was tired, cranky, very confused, and in a lot of pain." He explained, "I'm sorry if I pissed you guys off. It was just... A _lot_ to take in and process, and I don't have a lot of blood to prioritize complex thought over just surviving." He shrugged. "What're we eating?"

"Lunch." Mercury responded, "hope you like beef stew."

"I'll eat anything warm after a week on rations." He said, as the silver-haired teen stirred the pot. He let the silence last a moment, before he turned to Cinder. "So." She turned to him, expectantly. "Say I choose to run with you guys. What would I have to do?"

Cinder grinned, "is that a yes, Aldric?"

"Not yet, it's not." He said, "what'll I have to do?"

She gave him a conciliatory nod, "once we awaken your aura, we will need to train you, get you new clothes and a weapon. At the moment we are working on building our resources, and we've a few stops to make and people to see in that vein." She explained, "we've one major goal we hope to reach, but at the moment it is out of our grasp, and it will have to wait."

Aldric yawned, "I assume that kind of knowledge is need to know?" He said, "and I wouldn't have the _need,_ unless I say yes?"

Cinder nodded.

He let out a sigh, "and you're certain this is all for the good?" He asked, letting it lay on a little thick. "My people... We've got a little history with this kind of stuff."

Here it was Emerald who spoke up, "I can assure you, Aldric. This is the right thing to do."

He maintained eye contact with Cinder, who eventually acquiesced, and nodded herself. "It is."

"Then... I guess I'll roll with you guys." He said, with a firm nod.

Cinder smiled wide, "good, Aldric. You made the right choice." She turned to face him, "are you ready now?"

He blinked, " _now,_ now? Damn, you don't mess around." He shifted to face her too. "How do we do this?"

Cinder raised her hand, it covered in an elbow-length, white glove. "Close your eyes." Warily, he did so. "Prepare yourself. This may feel strange." And no sooner had she spoken than did he see a bright light welling up from behind his closed eyes.

A moment later, he felt as if there was a great, crushing pressure all around him, but before he could even try to breathe, the pressure increased. It grew so quickly and so large that he felt as if his chest were being kept under an insurmountable weight. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move. His heart quickened its pace, he tried to tell the psycho doing this to him that something was wrong that -

And then it happened.

Like a pin pricking the outside of a water balloon, Cinder found at the great well of Aura within him, and the second she opened it, it, quite literally, exploded. His ears were ringing so loudly that he couldn't hear anything past them, and he was only jarred back to the land of the living by the his sudden return to and impact with the ground, though whether he was sent flying, or tossed into the air, he didn't know.

The instant he touched the ground, the ringing in his ears cleared up, a lot of the pain in his arm, chest, legs, and head vanished, to be replaced only by the brief lance of pain he got from landing on his back. He was dizzy for only a moment as he knocked his head on the dirt, but that vanished in seconds, too. Those weren't the only changes he noticed, however - his heart didn't slow down, and it felt as if a full dose of adrenaline was running through his system. Opening his eyes, he had to clench them shut again, as the sky above was too bright, the colors so vivid that they stunned him back into the darkness.

He groaned in pain as he lifted himself up, he could hear voices, it sounded like Mercury. _"Cinder!"_ He shouted, before the sounds of feet stomping at the ground.

Aldric clenched at the side of his head and slowly, cautiously, opened his eyes. Everything was brighter, but his eyes adjusted as he continued opening them. The green grass and the brown dirt below him had taken on a more vivid, vibrant hue. The greens more green, the brown more brown. It was almost as if what he had been looking at before had been made from sub-par materials, shot in grayscale and then washed out again for good measure. He lifted his head and saw that he was at the end of a long groove torn in the ground, and Cinder had been shot into the fuselage, denting its hull. Emerald and Mercury seemed to have been shot away as well, and the campfire and the pot had vanished, their contents spilled across the ground.

It was as Aldric groaned and hauled himself to his feet, that it dawned on him that the pain in both of his legs was gone. He looked to the arm that had been broken, marveling at the fact that he could move his fingers, that there wasn't any pain in the joints. He wouldn't be breaking off the cast just by flexing, but he could definitely feel a difference between right now, and minutes ago. It was like someone poured lightning into his veins. Even the air seemed to smell and taste different. Was he processing oxygen better? Or was it the sensory overload?

He dropped his bandaged arm back to its cradling position and jogged back to Cinder. When he made it to the fuselage, Mercury had torn the woman who would be the Fall Maiden from it, and Emerald arrived just a moment later. Cinder held her hand to her head, shaking away the impact against the hull. It was now, as he stood so close to the three of them, that Aldric realized he could feel something else. Like a fire in the air, it was radiating off of the three of them, but in different, distinct ways. Off of Emerald, it was wispy and cold, like smoke. Off of Mercury, it was harsh and fast, like wind. Off of Cinder, it was hot and raging, like a fire.

 _Oh... I'm definitely in sensory overload territory right now._ He knelt down, "are you okay?" He asked, a strength and depth to his voice that hadn't been there minutes ago.

Cinder nodded, "I shall be fine." She waved them all off, before straightening up and flattening out her dress, before giving Aldric a once-over. "And you? How do you feel?"

This time, his pause wasn't an act, but rather a genuine reflection, as he raised his good hand and examined it. He clenched it into a fist, before he let it go, and looked back up. "Taller." He grinned.

A second later, he collapsed again.

* * *

"Alright. He lasted longer than I thought he would." Emerald deadpanned, as she watched Aldric fall to his back with a light 'thump'.

"What is it he keeps saying? That curse from his world? 'Jesus'? I think that works, here - _Jesus_ I can feel that!" Mercury said, grabbing the crash survivor by his shoulders and hauling him over his own like a sack of potatoes. "I'm not the only one, right?" He gave his compatriots each a look, "it feels like I'm standing next to the _sun."_ He walked backwards, followed by Cinder and Emerald. "What the hell would have happened if we'd gotten someone older?"

Cinder rebuked his implications, "we would have traded more aura for an aged and less capable body." She said, looking at the devastation around her.

The explosion hadn't been predicted, but it very well should have been. Both halves of the fuselage of the airplane had been blasted back several feet, digging up the earth behind them. The trees were still swaying from the shockwave, much of the grass had been flattened as if steamrolled, and the wind was howling loudly. They were effectively a walking beacon for any Grimm in the area, but that wouldn't last long; once he woke up again the first thing she would have to teach him would be to suppress that. They couldn't have grimm or, dust forbid, _huntsman_ walking up to him like a lighthouse in a stormy night.

"Emerald, grab his things." She said, nodding over to the airplane. "We'll take them with us, let him decide what he keeps. We need to put some distance between us and here, we've already spent too much time here." It had been a minor miracle that any airships or faculty from Beacon hadn't passed over the area and seen his crash site; that would have thrown her entire plan out of the window.

"Wait, if she's grabbing his crap - " Mercury stopped dead, the unconscious crash survivor's limbs swinging freely. "You're not expecting me to carry him all the way, are you?! I thought we would just set up camp again, I was going to drop him by the fire!" Cinder could tell that if he wasn't still worried about his injuries, Mercury may have dropped the survivor out of spite.

"Well we should hope he wakes up quicker this time." Said Cinder, with a pitying tap on the shoulder, as Emerald disappeared into the front half of Aldric's airship. "Let us hurry. If Ozpin and his staff at Beacon hadn't had a hint of something out here yet, they certainly do now." She continued walking.


	6. We're Gonna Need A Montage

Chapter 5

* * *

If he survived his little adventure long enough to achieve victory, and hopefully be vindicated for the Ozzymandias-level of bad things he would have to do, Aldric fully intended to force whoever was in charge of the proceedings to allow him to choose his own epitaph. He already had it picked out, too: "Died as he lived. Like Nathan Drake."

One would only have to see his accounts of his first week in remnant to be given proof. Survived things he shouldn't have? Check. Fought supernatural demons? Check. Found ancient ruins? Check. Treasure hunted through said ruins? The 'treasure' part was arguable, but on the whole, check. Blown up those ruins, whether or not he was done with them? Double check. Really, the only thing he hadn't been able to do was get involved with the mystic magical shenanigans that always seemed to follow Drake around near the tail end of his adventures. Well, once he awoke his Aura, he could put a check on that too.

It was official.

There was no denying it.

Nebo Aldric _was_ Nathan Drake.

If he ever had to choose an assumed name, one could bet their ass he'd choose that.

His most recent extended comatic nap had only lasted twenty four hours, though fortunately this time, when he woke up, he actually felt _rested._ He and his new group - a thought that would take him some time to get used to - decided it prudent to set up camp to deal with some priorities. The first being Aldric's injuries, they checked under the bandages and found, to his delight, that aside from the scars they were all gone. There was still some stiffness to his joints, and he wondered if his arm would ever stop clicking when he raised it above his head, but aside from that, _nothing._ He had been healed.

The second priority had been his things from the airplane. Poor Emerald hadn't known what all he considered his own, versus what he'd appropriated for his use, so she'd been forced to lug _everything_ he'd stashed in the cockpit and on his lucky chair across the how many miles they had traveled in the twenty four hour interim. Cinder explained, as Aldric opened up the stash, that he could only keep what he could carry - the rest had to be burned, with her explanation being that since, technically, they were going against many multiple governments, they needed to keep stealth, maneuverability, and anonymity paramount above all else, so they couldn't carry much beyond the necessities. Though she assured him that once they reached their makeshift base of operations, he would have a place to let off his weight and store his personal items. It made sense to Aldric, so he spent the next hour sorting through everything.

After some debates, he decided to keep all of the tablets and cords he'd looted, however from the laptops, he kept one of each brand, and the rest, he simply gutted, taking out hard-drives, spare parts, and any essential electronics he would need for repairs. He wanted to keep what little data and evidence of Earth he could, and fortunately, his galvanizing of what would have been a minor fortune's worth of electronics saved him a lot of weight and room. He wrapped the sensitive electronics and spare parts in shirts to keep them from being damaged. With access to electricity, Aldric prayed he'd be able to put his aptitude for engineering to work and be able to actually _access_ these hard drives, in a way that wouldn't last only until they ran out of their charge.

After securing his effects, he turned to his clothes, swapped into a set less bloodstained, stashed some jeans, underwear, and T-shirts from home and, after a few minutes' consideration, two of his fathers' Oktoberfest and Concert shirts. Then he grabbed his father's wallet, and phone too. He made sure those were on his person, along with his own wallet and his own phone. He missed the fat man. He kept the drugs and most of the medical supplies, as well as the maps, flight manifest, and of course he kept his Gerber knife, though he conceded and didn't bother keeping the fire axe. Finally, he grabbed some of the physical books he'd appropriated, and once he had it all packed and distributed that the weight wouldn't kill him during their travels, he set everything else aside and watched as Cinder used her aura to set fire to the rest.

He cracked a grin, and, watching the fire dart from Cinder's outstretched hands, nodded. "Damn, Hot Stuff. I'm supposed to be able to do that?" He said, with an impressed tone.

Emerald turned to stare at him with eyes as wide as dinner plates, Mercury about collapsed from laughter once it dawned on him what Aldric had said. Cinder, likely hoping her lack of a reaction would mean he'd give it up, as was often the case with Mercury and his chastising of Emerald, ignored it, and turned to Aldric, one hand on her hip.

"Perhaps not that specifically." She hummed, "I assume you paid attention to that?" She asked, to Aldric's nod. "Good. As I said at the crash sight, you've a major abundance of aura within you. Equivalent to a huntsman many times your age and skill. However, you've no control over it whatsoever." She said, bluntly. "And that means, to anyone with even a minor sensory ability, you are like a walking bonfire of aura. I would not be surprised if the staff at the local huntsman academy could feel the fringes of your energy, and we've been actively fleeing in the opposite direction since yesterday."

"I assume you intend to solve that?" Aldric concluded.

Cinder nodded, "your training will begin now. I'll instruct you for an hour, after which, the best means of education would be a trial by fire."

Aldric blinked, "wait, what do you mean 'trial by fire?'..." If she was going to set his ass on fire, he had a healthy body to run with, superpowers to defend himself with, and a certain Academy that functioned damn well as a backup option. The Shadow Broker contingency was still _more_ than possible, at this juncture!

"She means..." Said Mercury, who was a meters away and was gathering dead wood for use as kindling. "That the fastest way to teach someone is to put them in a position where they damn well need to use the skill they're being taught. You need to know how to hide your aura, so we're going to play hide and seek for keeps."

Aldric's shoulders slumped, but his face remained blank, and his eyes wide. "Oh, okay... I'm not going to be maimed, am I?"

Cinder responded with, "that is up to you. Now focus, here." She gestured for him to sit, and when he joined her, he felt the fiery heat from before suddenly perk its head up. Now that he could conclude that it was her aura, he supposed it made a little sense. "Shutting your eyes may help. Now, I want you to feel within yourself. Feel for the energy we have awoken."

"Interesting choice of words... Considering you're basically telling me to use a limb I never knew I had." Aldric deadpanned, as he looked down at his hands and his stomach, shutting his eyes. He wasn't being entirely snide, as her words did help out a bit. That the aura had never been there in the first place, it helped in him searching for it. After a few minutes of veritable, and perhaps literal, soul-searching, he was able to isolate it. Describing the search, it was akin to not noticing how many times a day one swallowed their own saliva out of reflex, until they had a sore throat. Feeling the aura inside of him, it was as if someone had placed a ball of fire in his stomach, and finding it and focusing on it, it left him with a partially intoxicating feeling, setting his blood ablaze. It was a feeling akin to that same sense of ecstatic satisfaction one got after having overcome a great physical challenge.

Opening his eyes, Aldric saw, radiating off of him, golden, raging flames, not at all doing anything to convince him he was anything _but_ a super saiyan. Looking up, he saw Cinder nodding. "Good." She said, "tell me what you're doing right now. Describe to me how you are calling to your aura."

His hands were shaking, as he splayed out his fingers and looked over them. "It feels like a... Ball of fire in my stomach. I'm just... Grabbing it. Feeling it." He muttered, from behind a frown of concentration.

Cinder regarded him a moment, "then I want you to let go of this fire. I want you to place it back where you found it, and then isolate yourself from it. Do not think of it, do not touch it, move closer to it... Do not acknowledge it in any way. Smother it, like a flame you must put out. Cover it, like a fire you must lower the intensity of."

That ended up being what took up the most time. Every time he made a step forward, there was a slipup that sent him two steps back. To visualize the metaphor, if his aura was indeed the ball of fire he described, touching it was intoxicating, it made him feel warm, and set his blood ablaze. Letting it go, it brought a chill to his bones, as if his body alone wasn't warm enough to sustain him. He felt initially as if he were freezing, as if he couldn't survive without that warmth. It took far more than the hour given to him, and more hints and instructions from Cinder, and indeed her traveling companions, before Aldric finally nailed down a method.

He thought it akin to a cold pool. The worst part was the anticipation - one knew it was cold, and anticipating and agonizing over it, slipping in an inch at a time, it only made the ordeal all the worse. However, if they simply dove in and submerged themselves completely, held their breath and just waited as long as they could, it would shock the body into a brief fight or flight. They would adapt far quicker and far easier just by diving headfirst, than they would if they waited and agonized over it. In order to suppress his bonfire, he couldn't just slowly edge away from the fireball, he had to drop the sucker and _run,_ effectively diving into the pool the moment he got his swimwear on. Once he got that down, he tried adding on another layer to it. To keep with the visual metaphor, before he booked it from the fireball, he dropped a huge, thick thermal blanket on it to smother the flames, and _then_ he ran.

It worked, but it was clear it didn't work nearly as well as Cinder and her group. When Cinder 'smothered' her 'flame', so to speak, Aldric couldn't feel a damn thing. When he tried, however, Emerald - from several meters away on the other side of the camp - called out and said she could still feel him. Mercury even popped up from right behind him, from out of nowhere, scared the hell out of him, and said he had a _long_ way to go. Then they decided to stop giving him extra time and told him the rules of their little training exercise.

Mercury's description had been apt. It was hide and seek for keeps. Aldric had to run and hide, and suppress his aura. He had to remain hidden for an hour, and if they found him, that was the hour reset for the next round. If he couldn't make the cut before dark, Cinder promised him only half of a meal - as incentive. Aldric would call it torture, but fortunately he'd eaten his fill of lunch. If it came by dark and he still hadn't gotten it, they'd call it quits and try again in the morning, though then he would have the added challenge of keeping on the move, so they wouldn't be bogged down in one spot for too long.

Then, Cinders words had been, "Dust help you if you don't get it by _tomorrow_ night.", and the tone with which she had spoke set Aldric's teeth on edge.

He was given a sixty second head start.

He booked it, running for forty five seconds, before he found a small pile of rocks, branches and dirt, hid behind it, and tried smothering his aura.

It took then three minutes to find him. Searching in a wide line, with their senses just overlapping with the edge of the others', finding him had been child's play. His second try lasted even less long, as he had been winded from the dead sprint from the first one. On the third attempt, he ran for half of the time limit and then tried obeying every single one of his simian instincts and climbed a tree. It took them _four_ minutes to find him. Progress, but at this rate he clearly wouldn't be eating a full dinner tonight.

By the time he had wasted an hour of cat and mouse hide and seek, he tried a different method to suppress his aura. Instead of smothering it with a blanket, he tried burying it, visualizing him just locking it into an Acme safe and shoving that safe as far down as he could, effectively burying it. That bought him a ten minute glimmer of hope, until he slipped in his concentration and was found mere seconds later. Subsequent attempts got him up to fifteen minutes, but as the sun grew higher, he knew that this method wasn't working.

With smothering and burying it out of the question, but each one better than the last, Aldric figured the next logical step would be crushing it. So this time he pictured a vice grip, enveloping the fireball and pressing down as hard as it could. It got him to twenty minutes, but now the sun was growing dangerously low in the sky. He only had one more chance at this. This last time, he tried moving to the next logical step and compressing it as far as it could go. He visualized the fireball going from the size of a softball, to that of an atom. It worked for thirty minutes, but then he stumbled forward, Mercury heard the noise and zeroed in on him.

Aldric didn't even realize he'd been knocked out until he woke up hours later, with a start, and the smell of food.

He shot up, and shook his head. "Ow!" He gave Mercury a look.

The assassin's son shrugged. "We never said we _wouldn't_ attack." Was all he gave, as he filled his plate.

Aldric felt for the welt on the back of his head, slightly surprised with how small it was. When he was given his food, it was a pitiful portion when compared to the full helpings of his new comrades. Regardless, he was hungry, and he ate ravenously.

"So, Aldric." Mercury spoke up, attracting Aldric's arced eyebrow. "What's your world like?"

Aldric swallowed a mass of potatoes and thought a moment. "Loud, scary, big, and small." He said, with a shrug.

"Enlightening." Mercury deadpanned.

"Care to elaborate?" Emerald asked, as Cinder silently listened to the exchange.

"Well..." He felt he had to choose his words carefully, considering he didn't know if they had any plans for his world, once their time here was said and done. Though, that being said, they'd implied to him that they had watched it, so he knew he couldn't lie to them, either. "The cities are big, and the people don't shut up. They'll yell and scream about anything that pisses them off, and God help you if you piss the wrong person or the wrong group of people off. It's a massive place and few ever see the whole of it, but it's also so inter-connected that a person on one end of the planet could get an accurate feel for the other end by talking to the other people." He explained, scooping up what little food was still on his plate, and, after catching the wash cloth thrown by Mercury, he began wiping it down.

 _"But..._ While I may be biased, I'd still say it's a good place, at heart. The leaders suck, but the people... Well, it's kind of a mixed bag. Problem is the smart people don't talk enough, and the stupid ones can't shut up." He'd keep to himself the fact that he never shut up either, and how indicative it was of what half of the spectrum he fell on. He _willingly_ joined what equated to a doomsday terrorist cult, for chrissakes, that should say enough.

But he continued nonetheless, "despite this, if you need help, like really need it, you'd be surprised what people are capable of... Just as you'd be surprised how common common sense really is, under the surface. Folks know what the problems are and are willing to do a lot more than they're given credit for, to fix it." He explained, "and when we band together, we _get shit done."_

Emerald hummed, "what do you mean by that?"

"Well, one time, one of our leaders decided that we would go to moon. Within nine years. Despite the fact that hardly _any_ of the technology and science we'd need to do such a thing even existed at that point. Eight years later..." He nodded up to their shattered stellar satellite. "We fuckin' _did_ it. Put it in other words, two hundred years ago we didn't have railroads. One hundred years ago, we didn't have airplanes. Fifty, we didn't have spaceflight, and twenty five years ago we didn't have the Internet. Our entire existence is owed to persistence, endurance, and determination. When we put ourselves to a task, it gets done, period." He paused, thoughtfully. "Kind of like your people, I think. You were beset upon on all sides by the Grimm, but instead of lying down, you banded together, found Dust, and pushed them back. Made civilization out of Hell." He explained.

"Wait -" Emerald pointed at him, "your people have been to the moon?" She asked. "I thought you said you burn hydrogen and gas to fuel your machines, since you don't have Dust. How did you not die?"

"Our space agencies are some of the most careful people on the planet, Emerald. They'll convene entire boards and have six hour meetings and eight hour test and retest runs just to tell their astronauts which button to hit on a keyboard if their computers don't work. They don't do _anything_ unless they know it's as safe as it can possibly be... And, yeah, we use gas to get places." Aldric shrugged, as he checked his plate. "But you're not doing science right if something isn't exploding." He lowered it, "your people don't have spaceflight?"

Mercury shook his head, "we _tried,_ but everything we have is powered by Dust, and that stops working once we leave Remnant's atmosphere."

Aldric hummed, "tough luck."

"It's still more reliable than burning things to get places."

Aldric gave him an agreeing nod, "I'll give you that. We've been burning shit so long that we're screwing up our atmosphere. Whole planet's warming up, icecaps are melting, oceans are rising..." He shook his head.

"So, if your people don't have Dust, how do you fight?" Emerald asked.

"Same way we get anywhere. Blowin' shit up." He handed the plate to Cinder, who stuffed it in Mercury's bag. "We shove a bunch of highly combustible materials inside the casing of a bullet, ignite them, and then the bullet goes its merry way."

"And... Cars, and airships?"

"Gas. Light it on fire, let it explode, catch the energy, turn it into electricity."

"Do your people blow _everything_ up?!" Mercury laughed.

Aldric nodded emphatically, "actually it's one of my favorite things about my species. We've _literally_ got a holiday where I come from, dedicated to launching miniature rockets and watching them explode in pretty colors. Shit, We sent a robot out into space, to land on one of the other planets in our solar system. Want to know what it does, while it's up there? It shoots the shit out of the planet with lasers to get samples of soil and rock deeper than it can scoop." He held up his thumb, "I mean, the lasers are hardly bigger than my thumb, but it's the thought that counts." He chuckled, "we've even got a space station, out in orbit. Since we couldn't launch the thing from the earth to space, we launched it in parts and built it up there." He nodded to the sky. "And to make sure it was livable, we literally caught air in a can, compressed it down, sent it up, and let it loose. But since its orbit is constantly decaying, every now and then it has to - and I swear I'm not making this up - shoot out the very atmosphere it uses to keep its occupants alive, to generate the thrust to keep it afloat." Well, sure, it came from sources beyond the life support systems, and he'd skipped a lot of details, but he didn't feel like explaining that part. He much preferred to make his people seem like they were insane.

And from the looks on his new companions, it was working. Even Cinder was giving him funny looks.

"Do I even want to know how you treat people with medicine?" Mercury asked.

Aldric grinned - they'd _love_ this. "Well, to treat cancer, we actively poison people with sub-lethal doses." Though that would be as far as he went in relation to that - he wasn't sure if Remnant even had access to nuclear technology, so he wanted to at least keep Earth studies on radiation and nuclear physics a secret. That way, worst case scenario, Salem won, and turned her eyes to Earth, they'd always have the nuclear option. "Then we literally cut it out. With knives." Very small knives, but the point was still valid. "Oh yeah - and people can elect to have corrective eye surgery, so they don't need to wear glasses. They do this by shooting their eyes with lasers and _burning off_ parts of their eye until they can see better."

Mercury leaned over to Emerald, "remind me to _never_ piss him off." He leaned back, "now I'm starting to understand why you exploded when we woke up your aura."

Aldric leaned back and laughed, "I'll take that as a compliment." He chuckled. "So... How about you guys tell me a few things?" He asked, "I know we're on the move... But to where? Who's door are we going to knock on?" Or down, as the case may be.

Mercury exchanged a brief glance with Cinder, who nodded her head, as she wiped off her own plate. "There's a pretty powerful gang leader I convinced Cinder here she needs to get in touch with. I've got a few connections that are going to set up a meeting with him, but we've been waiting on you. Since you're up, we're going to head to Vale proper to meet up with him."

Aldric nodded. "And after him?" It occured to him now, as the moon climbed higher in the sky, that he wouldn't be sleeping on his Magic Chair. After this, he vowed that, if he ever returned to this area, the first thing he would do would be to find his chair. It deserved better than to be left to rot in the woods.

"The leader of a major Faunus rights faction." Cinder responded, "we are hoping both of them can provide resources to make something of an armed forces, when the need arises."

 _I wonder if they'll ever trust me to give me the full story._ He reasoned that it would probably be if he stuck with them through the events of Volume Three and beyond. Until then, they would probably stick to their whole 'freedom fighters' shtick. "I notice you say _when."_ He said, leaning back and planting his hands on the small of his back, stretching.

"As do your people seem, so are ours a violent kind." Said Cinder.

"I'll give you that." Aldric leaned back forward with a quick exhale. "Humans and violence are like moths to a flame." Sometimes it was a good thing, others? Not so much.

The night didn't last long after that. They quickly broke up to assemble tents and sleeping bags, Aldric was given a spare. Though he noted with some amusement that each of them gave him impressed looks when he assembled his without any need for assistance - he would be forever thankful for his hunting trips with his grandfather.

However, "why the hell does your tent look like that?" Mercury asked, standing next to Aldric and cupping his chin with his hand.

Aldric gave him a confused frown, and then looked back to his tent. He'd set it up in the classic A-frame pitch, and though it wasn't a good pitch and his grandfather probably would have had him tear it down if he'd seen it, there still wasn't anything _wrong_ with it, it was classic because it worked. "What do you mean?" He turned around, and saw the problem.

Everyone else's tents were square, like small cubes. They reminded Aldric of prefabricated structures, back home.

"Well... Shit." And _that_ was why there had been so much excess cloth and spare parts. That had confused the hell out of him, though he'd thought it was there in case there was damage to the tent.

He heard Mercury chuckle, "you know, you've got a mouth on you."

Aldric looked up at the assassin's son. "My parents were sailors." A beat, "they, traditionally, swear like nobody's business. The phrase being curse like a sailor." He provided the fighter, who nodded in gratitude.

"Well, none of us really have a problem with it... But I hope you can switch it off, considering some others may." Mercury gave Aldric a pat on the back.

Aldric shrugged, "I survived a plane crash, a demon attack, and multiple explosions with nothing but a flare gun, an axe, and a knife. I think I have the right to a few bad words." Though, he would admit, he saw Mercury's point, as well as the olive branch - Mercury was trying to give him some advice.

That advice being: Shut the hell up, or clean your mouth.

* * *

 _For The Record_

 _Captain's Log. Stardate... I don't know. Believe it or not, I wasn't much of a Star Trek fan back home._

 _Anyways, spent the day today figuring out how to access my aura. According to Cinder and Co., I am the sensory equivalent to a giant gout of fire in a pitch black clearing. Anyone worth their salt, or anyone with a cheap-ass mechanical Aura sensor, would be able to locate me. It'd be like finding a person screaming into a megaphone in the middle of a dead silent library._

 _So I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to mask my energy. Unfortunately, Krillin, I am not (at least according to them), and a 'Stealth Mode', I don't have._

 _Problem: It's really goddamn hard to use a limb I never even knew existed before today. The best comparison I can draw is wiggling your ears. Some can do it, but unless you know how, all the teaching in the world won't magically grant you the stupid human trick. For some, it comes naturally - they've done it forever, so it's just natural to them. For others, it's a limb, or a group of muscles, they have not once ever used, and as such it's all but impossible for them to do so._

 _Fortunately I'm making progress. I made it halfway to their 'hide for an hour' rule, before I fucked up and got caught. I'm hoping I'll get better tomorrow, but the problem there will be we'll be on the move._

 _Now, since you're reading this, I doubt you can tell, but I'm one scrawny bastard, and I wasn't in too good shape back home. I wasn't necessarily weak, but pretty much all of my friends could outrun me, or outbench me. I don't even lift, bro. So crossing god-knows-how many miles to get back to civilization is going to be one hell of a Spartan initiation trial._

 _Hopefully my newfound superpowers will help me adapt quicker, but considering right now all I'm working on is actively **not** using them, I'm not too keen on my chances. _

_Also, good news for any Earth-Humans (still working on a better name) out there. In case you **do** go to war with Remnant under Salem, and win, and discover my little record: _

_If everyone from Remnant was utterly terrified of your guts, that was my doing. I made a few jokes and suddenly found myself having entirely too much fun making Cinder and Co. think we're all fucking insane. Told them about how we powered machines (burning gas... Controlled explosions), how we fly to space (burning oxygen... A much more powerful controlled explosion), how we study mars (shooting the shit out of it with lasers), how we fight wars (micro-explosions to propel projectiles at kill-velocities), and how we treat Cancer (we actively poison our sick so we can have a **chance** to cut that shit out of them.)_

 _It's working._

 _As an aside, I'll be diligent in skipping any mentions of nuclear physics and WMD's. I've got something of a reason to suspect that the folks here in Remnant don't have nukes, or anything even approaching the like, so in the interests of preserving **some** kind of tangible advantage over them, I'll keep it to myself. It makes me wonder if they even have the concept of WMD's themselves, but I digress. _

_Also: I still don't know how to read Remnant English._

 _I hope to fix this soon._

 _Anyways, to wrap things up, our first stop seems to be heading to find Roman Torchwick's ass and recruit him for our little Totally-Not-A-Terrorist-Army. Hopefully that'll go well._

 _If I had to guess, we're rapidly drawing up on the whole Fall Maiden fight, and if that's the case, I understand why they're hounding my ass with this aura control stuff. I guarantee you they'll actively start trying to kill me once it's time to learn to use it to fight._

 _I still don't know what powers I've gotten, and without their instruction I can't try experimenting on my own_ to _figure out. This also means I can't even start to think about what weapons or equipment I should consider, because I don't know what my abilities are and what kind of anything will compliment them. For all I know I can make stuff explode with my mind, so I should probably get a flak jacket. But I may very well also be able to freeze things solid, so I'd probably want... Well, funny as it may be:A chisel.  
_

 _Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I've ruled out the Saitama option, as I got knocked out earlier today, and there ain't **nothing** that can knock that bastard out.  
And I still have my hair, so, you know. There's that. _

_But I still may have the Super Saiyan thing going for me, and if that's the case, while not as easily solved as the One Punch Man route, things will still look good for my survival prospects. I'm all but certain Krillin could kick ass here in Remnant, let alone someone like Goku. Folks here just **don't** have that kind of destructive capability._

 _And it may be I'll get something completely out of left field, and I'll have to get creative with it._

 _But I swear to god, if I get Heart, I'll shoot myself.  
What kind of lame power is Heart, anyway?_

 _Actually, wait, couldn't Ma-Ti mind control people? He just... Didn't?_  
 _Shit._  
 _I take it back: Give me heart, and I'll solve all of the world's problems in... Like... A day._  
 _A week tops._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

The next morning, hardly minutes after he finished tearing apart his tent, he was appraised of the new rules of their little training game. He was given a few maps, shown where they were on the local one, and had a few close by landmarks pointed out, and then he had a location near its edge marked as their end destination. The goal, he was told, was to get there within seven days. Being told it was one hundred and fifty miles away dampened his spirits a bit. The rules of the game were simple: The route they would take would be marked by these landmarks, he had to make it to them before the rest of them did, hide, and once they arrived and signaled the start of the clock, pray they took longer than an hour to find him. If they did, he'd have to run to the _next_ landmark - none of them closer than five miles apart - and hide there.

When they said trial by fire, they weren't kidding. They were going as Spartan as they could with all of this. Now, even though he had _no_ conscious control over it whatsoever, there were passive effects to having aura flowing through him as freely as it was now. He equated it to him going from Steve Rogers to Captain America. Even without using the aura consciously to amplify his strength, speed, stamina, and whathaveyou, the passive effects were enough to make him superhuman to Earth standards. He desperately wished he had a way to chart these with numbers, and also wondered what was the difference between him and Jaune Arc, since he didn't remember him getting any passive buffs, but he digressed, simply attributing it to the difference between Pyrrah's opening Jaune's aura, and Cinder doing the same. Besides, now wasn't the time for study. That comes later.

Regardless of these passive enhancements, however, he still had physical limits. His body may be enhanced, but it still wasn't used to the strenuous work he was putting it through, and it was made even worse since his _incredibly_ intelligent self had weighed himself down with all of the stuff he wouldn't give up from the plane crash. He still was able to run far longer and far faster than he'd ever been able to before, but that didn't change the fact that his body needed to acclimate to the stress he was putting it through. The first landmark they had designated was about fifteen miles away, and through a combination of not knowing how to navigate very well in the woods, not being given anything but _emergency_ help from his new 'friends', and his body still needing to adapt to both his aura and the physical exertion he was putting it through, it took him a few hours. It was a small, grassy green mountain, only about a mile high at its peak, but its distinguishing factor was the complete lack of trees, and a clear view of the plateaus to the east - the opposite direction they were headed.

They were waiting on him when he showed up, none of them were even winded, and he was panting and covered in a thin film of sweat.

Because he was late, they hardly gave him thirty seconds.

On the upside, however, he lasted thirty _minutes._ Considering how exhausted he was now compared to the day previous, he felt that a significant improvement, despite no empirical advancement.

The next landmark was only ten miles away. He was able to make it there in a little over ninety minutes, though he felt that perhaps he could have shortened that time, had he not accidentally started walking circles for a good twenty minutes. The problem was everything looked the same, and the trees were so massive that it was hard to see the sky from underneath the thick, vibrant green leaves. He'd only managed to get out of it by carving up trees with his knife. Again, however, they were waiting for him, and Mercury wore a smug look the entire hunt, this time. Aldric knew it was to piss him off and make him slip up, he knew it was to get him used to suppressing his aura in any situation. He knew this, and it still worked. He didn't last longer than twenty minutes before Cinder scared the hell out of him by planting an arrow not two inches from his ear. His hands were in the air in a surrendering pose so fast that he nearly popped one of his arms out of its socket. Cinder had a grin half as smug as Mercury's, once Aldric got to his feet.

If he didn't _know_ that these people were the ones that would give the wrong answer to 'save or destroy the planet', he might actually have started to like them. Hell, even knowing that, it was hard to not have just a little fun, doing all of this. Unfortunately, this fun ran out when Cinder revealed to him she wasn't bluffing, in that he really didn't want to reach the third day without having gotten aura suppression down pat.

When he woke up the third day, and packed up his tent, he turned around to see Emerald standing less than a few feet away from him, her gun pointed right at his head, and an amused grin on her face. He was pretty sure he was supposed to have heard her approach, but given the smile on her face, she may have just been having fun.

He didn't get out anything more than a weak sounding "Uh." Before she pulled the trigger.

And that was how he was introduced to aura shields. Functionally the same thing as energy shields from any sci-fi video game ever, they worked by protecting the aura user from damage. However, there was a threshold, both of the sudden damage and of the sustained battle variety. The way he understood it, if he was hit with - say - anything stronger than a MOAB, his shields would break due to the sudden instant force. However, they would also be broken if he was punched in the face constantly for an hour. It was like the difference between the death of a thousand cuts, and being impaled through the chest with a spear as big as a tree trunk.

His shields managed to survive Emerald's stress test, and when an arrow was buried next to his head, Cinder explained to him that since he was moving so slow, they would put the 'fire' in trial by fire. He barely managed to roll out of the way of Mercury's downward kick, which did get him some props from the assassin's son. Even they would give credit where it was due, Aldric was all but certain that he'd dodged it because Mercury had _let_ him. If this guy was capable of fighting and killing his assassin father, and then holding his own against Yang later on - with the argument being possible that he could have won, had that been his intention - Aldric held no reservations that he'd avoided the kick on his own skill. Mercury had been holding back.

The next landmark was another dozen miles away, but remarkably, he managed to make it there before everyone else. He thought he faintly heard gunshots in the distance, once he made it to the steep cliffside, making him wonder if they'd run into any Grimm while he was beating feet. Regardless of the reality, he took his time finding a place to hide, and ten minutes later, once he heard their voices, he capped his aura and started praying. They had known he'd made it, and as such simply fired off their weapons a few times to mark the timer's start.

In a surprising turn of fate, he actually almost went the distance, this time. He'd had ten minutes left, before Cinder picked up a small boulder and chucked it away, revealing him to the world at large. She had an impressed look etched across her face, but a failure was still a failure, and now he was in deep shit. He barely was able to scramble to his feet before she blasted the place he'd been hiding with fire, and the moment the cracks of thunder and the girlish screams of fright filled the air, Mercury and Emerald were hot on his heels. His shields were stressed and indeed broken on more than one occasion as he fled from Cinder and her crew, he got more than his fair share of bruises before he got the memo, capped his aura, and _then_ kept running. This managed to do the trick, as he was able to put enough distance between him and them that his severely lessened presence stayed just outside of their sensory range just long enough for them to lose him, and for them all to make way for the next landmark.

Unfortunately, in his mad dash, he got hopelessly lost, and ended up being more than three hours late in finding their next landmark. They were all pissed, and he had little more than seconds to run and hide. This time, however, he decided it was time to play it like a crafty human instead of an idiotic demigod. He dropped his bag in a surreptitious hiding spot, but in such a way that he knew they could find it, before he found himself a cave running alongside the large stone cliffsides. There, he abandoned his boots, backtracked to cover whatever tracks he may have left, and found a tree trunk to hide in, and capped his aura as best he possibly could.

One may expect the details of another failure, but by no small miracle, there _wasn't_ one _._ Cinder herself - _Cinder_ , for Christ's Sake! - came within a couple feet of his tree trunk and didn't sense him. It was only after ninety minutes, did Mercury swing by and see him. As it turned out, he hadn't covered his tracks well, and once the hour had passed, they took off the training wheels and started using other methods to find him. But, the fact of the matter was still - he'd _won!_

He may have been happy about this, but then Merceury kicked the tree so hard it exploded and he was shot away like a cannonball. Since his instincts were still decidedly human and not huntsman, he screamed like a terrified animal as he flew through the air, fully convinced he was going to die, before instincts hit him about as hard as he hit one of the trees behind him. That is to say, he blasted straight through it as if he were in Dragonball Z, and was promptly buried by the falling tree trunk.

Not being flattened by that did wonders for his confidence, and after he recovered his bag and his boots, they all took a break to discuss where he stood.

Mercury spoke up first, "I'll give you credit there, Aldric. It was a good idea to double back like you did. You covered your tracks _decently,_ but once we found them it didn't take long for us to see what you'd done. I'll give you an 'A' for effort, at least."

Eating his first full meal in days, Aldric didn't even spare the assassin's son a glance. "But?" He grunted, his mouth full.

"But it took guts to try what you did, abandoning your effects like that." Emerald picked up. "Most wouldn't have, and finding your shoes actually convinced Cinder for a little while you'd been attacked."

This made Aldric pause, he gave Cinder a curious look, which Cinder returned with a challenging glare. "Aw, I didn't think you cared, Hot Stuff." He grinned, she rolled her eyes, and he continued. "So how did _you_ think I did?"

It occured to him now that he was actively trying to get under the skin of a woman who was capable of fighting and defeating a demi-goddess, and stealing her powers to boot. But he had an act to play, and making them think he felt comfortable around them only helped it. It made him feel like TeamFourStar's Alucard, actually - doing these things and getting away with them because he knew he _could._ Granted, with Alucard, it was because he knew there was nothing they could do to kill him, or even slow him down, whereas Aldric would probably be flayed alive in a second, but the point still remained. Aldric was, ostensibly, too useful to them to be killed.

For now, at least. He'd have to tone it down to make sure this ruse kept up.

"You've still a lot to learn, but you're on the right track." She said, "it's becoming clear to me that you are at your best when your life is in danger."

Aldric was about to argue that point, when he realized that she actually _had_ a point. A lot of the stuff he'd gotten done had been spurred on by his life being threatened - first by Cubone, then by Mothra, now by Cinder and her group. Hell, if he hadn't been so afraid of dying by their hands, he may never have come up with his Green Hornet plan. So he shrugged, "I see your point." Though now he feared that she would make good on the implication that, in order for them to get him to do _anything,_ they'd have to actively kill him.

That method may have worked in turning Gohan into a Super Saiyan, but sweet Jesus that was _not_ the trend Aldric wanted to set. Yes, he may be a man after Nathan Drake's heart, in how much stuff he's survived, but that didn't mean he _wanted_ to be tempting fate with a carrot on the end of a stick. That was when fate started pulling out Murphy's Law, and that was how people died.

"So..." He said, after wiping his plate clean. "How close are we to your safehouse?" He asked, tossing the plate back to Mercury, who stuffed it in his bag.

"Well..." Mercury said, swapping the plate for a map. "We're actually making decent time. You can really cover some ground when people are trying to kill you there." He gave it a brief look, "even counting for us slowing down, should only be another day or two before we get where we're going. Then we can make it to Vale, get you kitted out." He folded the map back up.

Emerald piped in, "you been thinking about what kind of weapon you'd like?"

Aldric leaned back, "uh, _no._ Been kind of pumping all of my brain power into not dying and figuring out how to kick down my aura." He was also pretty certain their next step would be making the suppression instinctual, that would be fun.

Mercury gave him a smug grin, "considering where you come from, I would have thought that would be the _first_ thing you thought of." He chuckled.

Aldric, with the sound of metal scraping against leather, drew the knife he'd looted from the airplane, giving the assassin's son little more than an arced eyebrow.

Mercury nodded, "good point." He conceded.

Aldric slid the knife back into its sheathe, and turned to Cinder. "What's bitin' you?"

"I was merely thinking what weapon would match a person such as you."

Aldric grinned, "a badass?"

"A survivor."

"That works too." It was a good question, though. What the hell kind of weapon _should_ he get? Actually, considering he didn't know what kinds of weapons Remnant had beyond standard swords and guns, and the weapons used by the main cast, it became a much more relevant question. "What kind of weapons do you people even have to begin with?" He nodded to Emerald, "I've seen her pistols... I've seen his legs, and I've seen your bow, but aside from that... Nothing." Though he was curious as to how Emerald's guns even worked, considering he never saw her load them.

"I'm afraid that's a bad question, Aldric. Could you name off every weapon _your_ people fight with?"

Aldric thought a moment, before he deadpanned, "well... Most of 'em." What self respecting Call of Duty player _couldn't?_ Unless she was talking about specific model firearms, in which case, he saw her point.

Cinder gave a sidewards nod, "regardless, the point remains. Vale is a capital city of a major kingdom. Before our meeting we should be able to reach several weapons stores, and find one that suits you."

"Stores, huh? That reminds me - what the hell's our budget?"

Mercury grinned, "don't worry about it. That bit's covered."

Considering that this was coming from the son of a man who killed people for a living, Aldric decided to heed his advice. "So you mention one that _suits_ me. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Weapons are meant to cater to their wielders." Said Cinder, "when we awake tomorrow, and begin our travels, I hope to at least be able to learn some small sliver of your semblance. From there we can make assumptions as to your capabilities and what weapons would best compliment them."

Aldric arced an eyebrow, "semblance?"

"Your powers." Emerald supplied.

He nodded, "ah, gotcha." Well, that was progress, he guessed.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Going to be at Vale within the next day, according to Mercury._

 _And apparently, in regards to the money we'll be spending to get me all equipped, our budget is 'Don't Worry About It'._

 _I'm tempted to call his bluff, but I don't know if Don't Worry About It is daddy's blood money, his blood money, or - "You want that? Alright." And then they shoot the fucking shopkeep and give it to me._

 _I **doubt** that's what'll happen, but I also wouldn't put it past 'em, you know? We are actively planning to end the whole damn world, after all. _

_Anyways, I'm supposed to be learning **what** my powers are, tomorrow, and if I'm lucky, at least a little bit on how to use them. _

_Apparently that's as far as they want to go, however. They want to wait for the real combat training until I know **what** I've got, so then we can pick up the weapon that would fit me most, and then I can learn to fight with my powers and my weapon all at the same time. According to them, it'll save time. _

_But I saw Chronicle, I know that sitting on superpowers and not doing anything with them is a recipe for stupidity. If this universe is anything like that, then semblances are going to be like muscles, and the more I 'exercise' it, the stronger it will get._

 _Granted, I'm supposed to be a walking gigantic firebomb of aura, so my 'exercise' may unintentionally crack a continent in half... But that's what tomorrow's for. To see where I stand without any training._

 _I really hope I've got something along the lines of mass manipulation. That could verily solve **all** of my problems, and it all boils down to force and density. _

_Force is Mass multiplied by Acceleration, and density is the quantity of mass per unit volume.  
F=MA and D=M/V_

 _So I increase my mass, I hit harder, and get harder to hit. I can hurt people easier, and I become so dense that people can't damage me._

 _Basically, Superman._

 _Or Saitama, now that I think about it. Hm._

 _But then there's ice powers. I kind of hope I get something like that, failing mass manipulation. That way I can just 'kill the Batman', as it were, and freeze all my enemies to absolute zero (the point where all atomic movement ceases), and just walk up to 'em and smash 'em to pieces. Wouldn't even **have** to fight, then. _

_Fire may also be good, because that's just atoms moving around real fast. I could excite someone's atomic movement and disintegrate them, or even just boil the air around me to plasma and then shoot 'em with something hotter than the sun. Kamehameha!_

 _Electricity would be fun too, if only because I was a pretty big inFamous fan, but I'd have to think a while as to some better applications to that._

 _And, yes, even Heart would have some uses.  
Do you **know** how powerful Killgrave was, with just mind control?_

 _I could literally just get my enemies to fight for me, or, better yet, make them knock themselves out._

 _Hell, I could get Salem's ass to send me home, and tell her to off herself once I leave. Problem **solved.** _

_But, thinking about what-ifs won't do me any good. I'll get the stuff tomorrow and see how things go._

 _'Till next time._


	7. Swiss Army Weapon

_AN:_

 _I cleaned up some of the earlier chapters, make them work a bit better.  
No real plot or content changes, so no one will miss out if they're new or old, but it's been something on the back of my mind a while now._

* * *

Chapter 6

* * *

Aldric was starting to notice a pattern, here.

So far, every time he woke up on Remnant, his life would be put in some kind of danger.

First it was nearly falling out of a tree after an airplane crash. Then it was nearly dying of his injuries from his first battle with cubone. Then it was almost dying after he got blown up, and then again after he blew himself up _again._ Then nearly bleeding out from everything beforehand. Even Emerald shot him in the face when he woke up the day previous! Every single time he went to bed, he woke up and nearly died, and figuring out how to suppress his aura didn't end that trend. No, it just gave them an excuse to _keep it going._

Just like the time before with Emerald, when Aldric woke up this time, he packed up his tent, turned around, and saw Mercury there with a smug grin. That had been all the warning he'd gotten, and to his credit, he _did_ realize what was about to happen, but not quick enough to stop anything. In the time it took him to blink, Mercury hopped up into the air and spin-kicked him into a tree. But that wasn't the end of it; no, that would have been too easy. When Aldric managed to pry himself out of the shattered bark, he heard a strange noise humming through the air, and just a second later one of Cinder's arrows smashed into his shoulder.

Fortunately his shields held, and with the subsequent adrenaline rush that began flooding his body, he was _just_ able to see Emerald flying through the air, feet-first. Seeing, however, didn't equate to actually being able to do anything about it - he got as far as raising up his hands to block before Emerald slammed into him, kicked him away, and backflipped back to her feet. She didn't even look like it had taken any effort, either, that was what got Aldric more than anything. Something straight out of a superhero movie, and Emerald had likely done it because she _wanted_ to.

When he ground to a halt, he scrambled to his feet and grabbed for the knife on his back - but Mercury appeared out of nowhere, twisted his arm, stole his knife, and then kicked him several feet forward. Again getting a facefull of dirt, Aldric knew now his only chance was the flare gun in his bag - but then he saw Cinder, twirling it around in her hands like a revolver, giving him an appraising, unimpressed look.

"I suspect you've never been in a fight before." She said, tossing the gun over her shoulder, where it landed right in his bag.

Aldric groaned, getting to his feet. "Two fights... Lost half of 'em..." He stretched his back, feeling pain throb through it and his head, though noting that beyond the pain, there weren't any injuries. "Never against freakin' superheroes, though." He groaned. "I get the feeling there's a point to this."

Cinder nodded, humming as her bow disintegrated into embers, reforming into two long blades. "It is most often through instinct that the inexperienced can gain access to their semblance."

 _Jaune Arc would have something to say, lady..._ He raised both of his hands, "hooooo boy." He sighed, cracking his neck. "So let's go."

It didn't take more than two minutes to have him pinned on the ground. While he did manage to get one good punch in on Emerald, her shields protected her from any damage beyond the pain of impact. Mercury had him in a painful arm bar before Cinder finally told them to get to their feet. After dusting himself off, they tried again, but had to stop after hardly five minutes when Mercury slammed him into a tree and they heard a bone crack.

Pain flared up his arm, but when he pressed his hand against it, he found it fading away. Cinder and Co. didn't react too much, only to ask Aldric if he would be okay, and after stretching the arm, he decided he would be, though was definitely intrigued. He had _definitely_ felt something crack, and he had enough experience now with breaking bones that he could tell when it had happened. Despite this, however, there was nothing wrong. This was continuing on a trend of injuries he knew he had sustained but had vanished soon after, making him wonder if this wasn't a commonality between aura, or his semblance.

On a hunch, he felt at his hands and wrists, but when he couldn't feel any claws in there, he decided he wasn't turning into Wolverine. After an hour of beating on Aldric, they finally settled down to finish packing up and continued their way to the safehouse. Mercury gave Aldric some props, saying he hadn't expected the survivor's shields to last so long, so he had that at least.

The rest of the day went similarly - every hour or so they would drop what it was they were doing to beat the living hell out of Aldric. He found himself experiencing growth, as by the end of the day he was managing to spar with them for ten minutes, as opposed to the earlier two. He considered this a victory, but a minor one, considering he knew that one of them were actively trying to kill him.

At least he hoped they weren't.

With every surprise attack he tried anything he could think of to activate his semblance. He was all but certain it had something to do with the intoxicating, blood-blazing feelings he got when he felt for his aura, but trying to keep it in check and access his powers was an exercise in incredible difficulty. They didn't want him 'uncapping' his aura, they explained. He had to be able to keep it locked down and in check, as otherwise he would just let it burst out without any control, and it would lead to him wasting far more than he used. He equated it to oil wells versus oil pipelines - back before modern technology, folks would drill for oil and, when they found it, it would spray out into the air like a geyser. They would certainly get it once the pressure abated, but they wasted a _lot_ of oil to do it. Compared to modern times, where they set up the pipes and kept _everything,_ in a far more efficient manner.

Of course, this didn't mean it was easy, far from it. By the time they sat down for dinner, Aldric didn't feel as if he were any closer to a breakthrough than he had been when he'd first fought Cubone. Cinder and Co. tried to convince him differently, but he wasn't buying it, and he went to bed that night wondering if there wasn't some kind of block, or perhaps just something he wasn't thinking of. The next day, Mercury declared they would be at the safehouse by nightfall, so now it was time to really put his game face on. Aldric _needed_ to figure something out.

Try as he might, however, there was nothing. Hours and hours of getting thrown through trees, buried into the ground, and beaten senseless. He tried fighting back, and though his body was beginning to acclimate to the aura and the stresses of hand to hand combat, and his reflexes were starting to grow better, that still proved for little. Without a suite of powers, the only thing he could do in their little sparring sessions was box with them, and they were all exponentially better than he was.

As they grew closer to their destination, Aldric was walking and navigating mostly on auto-pilot, his eyes firmly locked to the ground and his mind elsewhere. What was he missing? They told him it was 'instinct', but he didn't have any basis for... Anything, really. They weren't giving him any jumping off point, all he had was that he could feel and suppress his aura. What the hell could he do with _that?_ Sure, he may be able to pull a Solid Snake and in a box, but his stealth skills weren't nearly good enough to try anything beyond that.

He sighed, feeling inside of him for that tightly compressed ball of aura. It was more of a dull warmth than the raging blood-blazing bonfire it was when he actively reached for it. Was that a clue? Was he supposed to try and do something along with fire? But then _what,_ get really angry? Idly, he let loose a little bit of pressure, and felt his aura flow through him like warm water. Out from his stomach, up to his chest, and then split down his arms. He could _feel_ the flow, but aside from adjusting the intensity, he couldn't do anything.

 _Is this a mind over matter thing?_ He wondered, raising a hand and staring at it intently. _Do I just have to think really... Really hard?_ He focused on his arm, stepping around a tree and briefly raising his gaze to make sure he was still with the group, before he turned his focus back down.

 _Okay... Let's try this then. I can squash this stuff down... So why don't we try to imagine this like a pressure blanket?_ He imagined a great weight on all parts of his body except for his arm, and slowly let out some aura from his core.

Out from his gut, up to his chest, and then -

 _Holy shit!_ Down it went, through his arm and nowhere else. _Okay... Okay, calm down._ He frowned. _So this is mostly mental... Or... No, wait._ He had to think just as much as he had to _feel._

As far as his thoughts got him, it wasn't until he could get physical sensations before things became ingrained like muscle memory. Maybe this was why they weren't telling him much - it was different for everyone, so aside from help with finding his aura, there wasn't much they could do for him. Either that, or they were using the Jiraiya method: Find it out your damn self. So, it was some kind of unholy mix of mental concentration and physical sensation. The thought alone sort of reminded Aldric of pretty much _any_ anime from back home, and considering the world he lived in, that made a lot of sense.

And then his eureka moment.

Really, it _should_ have been obvious, the pieces had all been there. He was in an anime world, it had ki or chakra-like energies. Of course there was as much a physical element as there was a mental one. For chrissakes - the entire show was about people with superpowers _punching_ eachother. That should have been a big hint, considering for the last two days straight he'd been trying to think his way out of everything. All of a sudden everyone's comments about 'instinct' were taking on a whole new light. They _had_ been giving him hints, he'd just been thinking too hard to notice it.

Aldric chuckled. _You think I use my head to control that arrow?_

Okay, so if he was right and the real solution was to basically just improvise, then how would he go about this?

He hummed, and held up both hands, cupping them together. He let out some aura and focused it into his arms. He felt a pressure building alongside the warmth in his blood, and decided to push harder. More aura out of his gut, and though it resisted initially, he forced it to continue to fill his arms. He pushed harder, letting small increments of more and more aura out until, finally, it popped.

Metaphorically.

Suddenly the pressure vanished, but was replaced with new tactile sensations. Aldric had to stop walking altogether as these unfamiliar sensations assaulted his brain. He felt rough and coarse, like dirt, but also hard and pliable, like tree bark. He jumped with a start when he felt something brush up against him, and after he looked up, he realized that nothing had touched him - but Emerald had just put her hand up on a tree as she stepped over a fallen one.

Frowning, Aldric tilted his head. What was this supposed to mean?

He noticed that, as he focused more on the tree Emerald had braced herself against, the more he felt that tree and _only_ that tree. Experimentally, he reached his hand out, and found that it felt as if he were touching the tree with his hand. He could feel the bark pressing against his palm, he could feel the texture of the wood and the warmth of the tree. He could even feel an ant as it crawled upwards. When he pulled his hand back, however, was when the magic happened.

With a mighty, thunderous _crack,_ several inches of the tree were explosively torn from it and sent careening straight towards Aldric. So stunned by the result, he didn't even think to side-step it until it was feet from him. It dragged by his shirt as it flew on by, but then he heard the loud, groaning noise of wood failing to support its own weight. With a sinking feeling, Aldric turned his gaze upwards and saw the massive tree leaning towards him. As it leaned further and further, the groaning was met with loud snapping and cracking noises. With wide eyes and a light frown on his face, Aldric was soon covered by the falling tree's shadow. Now, if ever, was certainly a time to improvise.

So, drawing on the experience from earlier, Aldric screamed like a small child, reached out with both hands and his aura, and fell to his backside, clenching his eyes shut.

A couple seconds passed.

He heard a pair hands clapping.

Strange, considering he was expecting to hear a lot of bones shattering and Mercury's griping about having to lift a tree off of him.

Experimentally, he cracked open his eyes, and saw, to his amazement, the tree floating in the air. As a matter of fact, he could feel the entire tree - as if his hands were wrapped around it, like grasping a pen. Despite this feeling, he could clearly see he had no physical contact with it, whatsoever, slowly leading him to his realization. He'd just stopped a tree with his mind.

 _"Okay..."_ He croaked, his chest clenched tight. _"Okay... Okay..."_ He tried moving the tree to the side, but found it only spun around width-wise, appearing for a moment as a helicopter blade. _"Ooooh, no. Okay..."_ He grunted, _"try... This."_ He took in a deep breath and, as he groaned with effort, instead of moving one hand, he moved _both_ to the side. This time, the tree obeyed, and slowly listed over sideways, until it was well clear of him, and he let out the breath he was holding. Relaxing all of his muscles and dropping his concentration did the trick, as the tree then fell to the ground with a loud, ground-shaking crash.

"Ho... Holy shit..." He breathed, his face red. "You guys -" He turned to the side just in time to see Mercury about to punt him like a football. _"Whoa!"_ He thrust both hands forward.

Though, instead of Mercury flying back as if struck by a siege engine - it was the first thing that came to mind - both he and Mercury flew away from eachother. Mercury through the air, Aldric across the dirt and into the fallen tree.

 _Equal and opposite reaction... Right._ He exhaled, and scrambled to his feet.

Next came Emerald, leaping over the fallen tree, both of her guns blazing. Aldric, in his best Neo impression, albeit with such a ridiculous grimace on his face that he may have been able to win prize money with it, back home, thrust his hand out forward. His own arm shook with the strain, and he slid back several inches, but the desired effect had been achieved: All of her bullets now hung in the air. On second glance, he realized she was too - he was holding Emerald in the _sky!_

However, he had to drop her when Cinder came in, but when he wasn't able to dodge her sword and it swung straight through him, Aldric realized it was a ruse from Emerald, an illusion to get him to drop her. Now not able to fully trust his eyes, Aldric tried calling on the increased tactile field he'd gotten earlier, and reached out in all directions with his aura, though he had to thrust both hands out to the sides to do it this time. His ploy worked, as he _felt_ more than saw or heard something he suspected to be Emerald charging him from the front, as Emerald came in from the sides.

Knowing full and well he couldn't try and fight both of these two at the same time, Aldric instead dropped to a knee and swung both arms back around. Now with his left hand hovering in front of his right shoulder, and his right hand in front of his left shoulder, Aldric envisioned a cocoon around him, and clenched his eyes and prayed as he sensed Mercury and Emerald charge straight for him.

Mercury's foot roundhoused the cocoon, right where Aldric's head was, but it was halted and stuck in place. Emerald swung in a wide downward arc with her pistols, Aldric sensed the blades on their barrels extend, but just as with Mercury, her attack was halted in place and her weapons stuck fast.

"Ha!" Aldric coughed, "hahaha!" He groaned through a tightly clenched chest. "Ho - holy crap!" His face was turning red from the strain, but he could hardly believe what it was he was doing.

Now, he had to attack with it.

So lacking any other option, he pushed.

He sensed Mercury and Emerald fly away, moving so fast that it appeared as if they'd been shot out of cannons. He exhaled loudly, feeling the pressure abade from his head, and dropped both of his arms. His eyes opened to the look of the forest ground below him, and with a dry swallow, he shook his head and stood to his feet. There stood Cinder, an arrow knocked in her obsidian bow, and a single eyebrow arced.

Aldric frowned, his lips pursed tight and his eyes wide in a comical expression. "Well..." The question now was if he could actualy move things with his _mind,_ and not need his hands.

So of course his first instinct wasn't to try ripping branches off of trees, but to bait Cinder into shooting him.

"Parley?"

Cinder let the arrow fly. Aldric croaked and recoiled his head, his eyes shut tight. But when nothing hit him, he cracked one open, and croaked again. It was close enough that he could feel the chill of the arrowhead, but it wasn't touching him. It simply floated there, centimeters from his head. Tentatively, Aldric reached up with his hand and grasped the arrow, before letting his hold on it with his mind drop. It quickly obeyed his body as opposed to his mind, and he pulled it out of the air.

 _So... Wait... Wait, wait, wait - does this make me Carrie?_ He lifted the arrow to inspect it. _I... I am telekinetic._ He nodded. _They're gonna laugh at you!_

He looked up, and saw, as she let her weapons vanish, Cinder shared his grin. "Not at all rare, but I've seen few take to it so quickly." She said, slowly walking towards him.

He twirled the arrow in his hand, a grin on his face and a furrow to his brow. "Telekinesis... I can work with this." Possibilities were already beginning to flood his mind.

He heard Mercury and Emerald make their ways back to him, Mercury with his hand on his back. "Man, Aldric. You hit hard!" He said, though his face wore a grin that betrayed his accusatory tone.

Emerald was giving him an appraising look, "I would've pegged you as a pyro, to be honest." She said, with a sidewards nod, as Aldric reached down to grab his bag.

He definitely had some experimenting to do. "Who, me? Why what _ever_ do you mean?" He cracked a toothy grin, following Mercury as he took the lead once again.

Cinder continued, "it is good you've discovered your abilities. Now it is merely a matter of mastering them and teaching you to fight." She explained. "First comes using your aura to enhance yourself. Then your abilities."

 _So first I need to_ fight _like a saiyan, before I can shoot ki-blasts._ Aldric nodded, "makes sense." He handed the arrow back to Cinder.

It fell apart like ash in her hands. "Now at least we'll know which weapons shops to visit when we make port."

Aldric blinked, as they came upon the mouth of a cave. "Make..." He looked up, and saw, leaning out from a large, forest-camouflage tarp, an airship the size of a small jet. "Port." He finished, dumbly.

Mercury clapped him on the back, "what, you think we actually _lived_ in the middle of nowhere?" He chuckled, leading the group inside. "Hell no. Much easier to keep on the move, harder for folks to nail you down if you can pick up everything you own and _move."_ He reached forward and grabbed at the tarp, before roughly yanking it down.

Aldric felt as if he were in a sci-fi movie. He was looking at some sort of unholy mixture of so many sci-fi warships that the only term he could use to describe it was, simply, 'a spaceship'. It had two large wings on either side, on the front and back, and its main deck was shaped like an airplane, albeit with large, angular armor plates covering large portions of it.

Aldric was dumbfounded and slack-jawed, as he stared at the beautiful marvel of engineering. It was one thing to see it from behind a computer screen and in CGI, but another entirely to have it looming over him in person.

"Please tell me it doesn't have a name." Aldric was stuck between Normandy, Forward Unto Dawn, Millennium Falcon, and Black Pearl.

"It's just an airship." Emerald said, "I think it's 'Aviator' on paper, but we don't really have a name for it."

"Oh _f -_ uh... Screw that!" Aldric bit back a curse word, "all that majesty and on the open sea... Or... Well. _.._ _Air,_ and you put it down on paper as 'Aviator'? And you don't even _use_ it? Come on!" He jogged up to catch up with the group, looking back and forth as he took in as much of the ship as he could. "It's bad freakin' luck not to call a ship by her name! It's even worse to give her a bad one from the start!"

"And how would you know these things?" Cinder hummed, as the cabin doors opened up and a small stairwell extended downwards.

"You just _do!"_ He returned to the point about his parents being sailors. Yes, since the age of sail, superstitions had mostly fallen to the wayside, but there was still something most people would just _know._ And he'd watched a lot of pirate films as a kid. "I mean... _Aviator._ Good lord." He shook his head, walking up the stairs and entering the ship as Mercury continued pulling down and folding up the tarp.

Inside it was surprisingly spacious. One long corridor from the stern to the bow, some chairs and tables spread about, he saw a few televisions, a small dining area. The port and starboard sides were all enormous windows to look outside, and dull blue lights hung from the ceiling. It made his shoulders slump. "This isn't a warship, is it?" He frowned.

Mercury heard this as he dragged the tightly bound tarp up and into the ship with him. "Of course not! You have one of those, it's a way to get on the military's watchlist. What, you telling me that ship _you_ came in on had guns?" He asked, shouldering his way past Aldric, and tossing the tarp up against a wall.

"Well... I'll give you that." Aldric shrugged, following Mercury to the captain's cabin. "But still... I kind of hoped for something more." Considering this was a world where everything was also a gun, had his hopes really been that unreasonable?

Entering the cabin, Aldric found it was mostly isolated from the rest of the ship, and smaller than he would have thought. It had enough room for the pilot and copilot's chairs, the dashboard, and the equipment lining the walls and between the chairs. Aside from that, there was space to step inside and open the door. It seemed most of the luxury had been afforded to the rest of the ship.

Aldric leaned forward onto the copilot's chair, looking out the windshield and to the blue sky above, and the green forest beyond. "You fly this?" He asked, a wide grin on his face.

Mercury barked out another laugh, "ha! _No."_ He emphasized, "it's mostly autopilot. The only things that are flown by people these days are the big air buses. Even most military ships can get run on autopilot." He explained, "do your people fly yours?"

Aldric nodded, "yeah they do..." He turned his gaze to Mercury, who took up a casual posture in the pilot's seat, fiddling with the holographic display and opening up a large map. "The absolute best AI we've got is weak AI... And it doesn't do its job really well."

Mercury frowned absently, as he fiddled with the map. "AI?" He mimed, "the hell's the A stand for?"

Aldric couldn't help but grow a grin, "Artificial. The 'I' for Intelligence." He leaned in close to the map, it showing the entire world of remnant before Mercury indicated a specific continent, likely the one they were on. "Your people don't have AI? Or even the concept of it? A thinking machine." Wasn't there a robot they made? Its name was Pen something, Penelope? And if he remembered correctly, one of the kingdoms had _armies_ of robots, just not necessarily sentient ones.

"Oh!" Mercury nodded, "oh, oh. You mean mechs." He zoomed in further on Vale. "You had me wondering there. Why call 'em AI? They're robots."

Aldric shrugged, "I think it's to differentiate robots from thinking computers... But I don't think I could explain it well. A robot's a robot, an AI's its brain? I dunno." There was definitely a difference between a droid like C-3PO and an AI like Cortana, but aside from how he'd put it, Aldric wasn't versed enough in the subject to explain it.

Mercury nodded, "well, mechs do their own thinking, but they don't do the thinking for themselves, if that's what you mean. They've got things they have to do and objectives they have to meet. They do what they're programmed to, and go home when they're done. Atlas fields a _lot_ of 'em, but aside from killing Grimm and pacifying people, they're hardly any threat at all against Huntsman." He selected a port on the outskirts of Vale, and the display flashed green.

The ship came to life then, thrumming with an energy as it lurched underneath them. Aldric grunted, nearly losing his footing, though Mercury wasn't even remotely stumbled, simply hauling himself out of the chair with little effort. When Aldric managed to get his 'sea legs', the ship slowly began floating forward, exiting the cave, before climbing into the air and taking off.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _So I'm Telekinetic, and now I've got - or at the very least have access to - a freakin' spaceship._

 _Jesus Christ._

 _We're on our way to Vale now, and Cinder showed me to my little room. It's quaint, and has enough storage space to drop my stuff. I'm hoping I can get to work on applying Earth tech to Remnant tech, but right now I have something more important to do: Learn how to read. I've got a couple days to do it before we get to the city of Vale, so I'm hoping I'll at least get... A little hammered in, at least._

 _I'm hoping that, since the structure of the spoken language is identical to English, there won't be any grammar hurdles, I just have to learn to put Remnant characters to their English counterparts, and then everything should fall into place._

 _But, just as important: My semblance._

 _I am a fucking Telekinetic._

 _I didn't even consider this one on my whole 'superpower lottery', and while I admit, maybe becoming Saitama would have made things easier, I still hit **a** jackpot at least. _

_Seriously. Telekinesis is defined as the ability to move objects with your mind. Objects, as any material item that can be seen or felt - **matter,** referring to anything that has mass and takes up space. Molecules have mass and take up space. Atoms have mass and take up space. Particles, like electrons, protons, neutrons, Photons - light particles - hell, the Higgs Boson is a particle that **generates** mass!_

 _Problem is... Well, there isn't a human alive that can 'see' that small. We're not even remotely capable of differentiating different atoms from eachother._

 _Buuuuut, that's where things play in my favor: My powers increase the range of my tactile sensations. In other words, whenever I'm using them I can 'feel' everything around me - from the door in my room to the blankets on my bed to the hair on my head. Think of it like a radar pulse - only I can feel everything in its range. So like a bat sees things, I can feel them._

 _Put together, this means I **should** be able to basically manipulate the universe on a subatomic level. _

_To put it simply, I can turn water to wine._

 _I'm Jesus._

 _Okay, okay, blasphemy aside, you get my point. I can theoretically turn water to wine, air to gold, oxygen to hydrogen. I can accelerate atomic movement and create fire - I can accelerate it even further and create plasma! I can gather in a bunch of electrons and zap people, I can pull in a shitton of Higgs Bosons, use them to generate a Higgs **Field,** that alters my mass - and then I can just drop 'em like a bad habit and snap right back to my regular, unaltered mass. _

_Well... Theoretically._

 _I'm still a long way from there, but seeing as I can rip trees off of the ground and, in the space of a few minutes, managed to figure out my 'Radar Pulse' and even stop an arrow without moving my hands, I'm hoping that I can get somewhere close to this by the time we reach the Fall Maiden. I'm also not stupid enough to try screwing with atoms in the middle of a moving spaceship. I don't want to screw something up, incite nuclear fission, and kill us all._

 _And as cool as it sounds, I **really** don't want to go messing with the Higgs Field. Only reason I even know about that is because I did a little 'For Dummies' research on it when I watched a Red vs Blue PSA. _

_**Note to self:** If I get back home, go to college for a physics degree. Science is a lot more useful than just as a hobby, it seems. _

_Anyways. As cool as it may be to go hog-wild and start experimenting, I'm still well aware of the danger I'm facing with these powers. Even ignoring the more 'creative' aspects of them, I went from accidentally tearing a tree out of the ground to stopping an arrow midflight with my **mind** in just a few minutes. I'm starting to understand what they're saying about my 'bonfire' size aura. I'll have to stay on the small scale until we're in a safer, controlled environment, such that I can start experimenting more. _

_For now, I'll just stick with movie tricks, moving whole objects and not atoms._

 _Fortunately, the more I do it, the easier it becomes. The best way I can explain it, is by thinking of my semblance as another limb. Say I wanted to pick up my phone - I'd just visualize a hand, grab it, pick it up, and pull it towards me. Granted, I say that, and it's as much feeling it out and experimenting, as it is visualizing it - it's much easier to manipulate stuff if I use my hands than if I just think it._

 _Example: If I lift my hand and then visualize the whole phone thing, and then pull my hand back, the phone would come to me much easier. But if I didn't move a muscle and **just** thought it all, it would be much more difficult. _

_Yeah, I have no clue what I'm saying either. Point is: I either do it the movie way, thrusting and throwing my hands every which way, which is easier, or I do it the practical way, and just think it, which is harder._

 _Anyways, to start, I'll just try to lift small things and juggle them around. Once that gets instinctual, then we'll be getting somewhere._

 _Moving on, right now pretty much my whole goal in life is to learn to read, get a handle on my semblance, and learn to fight._

 _And wouldn't you know it, they put the assassin's son on my combat training._

 _I mean, it makes **sense,** but I also get the feeling he enjoys beating the tar out of me too much. _

_Once we make port in the vale, I'm going to get my hands on Remnant clothes, and then we're going weapons shopping._

 _Maybe I'll go full Yondu and hit people with a magic arrow._

 _I maaaaaay be a little too excited about going out to find killing tools._

* * *

The days spent flying over the continent bled together. He woke up, tried to hammer Remnant English into his head, tried exercising his semblance, ate breakfast, got the tar beaten out of him by Mercury, and repeated without change until it was time to sleep, after which he started the day over again. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Despite getting the hell beaten out of him so often, it actually felt good as exercise, and it _was_ working. He wasn't anywhere near winning any of their little sparring sessions, but as time continued on he was beginning to feel a bit more confident. His reflexes were getting faster, his strength was going up, it was working. His body was beginning to acclimate to the physical side of his newfound role, and this was speeding up the rate of adaption to his aura. Unfortunately, as much as he wanted to, he couldn't try using said aura to assist him in these sparring matches. Not only would such a thing instantly invite Mercury to do the same, but his control wasn't good enough to sneak that by him. Then there was also the fact that he was savvy enough to know that running the risk of potentially blowing this airship probably wasn't a smart idea.

The biggest problem he'd found, however, was that he wasn't Neo. He wasn't Ip Man, he wasn't Batman, and he certainly wasn't Goku. Every time he tried replicating Mercury's stances, or tried to heed Cinder and Emerald's advice, he found his ass getting kicked all the faster. But when he instead dropped it all and just tried brawling, then he found things working a bit more in his favor. He took more hits, yes, but he also scored more. He had hits blocked, but he found himself able to block some as well. He missed shots, but he hit others all the same. He mixed small elements of what they were teaching them into a brawling overtone; it reminded him of Mixed Martial Arts, which basically did the same thing, in that it took elements from all martial arts disciplines and worked them to the fighter's personal style.

He wouldn't _dare_ say he could take on an MMA fighter, but he took some confidence in that he was taking from their theories. That had to mean he was on the right path, right?

Regardless, he found himself now in the first hot shower he'd had since the plane crash, and enjoying every moment of it as it loosened up his aching muscles. Cinder had noticed the past few days how his shields had never broken, and she expressed interest in finding an isolated area after they landed, to stress-test them. Aldric knew that this meant a fight that wouldn't end when he was on the ground, and he wasn't necessarily looking forward to it.

Fortunately, he knew he had some time at least. Once he got out of the shower, dried himself off, and dressed himself, he saw other airships outside the windows. He walked towards the starboard side and saw a large city sprawled out far below the ship. It looked magnificent, a perfect mixture of contemporary, New York-style skyscrapers, and smaller brick-and-mortar buildings. The city of Vale was massive, spreading out even over the horizon.

Emerald slid up to his side. "Everyone has the same reaction when they see it the first time. I know I did." She nodded.

Aldric turned a curious glance over her way, "what, you're saying you weren't born here? I thought the only settlements were the major cities."

Emerald shook her head, "those are just the most protected ones." She said, "there are others, but they don't have nearly as much security as the kingdom cities." She explained, idly tapping her fingers on the railing.

Aldric nodded, conceding that point. Of course people wouldn't stay put in one spot - they were people. Humans were pioneers at heart, they couldn't stand to just stay rooted in one place forever. Some could, but on the whole? If one was given a chance to explore the unknown, they'd take that chance. Just look at him!

"So this is what we're fighting against?" Aldric asked, raising his gaze and seeing a military ship guiding the Aviator down to the public ports. He saw some mech guards and some human ones patrolling the decks, and a few cannons mounted all across the ship.

Emerald waved her hand in a 'so-so' fashion. "Kind of. We're not fighting against it so much as we are just trying to get everyone on the same side."

He hummed in response, nodding his head.

Fifteen minutes later, they were landed and had their paperwork sorted out. Cinder gathered everyone and guided them down through the city, where they walked for a half hour before they finally were able to escape most of the crowds. They then began their hunt for a weapons shop, which brought them to the close of the hour. It was a small, bookshop-sized building, with the walls lined with weapons of all kinds. Aldric couldn't help but adopt an impressed expression, nodding as he looked around. There were swords, shields, guns of all shapes, sizes, makes, and models, he saw bullets, large Dust dispensaries, it looked like the place had everything.

Naturally, the Doom player in him gravitated towards the shotguns. One seemed to have a dozen fire selectors, and a switch that turned it into a large katana, but after a few swings, Aldric switched it back and put it back on the shelf. He probably wouldn't be a sword guy, or at least not one that needed both hands. For much the same reason he skipped the assault rifles, most of which just extended bayonets, and instead found himself digging through submachine guns.

Emerald was the greatest help here, able to tell him firing rates and ammunition efficiency. She helped him find the features and discern their melee implements, and while one pair that turned into a pair of bladed knuckles seemed appealing, Aldric decided to shelve them as well. If he couldn't find anything else, he'd come back to them, but considering his powers were telekinesis, he wasn't too sure a quantity over quality build was something to go for.

By chance, he found himself near a back corner of the store, just across from the register, and looking into a small bin filled with a grayish, viscuous substance. Intrigued, Aldric leaned forward and examined it. He reached inside but found it wasn't like some kind of packing foam, but actually full of a gray goop with the texture and consistency of sand, and the feel of silt.

Cinder saw him frowning at it as he rubbed the gray silt out of his fingers. She shook her head, "I doubt you would be interested in that." She said.

He arced his eyebrow, "why's that?" He asked, clapping his hands free of the rest of the sandy substance.

"They're just nanites." Cinder looked at the sign above the bin, unaware of the shocked expression that painted itself across Aldric's face. "It looks like they only project hardlight."

"Wait, back the hell up -" Aldric held up his hands, and then pointed to Cinder. "You're telling me that you people have nanomachines?" Considering they also had airships, sentient AI, robots, mechs, and incredibly advanced weapons technology, the concept wasn't too far-fetched, but it still caught him off guard.

Cinder shrugged, "yes, but as I said, they seem only to have one function. They don't even seem to be ballistic."

The sci-fi fan in him was _aghast._ The Metal Gear Solid fan in him was appalled. "And you say that as if _hardlight_ isn't impressive."

"What could you do with it?" She asked, resting a hand on her hip and giving Aldric one of her characteristic appraising looks.

Aldric shook his head and looked back into the bin; considering that it was at the back of the shop and really did seem to be just shoved in the back where the store owner would forget about them, he assumed _everyone_ must have the same thoughts regarding these things. If they didn't fire copious amounts of explosive ammunition, people didn't have any respect for it.

But when Aldric saw this, he saw dollar signs and potentially endless possibilities.

He just had to get some questions answered, "okay, let's pretend I can't read." He pointed to the sign, "what _can_ they do, first of all? Are they pre-programmed constructs, or can you make your own?" He asked.

"It says that with physical contact, they sync with your cerebral cortex." If Aldric had been drinking he likely would have spit it out by now. "They'll make any construct you desire, but if you lose contact with it they'll stay in that form until you retrieve it."

 _Jesus Christ these are Green Lantern rings without the rings!_ He laughed despite himself. _So if I made a knife and threw it, it'd stay knife until I picked it back up again._ Hell, he probably wouldn't have to make a knife with these things. Depending on the size of the nanites versus the size of the constructs they could make, he could potentially just have a small population, a thousand bots, and make a thousand hardlight slugs and blast the hell out of people with them.

But perhaps the most important question of all, the make-or-break, "do they self replicate?" He asked, turning to Cinder.

Cinder turned back to the sign, as Mercury and Emerald made their way over to the two, the former loaded down with some parts for his legs. "It will cost more to activate that part of their programming, but they would." She nodded to the sign, "it warns you not to make replicant commands lightly, however. If it isn't drawing from an outside source it will draw from _you_ for the mass it would need." She turned to face Aldric fully, "what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking... Well, actually, first off -" He affixed her a serious look, "I need to know, what's with the bad look? Do they... What, have bad batteries? Hardlight can't stay up more than a few seconds? Why's it got its reputation?" He asked.

Cinder shook her head, "Aldric, your world seems to focus on weapons with only one function. They can only ever effectively be used in one way."

He nodded, "yeah." A gun was better as a ranged weapon than a club.

"These machines are the same. They can _only_ create hardlight." She looked over her shoulder, "if you're dead set on something the like, I'm certain I saw a weapon that could fire hardlight slugs."

But he shook his head, "so aside from the fact that they only have one useful function in combat, they're fine?" And he would argue 'one useful function'. If these self replicated, he could totally turn it into a Gaara-style implement, use his enemies as the mass to make more nanites.

Cinder gave him an exasperated look, "sure, Aldric." She said, shaking her head. "Aside from their lack of utility, they are fine. Only limited by their function."

Aldric would beg to differ, because if he could do with them what he thought he could, this may be the best weapon for him and his burgeoning skillset. "Does this place have a firing range?" And how would he even use these in the first place? Did they sell by the pound, or did he just shove his hand in, cover it, and buy that?

Emerald nodded, "it's in the back." She looked to the bin of nanites, "you're thinking about _those?"_ She looked up to Aldric, her green eyes shone with confusion. "You're serious?" She deadpanned.

Aldric nodded, "oh I hope they work like I hope they do. How do we buy them?" He inspected the bin and found a cup - a literal cup - to scoop out the nanites.

"They charge by the pound." Cinder said.

Aldric immediately grabbed a small bag and shoveled a few cupfuls in, before weighing it and nodding, a wide grin on his face as his mind swam with ideas.

"Follow me." Emerald said, "I saw it earlier."

"I'll catch up once I buy these." Said Mercury.

Aldric already had his hand halfway in the bag by the time they'd taken two steps. When they maneuvered their way through the store, greeted the cashier, who quickly began to deal with Mercury. The three of them made their way into the wide, warehouse-like firing range, and Aldric removed his hand. It was now covered in a layer of the gray silt, he felt as if it were covered in cold, wet, sand.

When they found their own range, Cinder turned to Aldric. "So?"

 _Well... They're supposed to react to thought - and how many mind-blowingly terrifyingly advanced inventions are people going to gloss over for cooler guns? Brain syncing crap... And they don't have brain implants yet? Actually, wait - that's not too surprising, considering folks are walking around with robot limbs. So I'll take that one back._ Aldric examined his gray hand for a few seconds more, the nanites reaching up to his wrist. _So... Let's think._

Aldric shut his eyes and concentrated a moment, envisioning what it was he wanted the nanites to project. With an image firmly in mind, Aldric heard the sound of ringing glass and a minor weight drag at his arms. He opened his eyes, and found, hovering just above his arm, a large, circular shield made of a dully glowing blue light. Hardlight was by and large considered indestructible, especially in sci-fi. Whether or not it was _really_ didn't matter, because he was in a sci-fi anime. So when faced with an indestructible material that could create functionally any object he could think of, really, there was the only sensible option.

And wrapped around his arm hovered a near-perfect facsimile of Captain America's shield.

"Oh..." He chuckled, a wide, nearly feral grin stretching across his face. _"Yeah."_ He grabbed at the edge of the shield. It was cold to the touch, like metal, but was completely firm and solid, and when he lifted it, it came off of his arm.

Now holding it by its edge, he inspected it, marveling at how light it was. It couldn't have been heavier than a small laptop, and on closer inspection, he found, suspended in the center of the shield, a cluster of nanites, and he audibly laughed at the number, or lack thereof, that it took to make the shield. Just a dime's worth - the same shape and size of a dime, made this marvelous shield, and though he couldn't tell, given that his arm wasn't bare, he was pretty certain the cluster had been no thicker than a hair, or a wire.

 _Sufficiently freakin' advanced._ He chuckled. "Okay." He reared his arm.

Cinder recognized his stance, "wait, are you going to _throw_ it?"

"Uh..." Aldric threw it. "Yeah." But when he turned to watch it fly, he saw that it listed severely to the right, passing through several ranges before clattering to the ground with a loud glass-like twang, some thirty feet away. Aldric cleared his throat, "uh..." He reached out with his semblance and, after he felt the cold metal feeling of the light, pulled the shield back. "You didn't see that."

"I took pictures. I'll show them to Mercury." Emerald responded.

The shield flew back to Aldric's hand and he whirled around, "you will do no such thing!" But she was already snapping her phone shut, and a few seconds later, Aldric heard Mercury's laughter from the other side of the wall. He slumped forward, "you hate me." He groaned, turning back to his range.

"You make it too easy." Emerald responded. "So what's the point, here? A shield's well and good, but I fail to see why you'd do this instead of just buying a shield."

"It's less the utility than it is the versatility." Aldric murmured, before he wound back and threw the shield again. This time with a brief little nudge from his semblance, it flew true, though faster than he'd intended. It smacked into the concrete block at the end of the range and dug into it.

"I don't follow." Emerald responded, exchanging looks with Cinder, who simply shrugged and waited Aldric's response.

"Well..." He pulled the shield back, and then affixed it to his arm again. The shield then vanished. "It can be a shield... Or it can be something a bit more lethal." Three claws suddenly popped out from in between his knuckles, and he saw realization slowly begin to dawn in the women's eyes. "It can be melee, or..." The claws faded away, and were replaced by dozens of bullet-shaped constructs. "It can be ranged." He pointed his hand downrange, braced his left arm with his right, and used his semblance, firing the hardlight slugs as fast as he could, at the highest velocities he could.

"And then consider something else really freaky. Light comes from photons - light particles. Photons are subatomic particles... They're smaller than _atoms..._ So we program this thing to be able to make subatomic cutting edges... And there won't be anything it can't cut through. Airship armor, rocks, other guns... Other _atoms,_ if it wanted... A literal lightsaber" He grinned, looking back down the range.

The concrete slab was torn apart, as if subjected to machine gun fire. As the firing range's computers registered this damage, it was automatically drawn back and replaced with a new one. A quick glance over his shoulder, Emerald was aghast, and Cinder was nodding, a thin smile stretching her lips. Aldric dragged back as many of the slugs as he could, and affixed them back to his arm. When the softly glowing blue light faded away and left him with his gunmetal gray forearm, he nodded.

"If there's anything that'll work... Well, though I'd hesitate to use the term, _perfectly_ , with my semblance... I'd say this is it. And! Your reactions were pretty much perfect. Most folks will see me walking around with this and will think... 'What an idiot!', but then I pull out my little funbag of tricks and kick their asses." He nodded, "I'll buy a pistol for redundancy's sake, but if my initial impressions here are any indication... Yeah, I'm going to be swearing by these little machines." He turned back to his group.

"I'm gonna call it the power glove." He said, with a wide smile. "Any questions?"


	8. Superhero Landing!

Chapter 7

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Been about a week since my last entry, we're going to meet Torchwick tonight. Was told to 'expect anything', by Mercury._

 _I'm a little worried, yeah, but only insomuch that **any** sane man would be worried when they were intentionally going out to meet a much more enigmatic Al Capone. _

_Fortunately, I'm a lot less so now than I would have been had we gone to meet that guy the **day** we'd landed. _

_First of all, quickest things to get out of the way after we picked up my weapons, we got me some Remnant clothes. Just some standard stuff - pants, shirts, the works. It looks remarkably like my old wardrobe, but I understand why they wanted me to swap out, it's the subtle differences the keen-eyed would notice. The difference between Earth and Remnant denim, bands and pictures that have no frame of reference here, unrecognizable logos, the works._

 _Moving on to the good stuff: Weapons._

 _So, one thing Rooster Teeth either failed to mention or never got around to bringing up: Remnant has nanites. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're the Metal Gear Solid-esque deus ex machina kind, but they're pretty close. Mine self replicate, can form up to make simple objects, and can project hardlight. I call it the Power Glove. In addition to that, I picked up a pistol, though it doesn't fire hardlight - I figured some variation would do me good. It hits like a bitch, I'm pretty sure it would have give a Desert Eagle back home a run for its money. That it's got a knife attachment was just overkill._

 _But the pistol isn't nearly the most interesting part of my arsenal - it's what I added to shut everyone up. The cool stuff comes from the Power Glove. That thing can sync up with my brain, such that anything I visualize, it creates out of hardlight, Green Lantern style. I'm talking Captain America shields, Spartan Hoplons, Wolverine Claws, bullets, I even managed to get the thing to make arrows. It's basically the T-1000 of weapons, but deadlier, because harldlight isn't the only thing it can do._

 _They can self-replicate, so if I was feeling really vindictive (or perhaps crafty), I could drop small clusters everywhere and have them eat away at the ground, replicate, and then the entire battlefield is my Hardlight Hellhole. Or I could just make the command, smack a bitch with 'em, and watch as they get eaten alive._

 _And the Power Glove works **wonders** with me semblance. I can easily make arrows or bullets and blast people to death with 'em, or I can create the aforementioned Captain America shield, peg someone with it, and then watch it bounce like a pinball, before pulling it right back and beaning someone over the head with it. _

_And did I mention that Hardlight apparently absorbs... Functionally all physical force?_

 _Seriously - Mercury never got to see me test it out at the firing range, so when we got back to the Aviator, we found a place to spar a bit more freely than in a pressurized cabin. He proceeded to use his legs to shoot me with compressed air which, in his words, 'hits like an hauler'. From his subsequent explanation. I assume it's comparably to getting smashed into by a dump truck. Point is, it's supposed to hurt like mad and hit like something you don't walk away from._

 _But when it hit my shield? I didn't feel a **thing**. _

_We proceeded to spend a few hours testing that. He kicked it, shot it with another compressed air bolt, Emerald came by and shot the hell out of it with her revolvers, Cinder even blasted it with a fireball, and I never moved a fucking **INCH!**_

 _Call me Steve Rogers!_

 _As an aside, it is occurring to me that I'm actively conspiring against these people, yet here I am also actively showing them everything I'm capable of. Yes, this is a bad idea, but I also think it's an unavoidable one. After all, I **can't** get stronger on my own - not in the time I need to, at least - so I need to train them, and I can't build up trust with them unless I make it seem like I trust them. So there have to be some gimmies, on this end - I have to keep demonstrating an Earth education, I have to keep training with them, I have to basically show them what I come up with. _

_But not **everything** I come up with. They still have no motherfucking clue about the potential scope of my semblance, the whole atomic manipulation thing, and all that. As well, I haven't told them a **damn** thing about the potential dangers of self-replicating nanites (Gray Goop, anyone?), and the hardlight implements I've used around them have mostly been restricted to Wolverine-style claws, my Captain America shield, and the hardlight bullets. I'd say for every three ideas I have, I let slip one. _

_For instance, I've demonstrated the ranged implements of the shield, but I haven't told them about my ideas to make a hardlight chainsaw. I'm a Doom fan. If I'm not getting a shotgun, I'm getting a chainsaw. Just make a circular hardlight disc with serrated edges, spin that sucker real fast, and boom. Gore showers. God help them if I can figure out how to make mono-atomic cutting edges. **Nothing** could stop me._

 _Anyways, going back, a lot of the doubt they initially showed in the Power Glove started to get wiped away after my little defensive demonstrations with the Cap Shield, but I still had to show it could be used for offense as well as defense. Mercury used this as an excuse to excise his wounded pride (apparently not many people can just walk away from those kicks), and proceeded to beat me black and blue. **But** , I gave just as good as I got! Landed more than a few good hits with the Cap Shield, hit him a couple times with Wolverine claws, and I even stumbled him with a TK bullet, or two. _

_I mean, he still beat me as easily as Bruce Lee would beat a three year old, but I digress. I got good hits in._

 _But this is where we started to notice something - when I would use my semblance to go on the offensive, my defenses would suffer because of it. Now, yes, that sounds like a no brainer - but I don't mean in a 'sacrifice your footing for a killing stroke' kind of a way, but more in a 'take a bullet to give two back' kind of way. When I would lob my shield at him or shoot him with Power Glove projectiles, I noticed that the retaliatory blows hurt more and hit harder. At one point, he even **broke** my shields - something that hasn't happened yet. _

_Testing, proved that this wasn't just me being tired from fighting, but rather a uniquity of my aura. In short, it's either overwhelming attack, or impenetrable defense. I was able to **tank** the strongest of their attacks and, according to the equipment they set up, I only lost half of my shields. But when I switched to the offensive and started tossing stuff around with my semblance, my shield strength plummeted, and were thus more easy to break - got a bullet in the back for that one. It's since healed, but it still smarts. _

_There **is** a middle ground I can work with, but it, as the name implies, is a middle ground. To put it to numbers, when I'm not attacking, everything goes to defense and it takes an inordinate amount of force to break my shields. When I put everything to my semblance and start attacking, my shield strength plummets and I can't take more than a few lethal hits before I fall - but I make up for it in being able to exceed Mercury blow for blow. Not in skill, but in power. _

_But, if I reach that happy medium, I can take hits, but can't hit as hard. To put it in other words, I can either be Goku with Batman durability, Krillin with Superman durability, or Naruto. Overwhelming force with no defense, impenetrable defense with a piss-poor offense, or a decent enough all-around who relies more on attrition._ _It's much more difficult for me to damage Mercury's shields in any meaningful way. But, considering Mercury's instructions were to train me as if he were trying to kill me, that isn't a damn good thing. He's taking this as some kind of sign that maybe my 'bonfire' of aura may be not all it's cracked up to be, but I beg to differ, and have spent the last few days in training putting a theory to test._

 _See, I theorized I might be able to make this weakness into a strength. Because, until my body gets acclimated to the massive amounts of aura it has - which I don't think it will before the Vytal Tournament - I have to overspecialize, or risk a generalized weakness. Yes, I could attempt to train as a jack of all trades and get stronger that way, but I don't have the time to be that patient, nor am I in a position to be so. I **need** to be able to fight on Cinder and Co.'s level, and imminently at that. Until the Fall Maiden I'll only be dealing with the Grimm, regular humans, and Mecrury's Spartan training, but once it's time to fight Her, things will escalate higher and higher until the freakin' Dragon wakes up and tries to kill everyone. _

_But I'm on a tangent._

 _To test this theory, yesterday I dropped pretty much **all** of my defenses for attack power. By my estimation, my aura could have taken maybe a hit or two before it broke - but that was where the Power Glove came in, the Cap Shield stepping in to bolster my defenses. I hold that in one hand, and use the other for a more varied arsenal; the rest? The rest went to over-fuel my semblance. My plan was, use my overwhelming power as both an offense **and** a defense. _

_Take Mercury's Dump Truck Kick (not letting that name die) for example. Under my strategy, instead of dodging it, tanking it, or using the Cap Shield, I'd use my semblance to catch it and either push it back or deflect it. Think of the end-result being the end of the Matrix - Neo was still as fleshy and immortal as ever, but he was able to block the bullets with his **mind,** using his **offense** as a **defense.** _

_The result was fucking beautiful: He fractured my arm, broke three ribs, and now I've got another gnarly scar on my back!  
But **I** broke his shields! First time I've done that! Beat the holy tar our of them by using my semblance to pin him down and my Cap Shield to beat the hell out of him. _

_It wasn't an epic kung-fu fight, I'm not even close to that yet, I'm getting there, but regardless - I was able to prove my point well enough. I am **either** an unstoppable force, **or** an immovable object. As long as I get my reflexes up to par, I can use my semblance as an offense **and** a defense, and not have to worry about sacrificing power for survival.  
_

 _Yes, that sounds absolutely moronic, but my argument would be if I turned into a Tank, that oh-so-precious sense of frailty and accompanying self preservation that I've **survived** on the last few weeks of my life, would wither away. I'd rather think and feel like anything could kill me, than get used to being able to walk into gunfire and thinking I'm a physical god. And the point is rendered somewhat moot by the Cap Shield - it's actually somewhat of an illustration of it, albeit in reverse. It's a damn good defensive tool, but can easily wallop Hitler if one wanted.  
_

 _Anyways, if all goes well, I may be able to find a way to swap between the two - go from irresistible offense to absolute defense - but I get the strangest feeling that not only will things never be that easy, but that also would play hell with my aura._

 _But I digress - everyone's getting their stuff together, so we're probably going to be heading out here soon. The point is, I feel more confident in combat, even if I may have to model it after some unholy fusion of Captain America, Wolverine, Yondu, and Goku._

 _To wrap this little bit up, I do also have a theory as to why my aura and semblance act this way, but that will have to wait. Quickly now, while it has been slight, I **have** been noticing a gradual acclimation of my body to my aura. Beyond the regular physical exercise (read: Getting used to getting beaten half to death by Mercury and almost dying on a daily basis since the plane crash), I've noticed I'm becoming able to run faster for longer periods of time, jump higher without directly using my aura or my semblance, lift heavier things - the works. _

_It's a difference of a few minutes, feet, and dozen pounds respectively, but the difference is as noticeable as it is gradual. I'm starting to understand now why Huntsman and Huntresses are capable of doing such crazy stuff, even without using their semblances._

 _Maybe I really **am** becoming Captain America. _

_Finally, the Remnant English lessons are going good - I'm the equivalent to a first grader. Joy.  
Haven't had much time to try and fiddle with Earth and Remnant tech, but I'm hoping I'll get that time after Torchwick. _

_'Till next time._

* * *

As Aldric slathered his hands in the Power Glove's gray goop and swung his coat over his shoulders, he suddenly realized he may end up killing people tonight. That thought gave him pause, but after a moment's thought, he pushed it away. He was _actively_ working his way into a doomsday cult that would be allying itself with criminals and terrorists, and fully intended to capture and kill a goddess. He was going to kill at some point, it may not have been something he thought of much in the euphoria of getting superpowers, but it was also something he knew would be unavoidable. He had to make peace with it.

 _Besides..._ He thought, as he rubbed his hands together, the nanites covering them providing no loss of dexterity or feeling. _Let's make a list of superheroes who haven't killed: Dead ones._ He reached forward and shut the laptop he'd been hammering away at for the last hour. _And a list of ones who have killed: Superman killed Doomsday, Captain America killed Nazis, Iron Man killed his fair share of people, Goku killed, Wonder woman has **no** code against killing, the Punisher is self explanatory... _ Yes there was the Batman argument, which he did consider as he ran his hand through his shaggy hair, but it was also a poor example; how many people had died because of Wayne's refusal to kill? Slippery slope fallacy be damned, a lot of problems in Batman's life would have ceased to be problems if he'd just offed an enemy or two.

Besides, Nathan Drake killed, too. Case closed. That didn't make it easier, but it gave him the prompt to push it from his mind. He was _actively_ modelling his entire existence in Remnant after an anti-villain who staged an alien invasion and killed millions in doing so. He didn't get to take any moral high ground. As a final thought, he placed a small vial in one of his coat's pockets. It was his last resort - if somehow the Power Glove on both of his hands got destroyed, he had a small backup, he'd just have to buy it time to replicate.

Now as ready as he would ever be, Aldric stepped out of his room. Cinder was there, running a brush from her hair, which prompted the crash survivor to raise an eyebrow.

"While we are prepared to fight..." she said, "that does not mean we intend to." After another pass, the brush vanished in a shower of embers. "And it is usually better from a tactical perspective to make men assume your brains fill your bra as opposed to your head."

Aldric couldn't help but snort at that, "I'll give you that, Hot Stuff." He said, shaking his head and following her through the ship. "Where's the others?"

"Went ahead to scout the location." Cinder supplied, "you were taking a while, writing your journal."

He gave a shrug of apology, as they stepped out of the ship and descended the stairs to the dock. "Sorry. It was longer than usual, haven't written in it in a while."

"Considering what you have said to me about your electronics, I am surprised they still work." She commented, as she smoothed out a wrinkle in her red dress.

"Well, as long as they're not actively being used, they can last a while, but I am going to have to work something out soon." Worst case scenario, he could find a way to program a custom keyboard onto one of the scrolls they had given him, and continue writing from that. "You think things'll turn violent?" He asked, as they strolled away from the dock and began taking side streets, walking under the dark night sky and through the mostly empty city streets.

"Roman Torchwick is a proud man, but not a foolish one." Cinder explained, "such a combination could lead to either outcome. Regardless I do believe we will get what we seek. Exactly how shall be left up to fate to decide."

Aldric chuckled, "you believe in fate?"

"Of course." Cinder responded, her arms swinging with each step. "Do you not?"

"I believe in science. Not mutually exclusive, but..." He hummed, "say it like this: I believe there is a god, I believe he has a plan, but I don't believe he has every single step meticulously thought out. Just a general idea of what needs to happen, where, and when." He wondered if this universe he found himself in now, a world of _actual_ gods and goddesses, had one of the biblical, theological variety.

Cinder gave a sidewards nod of the head, "that makes sense, I suppose." She conceded, "I saw your last battle with Mercury."

Aldric felt his chest throb with the memory. "My ribs only just finished knitting together, you know."

"I hope it is not sympathy you seek, Aldric. _I_ was the one who told him to train you as if he intended to kill you."

Which was very easy - he didn't stop when Aldric's aura was depleted, he only stopped just short of actual killing blows. Pain is a good motivator, after all - and Aldric was in a _lot_ of pain. "No sympathy, just acknowledgement." There was a reason the Spartan method worked, though.

The way Aldric understood it, Mercury was pretty near the top of the pecking order, as far as the show was concerned. Not at _the_ top, but certainly a step or two below Cinder, who herself was, even before the Fall Maiden, probably a step or two below Salem. There were others that padded out the list, of course, but he was hanging out with the main antagonists of the show. That automatically put them near the top of the hierarchy, and by necessity they would only grow stronger as the main characters did, to continue to put up a legitimate threat and challenge. This meant that, once Aldric could hold his own against the assassin's son, he'd already be far ahead of most folks. He just had to make sure that time came sooner, rather than later - if they benched him for the Fall Maiden fight, his every plan to ape The Departed would be, for the most part, destroyed.

"Well, you are leagues better than you were when we found you." Cinder acknowledged.

He grinned, "aww, you're willing to lie to preserve my feelings? Girl, I knew you liked me."

Cinder rolled her eyes. "Perhaps you can explain that to me." She said, as they turned a corner, and a car drove past them.

"Oh?"

"What is it that drives you to act the way you do?" She asked. "I know Mercury did so to spite his father and continues to do so to spite Emerald, more than anyone else. I know Emerald does because of her past, but I fail to see any rhyme or reason to you beyond simple survival." She gave him an appraising look, one eyebrow arced over a deep red eye, as they continued strolling down the street. "When you simply could have had us awaken your aura and then left, not having joined our cause."

To this, Aldric shrugged. "If you're asking why I walk and talk the way I do... I was raised by a pair of snide sarcastic assholes, it's _literally_ all I know." He explained, "I've learned to enjoy the little things, and laughing at stuff definitely counts. As to why I joined up with you... Well..." He hummed, "I never thought I'd be in the history books... Let alone knowing definitively I'd be on the right side." And he technically wasn't wrong, either - if Cinder's faction won, they'd remember him as their agent. If the Justice League's faction won, they'd remember him as their mole.

But he decided to lay it on thick, to throw her off. "And the company's good too. Mercury's got a great ass." Perhaps a little too thick.

But _damn_ if it didn't get the response he'd hoped for, Cinder actually stopped walking for a few steps, before she blinked, frowned, and then shook her head. "No, actually. No." She caught up with him, "I've seen you stare at mine _and_ Emerald's asses, but never Mercury's."

Aldric chuckled, "guilty, but I still got you." He was a teenager rapidly approaching eighteen, he made no excuses. "I think that's the first time I've heard you curse, before, Hot Stuff."

"Only more proof." She shook her head, though he did notice a slight upward curl to the corner of her lips. "Unlike you, I was not 'raised by sailors', as you say. It is a sign of a lack of intelligence."

Aldric turned to face her completely, walking backwards as he crossed his arms. "Oh _really?"_ He taunted, "would you like to explain to me what a fucking tesseract is, then?" He said, with a wide smile on his face. "Or perhaps what a wormhole is? And why it and quantum mechanics is what I think the aura in this universe did to link up with mine and drag my _airplane_ into _your_ plane?!"

Cinder was actually smiling now, though it was closer to a sneer than a smile. "Aren't you seventeen, Nebo? How is it you know these things."

He knew what she was doing, using his first name, and much for the same reason she never responded to his nickname for her, he didn't rise to her challenge. He also thought it was _awesome,_ how he was breaking her out of her shell like this. Seeing someone like Cinder Fall actually gain some humanity beyond power fantasies and evil for the evulz was certainly a unique experience. That it would make his Ozzymandias act harder was something he didn't heavily think about. Though, one thing did briefly cross his mind. He remembered one quote from her in particular, to be said in the future. He didn't remember perfectly the circumstances, but he knew that Emerald and Mercury had freelanced and done something on their own, which Cinder didn't like. They'd try to excuse it saying they didn't think it was a big deal, but then Cinder would tell them that they weren't _there_ to think, but rather to obey.

 _That_ Cinder was a far cry from the one whose skin he was getting under now, and it prompted a question in him. Considering that she basically all but said she desperately wanted - needed, even - him on her side, and he'd shown hints of idealism, was it then impossible that this all was an act? The smiles, the counter-teasing, was it all there to lull him into a false sense of friendship and camaraderie? Was she playing him just as he was playing her? She wanted his loyalty, she wanted him to have a _reason_ to stay with them, even should it conflict with his morals. If they weren't like family to him, then he, in this new world, would have nothing to lose and everything to gain should he decide they weren't the good he thought them to be; but if she befriended him, suddenly he would have a reason to stay, a reason to change his mind, to adapt to their way of thinking.

It was a sobering thought.

He shrugged, as they entered the warehouse district, the towering buildings fading away to large square storage buildings and massive, mostly automated, parking lots and staging areas, all brightly lit by white floodlights. "I had... Like... Ten." He nodded, "ten friends, back home. A tightly knit circle, no more than I needed. But we all also agreed we were all _assholes,_ so we'd definitely hang out, just not all the time." He also didn't have a car, that definitely contributed. "So whenever I was home, I just read, or played video games. Whatever struck my fancy - physics was real fun, dear god, don't try to make me actually do the math. I can understand abstract concepts until the cows come home, but the moment the alphabet got added to my math homework my grades started to tank."

"And here you are, strong enough to potentially match fists with huntsman headmasters. Perhaps you missed your calling, in your home."

"Don't, my ego can only get so large." He said, as she led him down one path, a warehouse looming above them. "This the place?"

"Close to it." Cinder said, before leaping up to the warehouse's roof with little warning.

Aldric shrugged, before he crouched down. "Show off." He lunged upwards.

He almost didn't make it to the rooftop, catching the ledge with his midsection, but Emerald was there to haul him up the rest of the way. He thanked her, and joined up with her, Cinder, and Mercury, who was looking at a warehouse two buildings away through a pair of binoculars.

With a grunt, he leaned down. "What's the verdict?"

"Pretty much everything we thought." Mercury said, handing Aldric the binoculars. Aldric reached for them, but Cinder grabbed them before he could, leading him to give her an exaggerated frown, which she ignored. "Got a lot of his thugs patrolling the catwalks and keeping the grounds clear. I saw them knock out the security cameras before they went in, though." He briefly lowered his binoculars, "see that chimney? That's where the office is. Torchwick went in about an hour ago, he's in there." He looked up to Cinder, who was scanning the building's roof.

Aldric frowned, "an hour ago? I thought we were meeting _now."_

" _We_ are, _they_ weren't." Mercury responded, "first rule. Being cordial and on time is definitely a good show of respect, but being late is a display of force."

"And we want him to think we don't respect him?"

"The meeting time we set was _two_ hours ago."

"Oh." So Torchwick was an hour late, and they were two. This was certainly no John Wick underworld, Aldric could say that much.

"Do any of his thugs have aura?"

Mercury nodded, "one. Father had her in his book, name of Neopolitan. Semblance seems to be shape shifting. You'll know her when you see her."

 _Of course his dad would have a book._ Thought Aldric, with a sidewards nod of the head. "Didn't you say dear old dad was a drunk?"

"Didn't stop him from being _damn_ good at his job." Mercury argued, tersely. "Some even argued it helped him." This prompted a grin, "though not enough, clearly."

Aldric wisely chose to stay silent.

Emerald, on the other hand, "there seems to be fifty men, inside, plus Torchwick and Neopolitan." She said, getting things back on track.

Cinder nodded, "that will be fine." She lowered the binoculars and gave them back to the assassin's son. "Let's go."

They leapt from the warehouse - Aldric landing with a grunt, and a flutter of his jacket, it almost appearing like a cape. Torchwick's guards quickly noticed them as they brazenly approached the front of the warehouse, though did little as they entered the darkened building. There were few active lighting fixtures hanging from the high ceilings, giving the atmosphere of a shadowed place. Aldric adopted a neutral frown as he followed Cinder and Co, his mind wandering as they found a stairwell and began to climb.

 _Cinder and Co... That's nice and all, but I can do better._ He thought, as they reached the rafters above and began walking towards the warehouse's main office, suspended above the ground floor and held aloft by the rafters and support beams. _How about the Legion of Doom?_ Aldric briefly made eye contact with one of Torchwick's thugs, the man held a shotgun almost as big as his head, but despite this he quickly averted his eyes when he looked into Aldric's gunmetal gray orbs. _Yeah, same number of syllables... But I think it works. Got Ozpin's Justice League, Salem's Legion of Doom. The League and the Legion._ He could just imagine the thought.

 _The Legion entered a warehouse. The Legion got lunch. The Legion stared at Aldric after a dumb damn joke._ He had to exercise a tremendous amount of willpower not to chuckle. _Yeah, that'll do. We're the Legion now, everybody. I guess that means if I get Qrow and Ozpin on my side, that makes us the Watchmen? Sure, I'll take that._ They reached the office, and one of Torchwick's thugs let them in.

There he stood, before the window that overlooked the main floor, both hands resting on his cane. "You're late, you know."

Cinder did the talking, "and you weren't?" She asked.

Aldric gave the room a brief look, and found Neo sitting on top of a stack of crates in the far corner, her legs swinging freely and a thin smirk plastered across her pale face. Torchwick chuckled, and turned to face them with a flourish. "Only fashionably so, Miss Ma'am!" He said, his arms held out wide, before one crossed his stomach and he bowed deeply. "Roman Torchwick, at your service." He straightened up, and placed his hands back upon his cane with a light click.

Aldric leaned up against the door, stowing his hands in his jacket and watching Cinder and Torchwick speak.

"Ah, Miss Fall, quite a foreboding name, I must say." Torchwick gave her a polite, exaggerated nod. "As well, to be contacted by the son of Marcus Black? With a business proposal no less? You can color me intrigued." He said, in his airy voice and confident tone. "I would say step into my office, but it appears that is where we all are already... So perhaps you could tell me what it is you intend to gain from such a proposal."

"Power, a place in history, and fate, to be succinct." Cinder said, stepping around and falling into a chair in front of the desk in the center of the office. "I represent quite a powerful group..." She nodded to her companions, "far more numerous and some more powerful than those you see here. We seek a goal, a simple one - to overthrow a vast majority of the modern kingdoms and install a new system of leadership."

 _I wonder if she's being so brazen for his sake, or because she's expecting me to mention this later?_ Because while similar, this was also different from her recruitment pitch to him. _I'll play along for now. We're dealing with the mafia, so she'd likely tailor her pitch accordingly._

Roman chuckled, "rather interesting..." He flamboyantly slid across the room, first to Emerald, leaning down to meet her mint eyes. "I know you say you've more than you four but I still do find myself wondering exactly how you intend to succeed in such a lofty goal when even a worldwide war couldn't even break _one_ kingdom, much less them all." He tilted his head, Emerald simply glared back at him.

Cinder wasn't even looking at him, instead staring out of the window, into the dark warehouse. "As I've said, Mister Torchwick. We've more, and many more powerful." She reiterated. "We play the quality game, as opposed to the quantity game."

Roman chuckled, "I would buy that argument were it coming from twenty huntsman wanting to clear out an old stone city." He said, straightening up and marching over to Aldric, before getting down in _his_ face. "But I doubt even all hunstman headmasters could complete your goal. Not with mere quality..." Aldric gave the boss an arced eyebrow, which caused Roman to reciprocate with a recoil of the head and a raised eyebrow of his own. "Hm..." He nodded, before he straightened up and began approaching Mercury. "So would I be correct in assuming my 'quality' is in the resources I command?" He inquired.

Cinder slowly closed her eyes, and nodded. "You would be close enough to say yes."

"Well you can go ahead and call _me_ flattered." He extended his hand, which Mercury shook with a respectful nod. "Great fan of your father, by the way. Hired him many times. How is he?"

"Fried and extra crispy."

"Well good riddance to the bastard, I hated his guts!" Roman smiled widely, before turning on his heel. "You see Miss Fall, perhaps I would be inclined to believe you. After all, most of you certainly seem capable of doing what it is you tell me you seek to do, and as you may know, I'm a gambling man. I tend to bet on the surefire wins, and while I'm certainly no sensor, anyone who can curtail the son of Marcus Black clearly isn't to be trifled with." He lifted his cane, and then pointed it at Aldric. "But you see... I don't believe all of you are capable of such a thing. This man here hardly looks like he could pass a Signal exam, let alone take over the _world."_

Cinder arced an eyebrow, "oh?" She said, coolly.

 _Yeah... Just play it cool._ Aldric just kept eye contact with the man, who smirked.

"Oh in _deed!"_ He said, "however... For my many strengths, I'm afraid I must admit I'm a poor judge of character. For all _I_ know..." He said, dramatically. "The lack of scars on this boy's face is merely an indicator of a vast and unmatched skill!" He indicated Aldric, "and his coat... It appears as if he thinks he's in Atlas! But his stance, his hair... I believe I even see a short stubble there. I swear it's almost as if he's never fought a day in his life!"

Cinder simply hummed, beckoning the man to continue.

"See, as I said, I'm a betting man, and everything tells me to make this bet... Except him." His voice dropped in tone, and he lowered the cane to the ground. "Tell me, sonny. You seem to be a follower type, is that true? Do you make your own choices? No, I feel as if you're a zealot, kind of a person. Are you, good sir?" He leaned forward, "would you go so far as to claim you are a religious man? Oh who do you believe in? The Deity Brothers? The One Above All?"

 _What the fuck is he smoking?_ Aldric remained silent.

"Yip yip goes the dog." Roman stood up straight, chuckling. " _I_ , however, I am not a religious man. The things I've seen, the things I've _done..._ Oh no, if there were a benevolent god I do believe I would have been smitten quite a while ago."

Cinder now turned her head, but she wasn't looking at Roman, but rather, Aldric. Aldric got the strangest feeling she was trying to tell him something. Problem was, he wouldn't even remotely claim to have spent enough time with her to be able to tell what she was thinking. She arced an eyebrow expectantly, he frowned, his features stilled. What was she trying to say? Was he doing something wrong? He hadn't done _anything._ After a moment, her eyes narrowed a fraction, and darted over to Torchwick, and Aldric wondered if she wasn't telling him to shut the man up, such that he would get to his point.

After a moment, she finally gave up the subtleties and raised a finger to her lips, before masking it by sliding her hand through her hair.

 _Okay... Yeah. She wants this guy to shut up._ Well, Aldric would oblige.

"So you see Miss Fall..." Roman continued, unaware of Aldric slowly raising his hand, his thumb and forefinger pressing together, though Neo's eyes had zeroed in on him instantly. "I truly only believe in two things... That humans exist, and they want power... And I don't _believe_ that this boy you've brought into my office is capable -" Roman was stopped dead when he felt something pressing at his throat, as if blocking his windpipe.

He blinked, his head recoiling as he tenderly felt at his throat, before his attention was then stolen by Aldric.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." Aldric deadpanned, making a supreme effort not to break his neutral expression and grin.

In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, Neo was on her feet and in front of Aldric, her umbrella pressed against his throat, where he could feel the cold sting of steel pressing just hard enough to be noticed and perhaps draw a bead of blood, but not enough to do lasting damage. Her grin, while still present, had lost its earlier amusement, and had turned fierce. It had gone from light and friendly to appearing as if she'd already planned his murder and funeral simply by looking at him. It was unnerving, but Aldric had long since become proficient in the art of the poker face, having to keep it up for the Legion like he did.

That being said, that practice certainly didn't make it easier for him. There was a goddamn knife pressed against his throat - and that fact alone managed to be more terrifying than when Cubone had had him crushed against the ground, tearing at his chest. With Aldric and Neo both staring eachother down, Roman, meanwhile, was doing a remarkable job of keeping his composure, despite his head slowly turning red. He leaned a hand on the desk next to him, and kept up eye contact with Aldric, whose gaze briefly flicked between him and his ward.

They kept this up for another several seconds, before Cinder finally nodded, and Aldric released his hold. He heard the air quickly get sucked into Roman's lung through his nose, and Roman nodded. "Well, perhaps I was wrong!" He said, "I mean, after all - I did say I was a _poor_ judge of character... But Neopolitan here - she's much better than I." Neo's smile grew warm and playful, as the blade in her umbrella retracted, and she slid back to Roman's side.

"So, I'll tell you this, Miss Fall." Roman's head lolled over to her. "While I may believe you truly desire what it is you say... I still do not know whether or not I should bet on _you..._ If _you_ bet on _him."_ He looked back to Aldric.

 _Oh I've got a bad feeling about this._ Aldric felt his heart sink to his stomach.

"What would you request, then?" Cinder asked, coolly.

"Well as both he and you have clearly demonstrated, Miss Fall, you have _guts..._ But all I've seen thus far is that the dog can bark. I say we let Neo here judge his character, and on her word I may choose to bet upon you."

Cinder smiled thinly, "while I am not disagreeing... I do hope you realize I will not tolerate such behavior when we make our deal. I require loyalty... And your little display here has only shown me that you think perhaps too much for your own good. Doubting my choice of companions... Perhaps you would then doubt an order I give, or a request I make." She swiveled around on her chair. "When he wins, I will need everything you have. Everything you can do. Without question."

 _Uh... Wins?_ Aldric spared Mercury a brief glance, but his expression hadn't changed.

Suddenly he felt as if perhaps this all had been staged.

 _Oh Jesus, we've been here a week. There is no goddamn way they just avoided eachother in that time. This entire thing was a setup from the word 'go'._ They weren't here to get Torchwick, they were here to _test_ Aldric. Of course, it was still more than possible that he was wrong, but this all felt too convenient. Torchwick was a guy who, as he said, bet on the winning team - he was allied with the Legion in canon RWBY, for chrissakes! Not only that but he had a criminal empire that was able to empty Vale of _all_ of its dust, and get him out of jail on multiple accounts. There was no way he didn't already know about, if not Salem, then at _least_ Cinder; if Marcus Black had a book with Neopolitan's name in it, then Roman Torchwick had to have a book with Cinder Fall's.

This entire thing had been staged, they were testing Aldric.

"Oh, but of course, ma'am. I've only the utmost for those with whom I work." Said Roman, with a bow of the head and a tip of his hat. "But I do hope you realize..." He hummed, "Neopolitan there... She doesn't really know how to spar. She can play with her food, most definitely, but the word 'non' is never attached to her 'lethal'."

They were testing him with his _life._

"I would have hoped for nothing less, Mister Torchwick." Cinder slowly extended her hand.

Roman shook it.

 _Well... In the words of Nathan Drake..._ Aldric sighed. "Oh crap."

"I say - this office is rather cramped, and dusty too - whew!" Roman fanned his hand in an animated fashion. "What say you we give these two room to play? Down stairs would work."

Cinder nodded, "indeed." She held out her hand.

Roman grinned, "oh, well - allow me!" He took ahold of her hand and helped her to her feet.

Aldric followed the Legion out onto the catwalks. He watched with a slowly increasing sense of dread as Neo, with a wide, fiery smile, leaned onto the railings, sat upon them, and swung her legs around. With a glance at him cast over her shoulder, and her umbrella slung over the other, she gave him a thin grin and waved, before she slid off of the railing and user her umbrella to float down.

With a light sigh, Aldric slipped off his coat, and hung it off the railing. He cast Cinder and Roman a quick glance, before leaning close to Mercury. "Any advice?" He whispered.

Mercury said, "don't die."

Aldric rolled his eyes, "thanks, asshole." He ambled over the railing. Staring over the edge, though, a grin came to his face.

Yeah, if he was going to die here, he might as well.

He turned to Cinder, who caught the mischievous glint in his eyes. Her own widened a fraction of an inch, as if in warning, but that only made his grin grow wider.

"Hey." He nodded his head, "I'm gonna do the superhero landing." He said, before leaping off the catwalk.

He fell the fifteen feet and landed with a flourish, his left arm enveloped in his facsimile of Captain America's shield. It hit the ground first, absorbing much of the impact as he bent down one one knee. He looked up to Neo, as the shield disippated, the light flickering away like floating blue embers. He straightened up, and stretched his arms out.

 _"Whew..."_ He mumbled, before he flicked out his left arm, summoned up the shield again, and to his right, came flying his gun. "Superhero landing."

 _"Well what are you waiting for?"_ Roman called out, his voice echoing across the warehouse as his thugs began to line the catwalk like spectators. _"Fight alr-"_

Before he could finish, Aldric reared his hand and chucked his gun at Neo. Neo blinked, the sheer audacity of the act catching her off guard, nearly causing her to take the gun straight to her face. Fortunately she recovered, not fast enough to unleash her umbrella as a shield, but fast enough to bat the gun aside and send it sailing right back. Aldric's gunmetal gray eyes followed the gun, and he nodded, as he looked back to Neo, her smile going from that of a hunter, to that of a thoroughly amused owner playing with its toys.

"Maximum effort." He grunted, raising his shield, before he charged.


	9. I Scream

Chapter 8

* * *

In the back parts of his mind, the same parts that had told him charging a demon-wolf-bear with an axe was a bad idea, he reminded himself that this chick had kicked _Yang's_ ass.

But like always, he ignored those parts in favor of the much louder parts that screamed _"WHAT WOULD NATHAN DRAKE DO?!"_

So he threw his fucking gun at her and charged her with his fists.

Would anyone believe him if he said he actually had a plan?

Regardless of the answer, it didn't change the opening salvo. He came charging in and threw a powerful right Superman punch Neo's way, but she danced out of the way, holding her umbrella and her hands behind her back as if taunting Aldric. Aldric spun into the momentum of his punch and came around swinging his shield, but Neo kicked her foot up and absorbed the blow, before kicking off of it and sailing away, briefly unfurling her umbrella to float back to the ground, Princess Peach style.

She wasn't surprised when she saw Aldric's shield hurtling towards her, and nor was she stupid enough to try and bat this one away. She swung her umbrella around and opened it wide, but when the shield slammed into it like a speeding car, sending her skidding across the dusty warehouse ground, her silent grin faltered a moment. She thrust her umbrella to the side and the shield went sliding away, but Aldric was there, using her momentary distraction as a means to get in her defenses, three long, sharp claws of dull blue light protruding from his knuckles.

She tried to dance out of the way of these attacks as she had done before, but found that something was off in her movements - a sluggishness, so faint that she confused it for a lack of balance on her end. Aldric was applying a light pressure to her back and knees with his semblance, the result being like moving through grass - a negligible difference, but one just present enough to throw her off.

With this, he was able to swing his left arm around and bury it into her stomach. Her shields blunted most of the attack but she was still sent skidding backwards again. A less skilled fighter wouldn't have heard the thrum of the air, but she did, and with widened eyes, she ducked down, Aldric's shield sailing straight over her and back to its owner, as his claws vanished. He raised it again, and banged on its front, the sound similar to that of glass striking glass. The first thing he had to do was get her away from her umbrella, and to do that he had to get it tangled up in his shield.

With a sidewards jerk of the head, she gave him an impressed nod, before the blade popped out of her umbrella, and she surged forward. Aldric's reflexes, while better now than most people from Earth, weren't nearly good enough to get his body to react to her in time. Fortunately, he didn't even have to - the moment he saw her closing in on him, with a pulse of aura he skidded to the side. She blinked and changed directions on a dime, still as silent as the night as she charged him.

She rammed the tip of her blade onto his shield, he parried it and thrust upwards, but this proved to be what she wanted, as she then thrust her knee forward. Aldric, however, swung his right hand downwards, and with his semblance, slowed what would have been a vicious attack to his stomach down to a halt. His hand shook from the effort, but it managed to work. He then brought his shield sailing back downwards, slamming it onto her thigh, before he bodily lunged forwards. He smashed the shield into her core, using his semblance to increase the force of his impact, turning it from a powerful tackle into a small wrecking ball. Neo was again sent skidding backwards, but as Aldric lowered his shield he, with the radar pulse, felt the air change around her.

Lowering the shield, he found that there were now three Neos.

 _Illusions..._ If he remembered correctly, they were very fragile clones.

Another radar pulse, and he let out a slow breath. Just a little longer, but splitting his attention like this was costing him. The clones, in unison, opened their umbrellas and swung them over their shoulders, spinning them and smiling wide. Aldric would give her credit for trying, but he could feel her through the radar pulse. She'd used her illusions to create _three_ clones, while the real Neo turned invisible, intent on attacking him from behind.

This plan was scuppered when, with a telekinetic push, a small shockwave blasted outwards, shattered her clones and her cloak. She, however, took it in stride, and swung her leg up in a wide, sweeping high kick. Aldric took the blow with his shield, but the moment he felt the leg make impact, he dissipated the shield. Neo didn't predict this, and as such Aldric had just enough time to wrap his arm around her leg and use that as an excuse to hide him immobilizing it with his semblance. Neo, however, took this as leave to hop up with her other leg and swing it around - ramming it into the side of Aldric's leg. It took all he had to keep the leg locked to his arm, but he was stunned nonetheless, and she took this as an opportunity to lock her free leg to his shoulder, and swing her whole body in a downward, arcing motion.

Her weight and momentum dragged Aldric to the ground, he slammed down home with a grunt of pain and a loud 'thump'. A moment later he felt something cold and sharp penetrate his shoulder. He bit back a shout of pain, but seized his chance, letting go of Neo to make a grab for the umbrella. Neo realized what he was doing, but he used his semblance to blast her backwards and wrench her grip free of her weapon.

Blood leaking out of his shoulder, Aldric labored to his feet, the tri-haired mute's umbrella clutched in his hand. He tore it out of his shoulder as Neo leapt back to her feet, an ecstatic grin on her face as she looked at him from across the warehouse. His shoulder burned from its wound, but he'd gotten her weapon, so he counted it as a win. With a heavy heave, he threw the umbrella to the side, it burying halfway to its grip in a large metal shipping crate.

Neo gave him another impressed nod, before she charged forward, splitting into two, to four, to eight, to sixteen clones as they filled the floor and sprinted towards him. Aldric gave an exhausted sigh, his shoulders briefly slumping, before he charged forward. A several foot long, curved blade appeared around his right arm as he swung in a wide, circular motion. Dozens of the Neos shattered like glass, the others hopped back from the sweeping attack, but Aldric sensed her sailing in from above - she having climbed the crates and deciding to try an attack from the air.

Unfortunately for her, his shield took the brunt of the attack and left him unharmed. She knelt down, her feral grin wrinkling her face, and her pink and brown eyes locking onto his gunmetal gray orbs. His next choice certainly wasn't the smartest, but intelligence hadn't been what had saved him from the Beowolf. With that reasoning in mind, he switched off the shield, and as Neo fell those few inches between her and him, his right hand surged forward - a thick spike of dull blue light protruding from his palm.

She, however, palmed it away and danced around his counter swing. She landed on the ground like a dancer, and then buried her foot into his back. Aldric stumbled forward, sensing more than looking for her next attack, and rolling out of the way to dodge her downward kick. She tried to punt his stomach as he scrambled back to his feet, but a powerful telekinetic shield slowed this attack long enough for Aldric to grab at the leg. However, this time he was able to capitalize it as he yanked downwards. Neo was brought down to the ground, and Aldric scrambled over to straddle her.

She, however, didn't stop smiling, and a moment later, he felt cold steel penetrate his back, poking just out of his ribcage. One radar pulse later, Aldric realized that he'd failed to realize those few clones he'd missed had gone for her weapon. They were solid, they had mass - of course, if given the chance, they would go for the damn umbrella.

 _Stupid..._ He affixed Neo with a fierce glare, and formed a shield in his free hand, whilst blasting the three behind him with his semblance.

He rammed the shield downwards, into her face, and pulled the blade out of his back with his abilities. He managed to smash her face in three times before her legs swung up and wrapped around his throat. However, where she expected to put him in a choke hold, she found her legs forcibly wrenched open and Aldric once again beating her face. He, however, then felt his back throb painfully, and the momentary stun wiped away any momentary advantage he had gained, and with a heavy shove, he was thrown from his position over her.

He groaned in pain, feeling the blood leak out of his back and chest. He saw Neo was breathing heavily, but unlike him, she still had her shields - aside from some bruises and soreness, she was fine. If he wanted to keep this 'best defense is a good offense' strategy, he'd have to change it around a bit, work some kind of constant telekinetic barrier into it, or perhaps a never-ending radar pulse, so shit like this couldn't happen again. He shook his head, burying those thoughts. With another grunt, Aldric raised himself to his knees, and then his feet. Despite weighing functionally nothing, the circular shield hanging from his left arm slowly felt as if it were attempting to disobey him and begin to obey Remnant's gravity.

Neo once again had her umbrella over her shoulder, twirling it around. Another radar pulse, and Aldric nodded.

"Yeah... You're doin' good there, Neo." He swallowed through a dry throat, "but uh... You're forgetting one thing."

She arced an eyebrow.

He pointed over her shoulder, up to the cat-walks _"what the hell is that?!"_

Expecting another telekinetic attack, Neo quickly skated forward, turning her head and using her peripherals to find his attack, but nothing came. Not from that direction, anyways - with a grunt, Aldric used his semblance to charge forward and right into Neo's defenses. He swung at her, smashing his fist into the side of her face and using his semblance to spin her around. With her back to him, he threw his arms under hers and then wrapped his hands around her head, catching her in a headlock.

 _"Look closer."_ He grunted through a tight chest.

Without even a huff, she tried kicking her foot up to nail Aldric in between the legs. He, however, used his semblance to lock her foot in place, and then used his Power Glove to immobilize his hands around her neck, keeping her stuck fast and unable to escape his grasp.

 _"You're not looking!"_ He now shouted, looking up to Roman and the Legion, making eye contact with the orange-haired gangster. _"Let me try this."_

And then, Roman's head was briefly pushed forward, as the barrel of the very gun he had chucked at Neo pressed against the back of his head. Roman stiffened up, as did Neo who, from her vantage point below and to their side, could clearly see the dark metal object pressing against his head. The entire fight, Aldric had been dragging that thing across the ground, and up into the air, constantly turning on and off his hardlight to ruin everyone's night vision, so they wouldn't notice it as long as they were focused on him. Now with it pressed against Roman's head, he was in checkmate position.

 _"Well..."_ Roman called down, "we seem to be at a standoff, don't we?"

A _lot_ of guns were then pointed at Aldric, from the cat walks above.

 _Oh god damn it..._ His head was starting to hurt, from keeping Neo's legs where they were, and keeping the gun where it had to be. He had his chest clenched so tight that his face was beginning to redden.

"I do believe _she_ was to judge your character, my good sir. Not _I."_ He called down.

Aldric buried his knee into the small of her back. She was nearly able to steal his balance out from under him, but more telekinesis solved that problem. His head was really beginning to hurt.

 _"Yeah?!"_ He croaked out from behind a light scowl, it set in deep shadows thanks to its position above a dull blue light source. _"Well here's our parley. We'll agree I'm a badass, you walk out without ruining that real nice coat."_ Neo was trying to slip her arms out from Aldric's grasp, but his hardlight filled in any gaps that she could do it in.

He also noted her hair didn't smell like any of the ice creams from which she was named, but rather like mints.

 _"Oh please,_ my good sir. You wouldn't -" The gun was then pressed to his shoulder and fired, the bullet grazing him but drawing blood all the same. Roman howled out in pain, and one trigger-happy thug, in his surprise, let off a round.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back, as to keep up the shield to halt that bullet, he had to let go somewhere else - and he didn't necessarily _pick_ where. So when the bullet stopped in mid-air, Neo sensed she had control over her leg back, and promptly buried her heel in between Aldric's legs. He croaked in pain, hardly even able to articulate his pain, as he doubled over, practically sliding his head down Neo's back. Neo, as his arms slid down with him, hopped out of his grasp and kicked off of his face, before landing on her feet with a flourish.

Fortunately, Roman took this moment to curse him out. _"Oh!"_ He gasped, "do you _know_ how expensive this damn coat was? And you _shot_ me!"

 _"Tis but a flesh wound..."_ Aldric croaked, as he unsteadily got back to his feet.

"Yes, but it's the principle of the thing!"

"Yup..." He groaned, raising his arm and forming the shield again. "Sure." He felt his semblance's grip on the gun go slack, and now there was nothing dragging at his concentration.

That had probably been his best, perhaps _only_ shot at winning this without seeing how well Neo could match Cubone in the 'carve up Aldric like a Thanksgiving Turkey' department, and now without Neo as a hostage of sorts, the entire thing had been thrown out. He'd hoped to get Neo to surrender by holding Torchwick hostage, and Torchwick to accept it by holding _Neo_ hostage. With both of them now aware of these plans, he couldn't try it again, and now the only way he could win was conventionally. Considering the bruises and cuts covering his body, those chances weren't high.

 _Okay... **Now** what do I do?_ He thought, a frown forming on his face. _I could try pulling a Darth Vader, smash her around without touching her... Might work now that I'm not splitting my attention ten different ways, but it's a lot harder to hold something that's struggling than it is to pick up an inanimate object._

His thoughts were interrupted when Neo gave him another nod, this one accompanied by an impressed smirk, before she to charged forward.

"Oh crap." Aldric grunted, as he raised his shield and intercepted a quick swing from Neo's umbrella.

He parried and deflected the blow, lunging forward and slamming his fist into her stomach, but she latched onto his arm and, in a flurry of movement, managed to turn the backwards momentum into circular momentum, climb onto his back, and begin beating at his head with her umbrella. Aldric launched himself backwards with a telekinetic push, but Neo slid off of him before he could bury the both of them into a shipping container. Now with thick metal pressing at his body and stars swimming in his vision, Aldric decided that the best solution here may very well be the easiest one.

So as Neo charged him again, Aldric dissipated his shield, and thrust both hands forward. She was halted wholesale and he was pressed further into the metal, but with her frozen in place, he had the time to wrench himself free. He then lifted one hand, slowly clenching it into a fist, before bringing it on down in a sharp, slashing motion. Neo was lifted into the air and then smashed onto the concrete floor with a loud crunching noise, but her shields blunted most of the attack. Aldric then thrust her to the side, burying her into a shipping container and causing a large stack of them to fall to the ground, but again, her shields held.

Now with her actively struggling against his hold, Aldric found it more and more difficult to keep her in the air, so he instead tried a different approach - throwing her through the air like a baseball, and sending her flying to the other side of the warehouse. With few other ways of catching up to her, Aldric then pushed _himself_ at a higher speed - with his shield held firmly in front of him. It took him three seconds to cross to the other side of the warehouse, and were it not for his shield absorbing the force of impact, with how hard he hit the wall he would have shattered his elbow.

Aldric whipped around just in time to see Neo catch the bottom of her umbrella on a thin metal pipe, using it as a fulcrum to swing around, now flying at him feet-first. Aldric didn't like this, but he also knew that she couldn't do much else about her being in the air, so with a mighty heave, he spun around in a wide circle and threw his shield at the tri-haired mute. It soared through the air with the sound of ringing glass, but Neo thrust her unfurled umbrella forward, her momentum and its speed meeting and the resultant impact cancelling eachother out, causing her to fall straight to the ground. Aldric hadn't planned this at all, but she was still high enough up in the air that he could sprint underneath her, which he did, but she snatched his shield out of the air and flung it at him.

He thrust his hand out and halted the shield with his semblance, slowing it down enough for him to catch it. Neo landed a foot away from him and rolled into the landing, using it to lunge straight for him. He batted aside her straight thrust with his shield, but she followed it up with a savage roundhouse, causing him to stumble to the side. He sensed her attempting to kick him again, and used his semblance to send it careening off in the wrong direction, but she rolled with it and used it to spin around into another kick, burying her heel into his shield.

Fortunately for Aldric, this left her back wide open - and with but a thought, he formed a large battering ram around his right arm. He slammed it into her back, and she stumbled forward. The ram and his shield disappeared in a flash of blue embers, and Aldric charged, managing to get inside Neo's defenses and wrap his arms around her abdomen. He managed two heavy punches to her ribs before he locked one hand to the other and, with a loud bellow, he lifted her over his head and slammed her onto the concrete in a textbook suplex.

However, knowing how well she'd proven to be on the ground, Aldric quickly pulsed his semblance and escaped her before she could wrap her legs around his neck and get him in a chokehold. He landed several feet away, and watched as she spun both of her long legs around and sprung to her feet. He could see a bruise marring her right cheek, but it did nothing to her smile, as she again hefted her umbrella over her shoulder and spun it around.

 _No... No, I can't try Darth Vader again... She'll expect it. Can't try flinging her around anymore, she knows how to break my concentration. Clearly can't match her hand to hand..._ Aldric frowned. _The only time I had the upper hand and had her on the defensive was when that damn umbrella was taken out, but she's not going..._ He blinked, as she arced an eyebrow, wondering what it was he was planning in this brief pause.

He wondered if it would be that simple.

With a swallow through a dry throat, Aldric stood to his feet, dropping his shield and slumping his shoulders. Now her arced eyebrow raised higher, interest sparking in her eyes. Aldric clenched his chest, and threw his hand forward. Neo instantly felt his telekinetic hold on her umbrella, but all of her strength couldn't keep him from tearing it out of her hands and bringing it to him. He caught it by its middle, and with an angry grunt, again heaved it to the side, this time hard enough that it careened through two thick metal shipping containers, before being buried inside of a third.

Just like last time, Neo tried using her semblance to distract him, such that she could make a run for her weapon, but Aldric wasn't having that, and used his radar pulse to eliminate her shell game and keep her firmly within his sights. He used minor telekinetic blasts to shatter her illusory clones and a tight hold on her legs to keep her pinned to the ground.

Aldric then launched himself forward and slammed the edge of his shield into her chest, bowling the both of them over. He had her upper body pinned to the ground with his weight and the shield, but she only had one hand struggling against the shield. He sensed her other hand reaching down towards her knee-high boot, towards something he hadn't sensed before - a gun just barely the size of her fist. It took a great deal of effort to use his semblance to struggle against her hand as she tried to aim the gun at his gut, but she'd long since figured out that as long as she struggled, he couldn't hold her nearly as well, so she fired the gun anyway. This shot the gun up a few inches, and the next bullet grazed against his back and shot the gun up another inch, now pointed right at his ribs.

However, before she could fire again, Aldric used his right glove to make another shield, blocking his core with it and causing her next bullet to bounce right off. He had a deep, open-mouthed scowl on his face as he struggled against her on many fronts. He was croaking with the effort of keeping her pinned, but it was becoming very clear to him that even if he kept her like this, he wouldn't be able to concentrate enough to actually attack her - he could only keep her pinned against the ground, and he wasn't even closing her airway, with her other arm struggling against his shield.

So he did the only sensible option: He dropped _both_ shields, _and_ his telekinetic grip on her gun hand. This caused her gun hand to fly up once its resistance was lost, and him to surge downwards. He buried his head into hers with the cracking sound of bone striking bone, and then locked his left hand to her right, and caught her right hand with his left. Now with both of her hands locked, Aldric had the available effort to -

He heard the sound of metal springing outwards too late to realize he'd lapsed in concentration. One of her legs had gotten free, and she'd smacked her heel onto the ground. In a frightening display of flexibility, she kicked upwards and buried a boot-knife, hardly even two inches long, into Aldric's back. She managed another kick before Aldric twisted out of the way and tumbled off of her.

 _I... I really need to figure out this offensive defense nonsense, or else I'm going to **die**._ He thought, with a deep scowl on his face as he hauled himself to his feet. He looked over to Neo, who dug the toes of her boot into the concrete ground, sliding the knife back into her boot. _How much aura does this chick have?_ He thought, gasping for air, his hair plastered over his sweaty face. _It... It can't be much more._ He thought, looking at how she was trying to make it _look_ as if she wasn't breathing heavy.

With a light flourish, she lifted her gun with one hand, posing briefly like a spy as she racked the slide with another - a small dust cartridge flying out as a result.

 _She may be playing... But I doubt she would have reached for that gun if she thought I was easy._ He slowly turned to face her fully, and straightened out his stance. _But what_ next? He wondered, as he squared his shoulders.

Considering that she'd been struggling like mad once he'd had her immobilized on the ground, and now she was clearly putting in a lot more effort since she didn't have her umbrella, Aldric formed a theory. If he could just keep her hands occupied again, and her legs locked again, he could bypass her defenses and hit her hard enough to break her shields. The question now became how, and an idea was already forming in Aldric's head.

Neo decided to take the initiative, but she stumbled forward when she tried sprinting ahead. When she regained her balance, her gaze flickered down to her legs, both of them once again immobilized, before shooting back up to Aldric, who matched her smile with a savage grin of his own.

"Ah..." He shook his head clear of the unfortunately familiar fog of blood loss. "Now." He breathed, and grabbed at his shield with his right hand, sliding it off of his arm and raising it high like a frisbee. "Try this. _"_ He threw it as hard as he could, putting a great deal of strength, from his aura-augmented muscles to his fully unoccupied semblance, into the attack.

She, in response, just bent over backwards, reaching a full ninety-degree angle at the knee. The shield flew straight over her.

Aldric's shoulders slumped and his head hung low. "Oh come _on..._ " He sighed, though, in all honesty, he really should have seen it coming.

When she straightened up, he felt her legs strain against his hold, but they remained firm. Nevertheless, she silently giggled, covering her mouth with her gloved hand as her shoulders quivered. She raised her pistol, but Aldric ripped it out of her hands with a telekinetic backhand. Despite this, her grin didn't falter.

"Yep..." Groaned Aldric, as he stretched his back. "Laugh it up." She heard the thrumming of the air, and leaned over to the side, dodging the shield as it came rocketing back towards her.

Aldric caught it, and raised it again. This time, he'd throw it at her feet. Hopefully, if he put everything - _everything! -_ he had into this, it would break her shields, and then he'd have an advantage, defensively speaking. He may hurt her, break her legs, but wasn't that the point? So, without further thought, he hurled the shield at her again, all of the strength of his muscles, and all of the blood-boiling power of his aura behind it.

He might have fucked up.

He didn't know how or when he blacked out, but when he woke up, the entire warehouse had been torn from the ground and all of the shipping containers were piled onto the ground where Neo had been locked. He couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds, considering it was still dark outside, shipping containers were still falling from the sky, and there were still a lot of groans and shouts of pain.

Though, despite the gravity of the situation, or perhaps because of it, he couldn't help but let out a chuckle, which soon grew into full blown laughter, as the image of what just happened manifested in his mind. How must this have looked to everyone else? One moment he's throwing his shield at the tri-haired mute, clearly expecting it to slam into her umbrella, next - everyone's flying through the air, the warehouse is being torn apart, and she's getting buried under thousands and thousands of tons of metal. Really, it wasn't the image itself that amused him, but the fact that it had happened so suddenly, and without warning - even for him. A part of him wished he could have seen it, but he'd had to black out for it.

With a long groan, he hauled himself to his feet. "Sweet black fucking sabbath..." He groaned, ambling over to the massive pile of shipping containers. "I didn't kill her, did I?" He reached the containers and leaned his hand up against one of the more mangled, rustic red ones protruding from the small crater in the ground.

It took a moment of concentration to pull up his radar sense, but to his chagrin, she wasn't down there. On the plus side, there was no body, or parts, but on the downside, that meant she was still running around. Or she was unconscious - he was lucky enough to think that was an option, right?

"Ah... Man." He groaned, pressing a hand against the wound on his chest. "Cinder's gonna be pissed." He muttered, looking around.

Feeling out with his radar pulse, he felt someone moving behind him. Turning to look, he actually was surprised when he saw it was Neo, using her umbrella as a crutch. She was covered in her fair share of bruises and her left leg looked swollen to hell and back, Aldric may have broken it.

He cleared his throat, "we'll call this a draw, yeah?"

In response, she pulled out his pistol.

"Or not." He sighed.

But instead of shooting him, she grinned, and chucked it at him. Unlike her, however, he was in too much pain to try to dodge it, and with the adrenaline having drained from his system, he wasn't still operating on his combat high, so that pistol smacked into his face and split his nose open before bouncing off and landing on the ground with a light metallic clack.

"Thanks..." He groaned, leaning down and snatching the gun up.

More people coming up on radar, he turned and saw the Legion approaching, with Roman in tow.

"Okay... I may have fucked up." He called out, as Neo descended her container pile.

Cinder sighed exasperatedly, nursing a cut on her arm, but otherwise showing no emotion or even pain - even her dress was still immaculate. Roman, however, shook with rage. _"May_ have?" He repeated.

Aldric nodded, "yeah..." He looked up at the mountain of shipping containers he was leaned up against. "Just a little." deadpanned.

Emerald and Mercury, however, exchanged money, with the former grinning victoriously.

"You bet on me?"

"I thought you'd throw the shipping containers at her." Mercury responded.

"I thought you'd bring down the house."

"Do you _realize_ what you've done!?" Roman demanded, as Aldric began to sense more and more of his thugs unearthing themselves. "Do you?!"

"Uh..." Aldric frowned, "extreme makeover. Warehouse edition."

"You - are you _serious?!"_ He demanded.

Aldric shrugged. "As a heart attack." That the first words out of his mouth when he'd woken up had been a Hellsing Abridged joke definitely should have been indicative of that.

Roman seethed with rage, but when Neopolitan finally joined him, she stole his attention with a shake of the head. Then, to make her point, she swung her arm around Aldric's neck. The seventeen year old being a good foot taller than her, this led to her practically hanging off of him, but this didn't take away from the effect, as she hopped up on her good leg to give him a peck on the cheek. When she landed, she smiled and nodded, still as silent as the night.

 _Uh... Wait, what?_ Aldric gave Neo a curious frown. _The fuck just happened? Have I already lost so much blood I'm hallucinating, or did that just happen?  
_

Roman sighed, "fine." He shook his head, holding his hand out for Neo, who took it and gingerly hopped over to him, keeping the weight off of her bad leg. "You send me the things you need me to get, tell me what you need to do, I'll get it done." He assisted Neo in keeping her balance, "now, if you wouldn't mind... I have to set this place on fire, make it look like a White Fang attack." He mumbled.

As they stalked off, Neo looked over her shoulder and waved to Aldric. Aldric, numbly, waved back.

Once they were out of sight, Cinder's gaze melted into one of cold fury. "Really, Aldric?" She asked, an eyebrow arced.

"In my defense..." He groaned, as he stood up straight. "I'd only _really_ intended to throw the shield. I think I just... Pushed a bit too hard." Same way how things would go flying is something ran by really fast, Aldric assumed much the same thing had happened here - he'd gotten the shield going so fast that he'd torn the entire building off of the ground.

He was surprised that they weren't standing in a crater, if that were truly the case.

"So... How much of that was bullshit, and how much genuine?" He asked, as he limped alongside them.

Cinder surprised him by offering a steady hand, which he took after a moment's thought. "We'd seen him the day after we arrived. Told him enough of you to peak his interest. Said we needed a test. He volunteered Miss Neo."

Aldric grunted, "and... You couldn't have... I dunno... Done that without the show?" He'd burned a Star Wars quote for this, damn it! "Just said - oh, Aldric, you're doing good so far but we need to see how you'd do against someone who hasn't trained you, so here's this ice-cream chick, beat her up."

"The 'show' was as much a part of the test as the fight was."

"Well I certainly failed the shit out of that, didn't I?"

"On the contrary, you stood still capable of fighting. Had she kept going, you would have been able to kill her." Cinder said, "the collateral damage was merely a side effect of your poor control."

"Build me up to tear me down, why don't you?" Aldric deadpanned. "What'll happen now that I tore the place apart?" He asked, feeling more pain lance through his chest.

"Torchwick will handle it. He's men in many places, the White Fang among them. They will gladly take the blame once it is suggested, they've been getting violent enough for it to be believable, as of late." She explained.

"Oh?"

"Armed train robbery." Mercury supplied.

"Sounds fun." Aldric groaned, "I'm gonna pass out, now."

"Sweet dreams, destructo." Said Emerald, as Aldric fell forward, only saved from a faceplant by Cinder's grip.

There were several moments of silence, as Cinder was joined on her other side by Emerald, who supported Aldric's other half. "So... I don't doubt him anymore." She finally said.

Mercury hummed in agreement, "gotta admit, I'd always sensed his aura, but I never really thought he'd _actually_ be capable of doing something like that. Pulling down a building? Beyond Glynda Goodwitch I don't think I've seen a TK capable of that. We sharpen his technique, get him more used to that weapon..." He gave Cinder a teasing grin, "I think he may be able to out-fight _you."_

Cinder hummed in response. "He needs to work on his control. He took a great deal of unnecessary hits, during that fight."

"In his defense, he's still working on that." Mercury responded, turning to face them and walking backwards as they did. "Something about the best defense being a good offense." He shrugged, "to his credit, if he'd focused on self preservation, he probably wouldn't have been able to damage her enough to take her down." He pointed out.

"Regardless. His power isn't in question, and never was." Cinder said, ending the discussion. "But rather his ability to control said power." She gave Mercury a commanding look. "I want you to begin looking for the White Fang's location."

He shrugged, "it'll take a couple weeks... I won't be able to train him while I do." He said, giving Cinder a look, as if to warn her whilst simultaneously ensuring that such a thing was okay.

She nodded, "that will be fine. While he can benefit from continued hand to hand training, there is only so much he can learn outside of a pitched battle. We will instead divide his time between refining his technique and honing his focus. When you return, we will test him again before leaving for White Fang."

She felt Aldric dip, and looked to Emerald, whose shoulders had slumped. "Am I going to have to take him over?" She asked, a frown on her face.

"Yes." Said Cinder.

"But he _asks so many questions!"_ She argued, "and I can never tell when he's being serious... Like, he _communicates_ in snide remarks and references to his home."

 _"Now tell me how you really feel..."_ The man to whom they were referring groaned, as Cinder felt him begin to use his legs and rouse to consciousness. "How long was I out this time?" He asked, shifting his gaze around. "Not long enough. Fuck did I miss?" He asked, clearing his throat.

"Discussing our next moves." Cinder said, still supporting him. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got stabbed by an umbrella." Aldric deadpanned, "what is it with your world and weird weapons? I wasn't out too long this time." He hummed, as he looked around and realized they were still surrounded by warehouses. "Uh..." He cleared his throat, "as long as my aura hasn't switched off, though... I should be fine in a day or two." He always found it somewhat miraculous, the healing abilities aura provided. Not Wolverine-style, more like Old Man Logan, in that they did heal, and fast at that, it was just that they needed time to do so. "What's our next move?"

"We do not want you pulling down another warehouse, Aldric." Said Cinder, "so while Mercury hunts for our next point of contact, we will focus much of your training upon your control."

"So I'm not going to be beaten to death every day?" A haggard smile lit up his face.

"Oh, that'll still happen." Emerald said, "you were decent, but _damn_ if you don't need more training and experience."

"Well crush my hopes and dreams, why don't you." Aldric deadpanned.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I've got Kung Fu Fighting playing right now._

 _'Cause my ass **survived!** _

_I fought **Neo** \- lady who basically one shot Yang - and... Well, I won, but only technically. _

_What I **tried** to do was get something of a beam struggle going, by forcing her to focus all of her defenses on keeping my shield at bay, so I could flank her and get her in another choke hold._

 _Instead I dropped the whole goddamn building on her._

 _Oops._

 _But the fact remains: I did win, just not... Conventionally? Yeah, I'll go with that._

 _Though, that is how Iron Man beat the Hulk, in Age of Ultron. So if it's good enough for Tony Stark, damn it, it's good enough for me._

 _Jesus I **do** communicate primarily in references, don't I?_

 _I mean I won't stop - not a day went by that my parents didn't quote Kevin Smith - but still, I never really noticed until now._

 _Aaaaaanyways. Now Mercury's out looking for Adam Taurus of the White Fang. The good news is that I know things will go mostly nonviolent there, but the bad news? The Fall Maiden fight is drawing **rapidly** close. I think I might still have a month or two, maybe three if I'm lucky, but that still means I'm working on a **really** limited time table. _

_So, bar none, I need to get two skills mastered, preferably three._

 _First: I need to perfect my whole 'Best Defense is a good Offense' thing. I took a damn few good hits during my fight with Neo - got a whole slew of new scars to accompany them. I think I have an idea as to how to do this though, I just need a fork from the dining room._

 _Second: I need to **ramp up** my speed and reaction time. I'm thinking the only way I can contact Qrow Branwen is if I find a way to slip him a note when he swoops in and grabs the Maiden. The problem is, if I tried conventionally, I'd be made before I could blink. _

_So I'm thinking I have two options. One: Find a way to use my semblance to force my reaction time to amp up to Superman levels, such that I can then use it to move my body at far, far higher speeds than I could do on my own, and still be able to move and react at fast enough speeds. I think of it like shutting off **all** of the game's settings on a weak PC, so you can get a halfway decent framerate. If I can do this, I'll be able to speed up past everyone else's reaction times, slip a note or something in Qrow's pocket, and then be back in my first position before anyone else can blink. He **would** find it - I doubt a huntsman survives as long as him without becoming real sensitive to that kind of stuff. _

_Two: I pray I'll be fast enough to get **one** clean hit in on him, and somehow manage to reverse-pickpocket the note onto him, using the attack to mask it. _

_Finally, while this isn't a priority, it is something I'd really like to get done: I want to figure out how to create plasma.  
I bought a heavy-duty pair of sunglasses that essentially function as welder's goggles, during our little shopping trip a while back, explicitly for this purpose. Mercury gave me some flak for it, hardly able to see a few feet in front of his face when he tried 'em on, but I managed to get out of it without revealing what I want to do. _

_I know the general how of doing it - heat is just atoms bouncing around real fast. I get them bouncing around fast enough, I can boil the oxygen and turn it into plasma. Then it's just a matter of shooting someone with it. I'm hoping that I'll be able to use this as a means of **instantly** cleaving through someone's aura shields - as I have yet to see anything in Canon remotely resembling getting shot with something of the heat and luminosity of the sun. _

_This will give me a veritable nuclear deterrent: If I can master this, and it works as I intend for it, I'd be able to one-shot anyone. May even be able to fight Fall Maiden Cinder, with it._

 _Fortunately, I do have an out: My Power Glove. I'm going to spend some time cracking into the nanites' programming (never been so glad to get an instruction manual), and see if there isn't a way to control the heat of the projected light. If there is, I may be able to skip a lot of the process, create a small 'orb' of hardlight that just grows and grows and grows in intensity until its heat is so much that just a little additive would incite plasma._

 _But I run a heavy risk either way: If I create plasma, I have to deal with that heat._

 _This'll take some thinking._

 _Oh, and a pipe dream: If I could figure out how to fly, it would serve little to no practical purpose... But it'd be cool as shit.  
I'd probably be able to go back to the crash sight and get my magic chair back._

 _Yup, new priority: Learn to fly._

 _Fortunately, I've got time for that: While Mercury's gone, pretty much all of my training will be learning how to focus and control my powers. I'll spar nightly with Emerald - I'm noticing Cinder is staying out of the proceedings - and use the rest of the time to get control of my semblance, learn Remnant English, and set up some kind of bridge between Earth tech and Remnant tech._

 _So, now I've got a plan._

 _It's a shitty plan, but a plan nonetheless._

 _'Till next time._


	10. Holmes and Moriarty

Chapter 9

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Spent the last few days recovering from Neo. Didn't sleep much, though - my nights were spent half learning Remnant English, half catching up on the show, re-upping my knowledge, so to speak. Yes, it's a risky gamble, but I keep the volume down, headphones hooked up... And I leave the ship whenever I do it._

 _Dumb as it sounds considering all of my stab wounds, that last part actually serves a double purpose - the rough idea I have for contact with Qrow revolves around us returning here to Vale, or some kind of populated area, to recover from the battle and plan our next move. Considering the Legion is fighting the League, hiding right under their nose will probably be the smartest choice - why would they look on the homefront, after all? So, I drop Qrow the note, something like:_

 _'Hey asshole. Be at (wherethefuckever) in Vale at Eleven O' Clock in (howevermanydays). I'll bring alcohol. From another world, even! Love, Nathan Drake.'._

 _Oh wait, I left all the alcohol at the plane. Is it still there? Maybe I'll get shitty after the Fall Maiden. Still need to learn to fly. Shouldn't be hard, I think - I can move things easy enough. Moving **me** is just the next step up.  
_

 _Anyways, and to validate to them me not being in the Aviator late at night, I've started taking walks, doing light exercises and such, at night, under the auspices that I can't/don't sleep much. And thanks to aura, I can function on a lot less sleep than usual... So long as I do get **some** eventually._

 _Though, 'light exercises' is a misnomer - I am not fucking kidding when I compare myself to Captain America. I can keep up with cars. I felt like I was in Cap 3 for a few minutes. It was awesome. So 'light' to me is approaching 'Olympian' to the folks back home._

 _Regardless, even if they're watching me these first few weeks, me doing exactly as I say will build a routine in their eyes, and eventually they'll stop questioning it. They don't have a reason to distrust me, after all, and that I hardly ever stop training also helps. Even laid up in med, I'm juggling stuff with my semblance - my record is the entire contents of the bag from my plane for two minutes.  
So, by the time the Fall Maiden Fight rolls around, me slipping away for a few hours to meet Qrow won't raise suspicions._

 _Anyways, I'm back up to one hundred percent now, and alongside those exercises I've been trying to figure out this whole defense thing. Get it working right, so I don't get a repeat of Neo._

 _Making **some** progress, but not much... And I still fear I may have to swap out again the damn second I have to test it out. _

_On that note, I'm considering doubling down and getting some kind of armor. I'm thinking something Batman would wear - lightweight and flexible so I can keep my agility up, but also effective against blades and light gunfire._

 _If I could pull off the Knightmare look, I'd shit bricks. Sure, the movie wasn't all it should have been, but I **did** enjoy it, and Batman in a goddamn trenchcoat and military gear. 'Nuff said. Hell, buying a mask probably wouldn't be too dumb of a decision, considering I wouldn't want my face revealed to Qrow prematurely. _

_Things to think about._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

The ship was as dark as the port outside. It was well past midnight - around five in the morning, if Aldric remembered correctly. After taking a few days to heal from his fight with Neo, he had taken to waking up early to work on his telekinetic shield. He wanted to get to the point where he could keep something like it up at all times, to act as a replacement for his aura shields. He'd _thought_ he would have a weak aura shield if he'd gone full-attack, but his fight with Neo had taught him better. Hopefully, if this worked, it would allow him to fight with everything he had, and not worry about sacrificing combat strength for his aura shields. If all went to plan, as time went on and his experience, focus, and concentration grew better, he'd be able to split his concentration well enough that he wouldn't be sacrificing potential reaction time, either.

To do all of this, he'd appropriated a fork from the Aviator's small dining room, and had taken to stabbing the hell out of the back of his hand every morning, until he worked out an ironclad, low-concentration method of deflecting it. Unfortunately, all of that was easier said than done.

Aldric stared at this morning's fork as if it had personally offended him, as music idly played in his ears. A lot of his Earth tech was beginning to die on him, and while he was making some progress on bridging Remnant and Earth tech, he'd already fried one tablet after screwing it up. By now, he was of the opinion that he could either make their deaths as slow and as painful as possible, or just get it over with. He'd either figure out a way to power them long-term, or not, but either way, they'd die eventually, so damn it, he'd have his music.

The center of the back of his right hand was bright red, from him having slammed the fork into it so many times. There had to be something he was missing, he needed these shields to be powerful enough to deflect anything, but also in such a way that he could do it without much conscious thought, and would work in _extreme_ close ranges. After all, most of the people here used melee weaponry, but then there were people like Yang whose punches literally exploded. If those got too close for his TK barrier to do anything, he'd find himself losing limbs real damn fast.

 _Let's try envisioning... A counter-force. Something to push back against whatever pushed against it._ He thought, lifting the fork in his hand and holding it in a reverse-grip.

He thought hard, conjuring up an image of a trillion tiny industrial fans blasting upwards against anything that would attempt to strike him. After focusing for a moment, he drove the fork down and -

Thump.

 _"Ah! Dammit!"_ He cursed, shaking his hand back and forth. He continued croaking out curses, trying not to wake the other members of his ship at this early hour.

So that was out.

He let out an exasperated sigh, scowling at the fork, focusing his semblance's tactile sensations upon it.

With this, he began to feel the metal more intimately, as if it wasn't just his hands touching it. Every inch of surface, it was as if it was made entirely of nerve endings - he felt the metal, his fingers brushing up against it, the chill of the dark morning air. The more he focused, the more he felt, eventually delving deeper. He felt the metal ringing, some of it warming up against his skin. After awhile, he continued honing in on it, he thought he could feel things bouncing around in it.

 _Is..._ His brow furrowed, it felt like trillions of fire ants crawling around, bouncing into eachother. _Are these atoms?_ He wondered. _I wonder..._ He tried to tighten his hold on the fork; after all, it took a lot less energy to hold something in place, than it did to move it around.

After a few minutes, Aldric let out the breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. A pressure was released from his head, and he gasped for air, his vision having darkened. After he recovered, he turned back to the fork, and found that there was a thin sheet of frost covering it, as if it had been left in a freezer for a few hours.

 _Hm..._ _Things for later._ He decided, rubbing at his chest to bring his heart rate back under control. _Slowing things down is just a few steps removed from speeding them up. Maybe next time I'll get it glowing red._ He set those thoughts aside with a shake of the head.

It was time to get back to his shields. As much as he may not have wanted to, he lifted the fork again and concentrated hard.

 _Thump._

He growled in pain, it soon devolving into a light chuckle as he shook his head. If his parents could see him now, they'd shit themselves, thinking he was trying to cut himself.

 _No, mom. I'm not cutting. I'm forking the hell out of my hand in an attempt to work out a way to make my superpowers work **for** me and not **against** me. _ He raised up the fork again. _I'm not crazy._ Down it went, again into the pink skin on the back of his hand. _Yeah, this ain't working._

He hummed to himself. If not this, then what _would_ work?

As he'd learned back in the forests, thinking about it too much was a recipe for a very slow success. He had to use his instincts, he had to feel it just as much as he thought it, such that he could call it up almost instantly in a fight. That was his hangup, as he had no precedent for something like this, not in the myriad of movies, books, or video games he'd seen.

 _Maybe... A shield. Like in Halo._ He tried envisioning a small cocoon wrapping around his hand, an impenetrable barrier. He lifted the fork, and -

"What are you doing?"

Aldric blinked, and turned to his left. There stood Cinder in her casual nightwear, lightly rubbing at her sleep-filled red eyes, and giving Aldric a look of abject confusion.

"Uh..." Aldric paused, knowing that there was no necessarily easy way to explain this. Here he was repeatedly striking himself with a fork - and poised to do it again. He looked like an axe murderer practicing on himself. "Science." He deadpanned.

Cinder stared at him through half-lidded, sleepy eyes. "I thought your science exploded." She countered.

"What is an explosion but something that hurts a lot and tears stuff apart with a lot of heat and friction?" Aldric returned, the fork still raised high. "Can I help you?"

"You were making something of a racket. I thought it was Emerald looking for her coffee cup." Cinder strolled over to the cabinets, grabbing one of her own and sticking it in the brewer. "Mercury has taken to hiding it from her."

"I didn't know coffee existed in this universe." Thump, and he struck the back of his hand again. He was going to draw blood, at this rate.

"It may just be a shared term for a different drink."

"Touche." Thump, another lance of pain.

"I am curious, though. What _are_ you doing?" She asked, brushing her bedraggled hair out of her eyes, as her cup was filled with the scalding dark liquid.

"During my fight with Neo I had my first good chance to test my whole defensive strategy. It... Well... It didn't _not_ work, but it didn't work anywhere near not as well as I'd hoped." A lot of the problem, he'd noticed, had been when she'd closed in on him and gotten close. "So now I'm trying to find some way to use my semblance in a manner similar to that of my aura shields." Thump.

He also had a secondary reason - if Neo was able to get in close and do this kind of damage, what kind of damage would someone with a weapon like Yang's be able to do? She had _shotguns_ strapped to her _fists._ One good shot and he'd _die_. He needed a better means of protecting himself, without sacrificing his combat strength, thus: The barrier.

"By impaling yourself with a fork?" Cinder removed the cup, came over to the table and sat down opposite Aldric.

"Well..." Thump. "There are probably better ways to be doing this..." He leaned back, briefly casting his gaze around the dark ship. "But this is the best one I can think of without putting myself in mortal danger." He paused, "sorry for waking you up." Thump.

Cinder shook her head, "I've woken up earlier than this." She said, as Aldric rubbed at the back of his hand. "I notice how dedicated you are, to all this." She mentioned, as he laid his hand flat again.

"Oh?" Thump - hey, he almost didn't feel something that time! Progress!

Or he was going numb.

Damn it.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd just throw yourself headlong into some other world's war." Cinder mentioned, as Aldric struck the back of his hand once again.

"Well... I feel like the cause is just. And in my world, there's a saying." Thump. "With great power..." He groaned through the pain. "Must also come great responsibility." He stretched his fingers. "So if you've got powers, like you or I do, and you intend to use them, that means you've got a moral obligation to help those who don't have it. And if you try your best and fail, you tried your best, that's all they can ask of you. But if you half-ass it and still fail, you failed _because_ you half-assed it." Now how many Spiderman reboots did he just quote, he had to know. He found it amazing how one could get the same point across in so many different ways.

"So you're saying you joined up with us out of a moral obligation?" Cinder arced her eyebrow.

Thump. "Kinda-sorta." So clearly the Halo shield wasn't working, how did they do it in Chronicle? Didn't they say something about a 'barrier between you and it'? Or was it a wall? Well, he'd try 'em both. "You convinced me that this was a situation that had to change. There are so many factions out there vying for power..." Thump. "Too many people with too much access to too much military strength. And since it's technically the _species_ that's at risk, what with the Grimm... You guys say I'm Superman - err... A physical god... With all this aura cooped up in me. The right thing to do would be to use it to help as many people as possible." Did he mention how he fully intended to betray everyone on this ship?

"So you really do think you're making the right choice." Cinder summarized, with a half-nod of her head.

"Yeah, I guess that's a good way to put it." She was more right than she thought. He raised his fork, "people need help. I have the power to help. Vis a vis, I should help." He swung it downwards.

There was the sound of metal scraping against metal, and he didn't feel a lance of pain in his hand. He blinked, and then flipped the fork back up right, a smirk growing across his face as he saw the tines folded over on themselves. With a brief pulse of his semblance, they straightened back out, and he tried to recall exactly what he'd felt here. He'd imagined it as a barrier, like a bubble, or a sheet of metal, hovering just a few centimeters over his hand, one that pushed away just as hard as was pushed towards it.

"And what of when we're done?" She asked. "What would you say your fate would be?"

"Well..." He swung downwards, and again found the fork blocked. He was liking his barrier concept more and more. "If possible, go _home._ Maybe use my powers there, fix things up a bit... Figure out how to awaken other peoples', get something of a neutral nation of aura users going, to keep the peace across the planet." He'd call them: Jedi. "And if I can't go home... Who knows?" He swung downwards, and again felt the tines deflect off of his shields. "Maybe...

"Maybe live off of the 'saved the world' royalty checks... Retire." He straightened out the tines and then slid the fork across the table. "Throw that at me, please. And after that... I dunno. Maybe find a cute other-dimensional girl, settle down, revolutionize education in my free time. Introduce Earth science... Get a space program going. That'd be fun. Be this world's Neil Armstrong, set foot on the moon and all that." He would _love_ to know how Remnant's moon hadn't floated apart and peppered the planet.

Cinder gave the fork a cautious look, but picked it up regardless. "A girl, hm?" She reared the fork, and then chucked it at him.

It rebounded off of his face without even touching him. He grinned, and snatched it off of the ground with his semblance. "Sure, why not?" Certainly be an interesting first date, though. _Hi, I'm Aldric, I'm from another planet in another universe and I can tear buildings down by accident. I know the future and within a month of being here I began actively conspiring to work with a terrorist organization that would be responsible for the deaths of dozens to thousands to even tens of thousands of people. Do you want my children?_ He slid the fork back across the table, "one more time, hard as you can."

Cinder hummed. "Rather... _Tame,_ considering what we've seen from you so far." She commented.

"Well -" He didn't see Cinder throw it, but it bounced off of him all the same.

It wasn't perfect, though. She'd thrown it hard enough to displace air, and he felt that light pulse of air hit his forehead. There was a clear difference between this and his Cap Shield, but other than that, it deflected the fork. Yeah, he's got this. The next step would be trying it out in combat, so long as he could keep up his barriers he could use the full power of his semblance without sacrificing his defenses for it.

"I guess you could say I'm capable of a lot of things you wouldn't expect." He picked up the fork again, but this time, using his radar pulse, tried to amble it back into the drawer. It took more concentration to not tear the drawers out of the cabinets, but after a few seconds of struggle, he succeeded, albeit by slamming the drawer shut once he was done.

Progress.

"I like to think that there are two sides to everyone. What you see in public, and what you see after you know them." He leaned back, wondering if it would be easier to split his focus mid-battle, or just focus everything on whatever was needed at the time. Whichever was the case, he seriously needed to amp up his reaction time.

Cinder now gave him her full attention, her orange eyes locked to his gunmetal gray. "What would we see if we got to know you?" She asked, with a tone that made Aldric initially think she wasn't testing him, but rather genuinely curious as to the answer.

He had to remember, after all, she may be a part of the bad guys, but she was a person nonetheless.

But, she was also the mastermind, or at least the right hand _to_ the mastermind, of half of the bad shit that happens in this world, so despite his reminders that she was a person just like him, he also had to take everything she did with a gain of salt.

He hummed. "Interesting question." He crossed his arms, looking up at the dark ceiling. "I mean... I _could_ answer it, but that would be telling, wouldn't it?" He asked, giving her a brief glance. "Tell you what - one question, one answer. Sound good?"

Cinder frowned, before she nodded to the side. "Sure." She took a sip from her mug. "What truly drives your desire for strength?"

Aldric chuckled, "you mean _besides_ the whole 'great power' shtick?" He got a nod from the raven-haired woman. "Well... I guess I _want_ it, more than anything." Want it to protect himself, to protect others, to play the greatest game of Gambit Roulette the world's ever seen, there was a lot of reasons he wanted it. "This is a taste of a higher level of being. Why _not_ milk it for all it's worth? See where it goes? Use it to protect those who can't themselves?"

Cinder lowered her cup, nodding. "Admirable. Many people get lost on the path to power... You seem genuine in your desire to use it for the greater good."

He shrugged, "like I said. With great power." He leaned forward, "how about you? Why do you fight? With the whole 'fate' shtick you've got going on, you strike me as someone who prefers to lead from the front, as it were. Charge into the great unknown and come out with one _hell_ of a story."

Cinder shrugged at this. "Perhaps. Much like you, I desire power. However I would prefer it primarily for my own sake."

"Oh?"

"Not in the sense that I wouldn't use it for others... But in the sense that, should my fate be secured, I could then work about to improve that of everyone else's."

"You see your fate as the linchpin of the world's?" He asked, to which she nodded. "Damn, got high hopes for yourself."

She hummed, "what is it you keep writing, in your room?"

"A journal. Trying to keep everything in order... Maybe they'll get published into a memoir, one day. Eliminate everyone's hearsay, and give the story as it happened. The pen is mightier than the sword, and all that." He itched at his scalp, "what's after this White Fang stuff? Right now we're gathering an army, yeah, but there's got to be a play coming soon."

Cinder hummed, "I guess I should let you in on that... You proved yourself with Neopolitan, after all." She set her cup down. "As we told you, our operation is small... But there is a great deal of room for..." She paused, thinking for her next words.

Aldric grinned, "aggressive expansion?"

She shrugged, "sure. We've told you that our goal is to gather people with resources, as opposed to simply numbers. It is why we sought out Roman Torchwick and are seeking Adam Taurus. They've the resources to gather anything we need, from numbers, to weapons, to dust, and beyond. But we do this in the pursuit of one goal in particular..." She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. "Perhaps one not very morally forward."

"We're a group of terrorists, hot stuff. We can _try,_ but we can't always be on the straight and narrow." Hell, the Colonial Militia fit the bill for a group of domestic terrorists, technically. "But so long as there's a line... I would think we're fine." He lowered his gaze, now giving her something of a Kubrick stare. "There _is_ a line, yeah?"

She nodded, "so long as our enemies do not either cross a line, neither shall we."

 _Wow, so that's what bullshit sounds like._ It was one step forward, two steps back, for her. How was she expecting to win him over by the time the Vytal tournament rolled around. "Alright, shoot." He nodded.

"There exist a group of four individuals in this world." She explained. "They are known as maidens... The story of what they are is a long and... Shall we say, not very reliable one, but the legend goes that they were originally four women granted extraordinary power. To the point that I believe it would only be people from your world who could potentially eclipse them."

 _Oh don't give me ideas, Cinder. Please._ "Okay."

"It is our intent to locate one of these Maidens and capture her power for our own use."

Aldric nodded, "get a goddess' power on your side, huh?" He ran his hand through his hair. "I get the strangest feeling in the back of my bible that I'm not going to like the part that comes next."

"Had you not worked out, we would have attempted an indirect confrontation, Aldric. We would have had to ambush her and pray we could weather her down... But with you, we think we may be able to defeat her in pitched combat. Should we do so... To steal her powers would be rendered a much easier, faster venture."

 _Hoooly shit they're using me to weaken the pokemon before they throw the goddamn ball._ "You _really_ think I'm that strong? For Chrissakes hot stuff, I'm not a _god._ " He hadn't even had good vision until they'd awakened his aura! "So, if I hadn't been here, what would you have done? Tied her down?"

"We would have beaten her, stunned her just long enough for me to perform the necessary actions."

 _I actually wonder if these people are as powerful as you say, considering how easy the victory seemed to be in the series... Unless **everyone** used their aura as a crutch, and suddenly when their shields are broken they get too scared to fight._ He frowned, _that makes a lot of sense, actually. Why else would a goddess try to run away instead of smiting her enemies? That or the Fall Maiden was a bitch who couldn't use her powers._ "And with me here acting as your tank, you actually think you can _beat_ her in pitched combat?"

It actually raised a very good question, in Aldric's mind. How empirically strong _were_ Maidens? If Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury were able to beat one within a handful of minutes, were they _really_ all they were cracked up to be? Or was it a measure of skill and ability versus raw power? In the series, the original Fall Maiden had used everything from fire to ice. Aldric was starting to wonder if this wasn't like trying to compare someone like Iron Man to someone like Doctor Strange - it was a bad comparison because they were just two monumentally different beings. He did consider that Qrow would mention that the Fall Maiden was 'young' and 'inexperienced', but he still felt his point valid. Were they supposed to be Iron Man? Or Doctor Strange?

"I think we can, Aldric." She said, "to better explain them... I would say they truly _are_ magic... Whereas people like us are simply... Human."

 _Oooooh, okay. So my Iron Man and Doctor Strange thing was apt._ "How's that?"

"The Maidens' power comes from something separate from Dust. We know little about it, but I would compare it to your definition of magic. The reality warping kind." She explained. "If that is true, then they would have the potential ability to circumvent aura-based defenses and strengths altogether... And added on to their immense power, they would be physical goddesses." Cinder explained.

Aldric whistled. So he was being asked to fight someone who didn't play by the same rules as him, and could likely also _break_ said rules because 'fuck you that's why'.

Okay.

Sure.

"You think challenging something like that is _wise?"_ He finally asked.

Cinder nodded, "I believe we can win. The benefits outweigh the risks." She responded.

"Didn't answer my question, but I'll let it slide." He grunted, looking out the windows and seeing the sky slowly begin to brighten. "So these chicks are _actual_ magic, and that puts them leagues above everyone else." He turned back to her, "if I'm to believe you, you think Earth is a planet _full_ of people like this... Or at least, people strong enough to weather that kind of assault. So... Call me paranoid, but why am _I_ still alive? You could have much more easily stolen _my_ power than warred against a goddess." He pointed out.

To which, Cinder shook her head. "We may not meet the definition of good people, Aldric, but we do have standards. I assure you, had you refused, you would have been provided for. We chose instead to give you your choice."

"Risking me saying no."

"Risking you saying no." She nodded, before finishing off her drink.

"Alright. Last question, then."

"Shoot."

"These Maidens. Use some kind of power separated from dust and unique from semblances. They are, to you, what people from Remnant are to people from Earth. Functionally _gods._ Considering that this is the first time I've heard of them, I doubt they're common knowledge. I would assume then... That there's a group running counter to ours. People who protect these Maidens." He gave Cinder a stern look. "So are we really warring against the kingdoms, here? Or this group for hoarding _gods?"_ He challenged.

Cinder looked at him, long and hard. "I must say I'm impressed." She finally intoned. "I hadn't expected to broach this so soon... Though I assume I should have."

"Should I preface this by saying I'm not necessarily _mad?_ Just want to know the whole truth... Not the lying by omission." He was taking a hell of a risk here, pushing like this, but if she told him these things, and he accepted them, he was all but certain it would buy him, perhaps not _trust,_ but at least something approaching it.

"We have not been lying to you. Not wholly, if that is what you are worried about." She finally let out. "You are correct, in that it is these people against whom we fight. But it is not something so simple as petty ideological squabbles... No." She shook her head. "They hide the Maidens because of their history. Once, they _were_ common knowledge... But then they were hunted for their power, and wars were fought over them." She explained.

"Is that not what we're doing? Are we not proving them right?" Aldric asked, "and... Please don't get me wrong. I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I want to understand."

"Certainly... But if you're capable of making these conclusions, then so too should you know that history is written by the victors."

Aldric nodded, "yeah." He thought back to his point about the Colonial Militia. Had Britain won that war, the terminology would have been a lot different, more reminiscent of rebels, vagabonds, and terrorists. "Give you that."

"Then you would also know that there are two sides to every story, with the truth laying in the middle." Cinder continued. "Yes, there were many a king who stole after the four Maidens for personal reasons, but so too were there those who genuinely intended to care for them. To convince them to use their powers for the betterment of mankind. Ozpin, however - the man who leads this counter faction - he would have you believe no one at all had honest intentions. That they all simply wanted power for power's sake.

"We seek the maidens in an attempt to unite their power." She explained, "we genuinely want to help our world." She broke eye contact, "but to do so it will take great sacrifice. On many parts."

Aldric found himself wondering what parts were genuine, and what parts were her damage control. Still, this was a chance to convince her he was on their side. "My people have a saying. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions." He began, "now... Let me summarize this. These Maidens, these four women of intense magical power, they're being kept apart by this Ozpin fellow. His people do this... I would assume... Because they fear the paradigm shift of bringing them together could either be very good, or very bad." Cinder looked back up to him, a light in her eyes. "And they don't want to run that risk if it turns out very bad."

Cinder nodded, smiling.

"You all, however, run counter to that theory. That perhaps the reward outweighs the risk." In other words, if he were to believe Cinder, Ozpin and the League was analogous to Batman refusing to kill the Joker, whereas Cinder and the Legion were the Punisher, committing evil for good's sake.

If he hadn't the show to color his opinion, Aldric would honestly say he was certain they would have had him, by now. Hell, even _with_ the show coloring his opinion, he was seeing the logic in her argument.

"Allow me to tell a story, yeah?" He said, as the ship brightened with the rising sun.

Cinder blinked, but nodded nonetheless.

"In my world, there's a story. It's called Batman - he's a hero, and he abides by one rule: _Do not kill._ Under no circumstances, he doesn't kill. His greatest enemy, however, taunts him with this - constantly escaping from prison, constantly killing scores of people, and constantly _daring_ him to break that rule. Batman, however, refuses, on the grounds that justifying the death of one would then lead for it to be easier to justify the death of another... And another, and another. This ideology has led to the deaths of untold hundreds, perhaps thousands, including many of his closest friends and family." He nodded, "you follow?"

She nodded.

"Now, then there's the other side of the story. Another character, his name is the Punisher. A former soldier, he's a man who knows that sometimes, evil has to be committed for goodness' sake. So instead of refusing to kill, he _specifically_ kills. Murderers, rapists, thieves - he slaughters his way through the criminal underworld, ending as many evil lives as he can. He does this, he takes this evil onto himself, such that no one else has to, and so he can remove a greater evil from the world.

"The debate..." Aldric cleared his throat. "Is which one is right. Is it better to not kill, to accept a moral high ground built on the countless lives lost to keep it? Or is it better to take an evil unto oneself, such that others can live in good?" He presented to her, "me... I was always the Punisher's side. I always felt that, yes, not killing is admirable... But knowing that sometimes, evil just _has_ to be committed, is just as admirable. The wanton slaughter for the hell of it? That may be going too far... But seeing that there is clearly no other option but to kill, and not taking it? That's as good as killing the victims yourselves." He said, gesticulating with his hands. "It's unrealistic. Admirable, but unrealistic.

"This Ozpin fellow, he reminds me of Batman. He wants to avoid evil, even though it leads to far more deaths in the long run. Your group, however..." He indicated Cinder, "you remind me of the Punisher. You're willing to take this evil onto yourselves, to service a much greater good." A pause, "I can respect that." He finally let out.

The best, or perhaps, worst, part was that he wasn't lying. If Salem's goals started and ended as Cinder explained them, he'd be hard pressed not to pull his Ozzymandias scheme. However, he knew what it was they were after, it wasn't just a paradigm shift, it was a theft and consolidation of power. Cinder wanted this power, Salem wanted it - but they didn't want anyone else to have it. They wanted to rule the world, and kill it all the same, and likely even wanted at _his_ once they were done. He couldn't support this, and as such, he had to play Green Hornet.

Cinder let out a long, low breath. "Thank you, Aldric. You've little idea how much that means."

 _Oh... I've got an idea._ Aldric nodded, "I just wish I hadn't had to play Sherlock Holmes to get it out of you, hot stuff." He said, dropping his serious tone and once again taking on his joviality. "And, by the way..." He said, as he stood to his feet. _"That..."_ He pointed at her, "is that I'm like when you get to know me. Equal parts snide asshole and philosophising ideologue. Think too much and talk even more. It'll be fun cracking into _your_ shell." He said, leaving her with a kind two-fingered salute, as he retreated back to his room.

* * *

 _For the Record_ _  
_

 _And **that** is how you bluff your ass off. _

_I feel it important to continue to remind myself (and whoever ends up reading this) that I'm not writing these folks off as completely lost causes, that they're **people** and probably think what they're doing is right, the problem is I know better. I would honestly say if I didn't have RWBY as a base, I'd be approaching %100 loyal to the Legion of Doom by now. _

_But I'm a little ahead of myself._

 _Cinder - continuing her steadily growing trend of attempting to win my loyalty through the mere exposure effect - found me this morning trying to work out my TK shields.  
_

 _Admittedly, there may have been some genuine concern in there - I was stabbing the shit out of my hand with a fork - but I digress. She and I played a little Holmes and Moriarty game, swapping loaded questions back and forth for about an hour or so._

 _Building off of the Holmesian reputation I've been making for myself, I made the incredibly intelligent - dare I say genius - decision to call her on her BS, and basically ask her who it was we were **really** fighting against. Fortunately I didn't have to validate many of my claims, and after I asked her, she basically decided my Holmesian leap of logic was sufficient. _

**_Damn,_** _did I get some decent information._

 _The long and short of it is, assuming she's to be believed and that she's not hiding anything else, the Legion wants to fight the League over the Maidens. The way I understand them now, the Maidens are to Huntsmen what Doctor Strange is to the Avengers - something operating on a whole different level, within a completely different rule set. The Avengers fight fucking aliens, Doctor Strange fights eldritch abomination multidimensional universe eating gods.  
_

 _Just a minor difference._

 _Really small._

 _Like, minuscule._

 _But it's there, if you know where to look._

 _Anyways, the Legion wants to gather them together, steal their power, and use them ostensibly to fix the planet._

 _The League, however, runs counter to them - fearing that bringing the Maidens together could lead to something either very good, or very bad, and deciding that sticking to the status quo is preferable to inciting a paradigm shift and it resulting in the very bad option. It's like having a %50 chance that pressing a button could either cure all diseases forever, or could infect everyone with super cancer._

 _Actually, I guess this is a good Schrodinger's Cat scenario. The world is the box, the Maidens are the poison, and the entire Remnant population is the cat._

 _The League doesn't want to close the box, they don't want to take that risk on the grounds that when they open it up the humans and faunus may be dead, but the Legion does, on the grounds that when they open it up, it may be the Grimm that's dead. They're willing to be evil for goodness' sake, in other words._

 _It's not a **strong** metaphor, but it works._

 _Again I stress: If I didn't have the show to color my opinions, I think I may have sided with them, by now. But the problem is that I don't know if this is the full truth, or just what Cinder's telling me as damage control. And then perhaps the biggest problem - I got dragged away from Earth **looooooong** before this show wrapped up, so I can't even try to use it to influence my decision. _

_Knowing Oum's brass balls, he may very well have been setting up Salem and the Legion to **be** pulling an Ozzymandias - similar to how Itachi turned out to be a martyr as Naruto drew to a close. For all I know, Salem's faction may very well be the right one to root for, in the grand scheme of things. _

_But I **don't** know, and as such, I have to operate with what I **do** know, and that's that the Justice League is ostensibly the best option here. What happens when the Maidens get brought together - I have no clue. Maybe it's an Infinity Gauntlet situation and whoever unites those four becomes omnipotent. Maybe it's a test from Remnant's God - with a big 'G' - and everything will turn out fine once/if we pass. I don't know, and damn if this isn't eating at my brain. I have to side with Ozpin, have to play Green Hornet. _

_Fortunately, that game gets easier now that Cinder thinks I'm fully on her side.  
Well, **should** think, at least._

 _Anyways, though I say all this 'they're human' somesuch, when I can literally use the show to validate earlier theories. For instance, being able to compare this 'Lady In Red', nice, talking to me, Cinder, to the 'Follow Orders and Don't Think' one we have in the show, I think it confirms my whole idea about her wanting to stay on my good side and build up some kind of loyalty. She may bitch slap Emerald for talking back to her, but I'm willing to bet that's because Emerald falls more on the 'utility' half of the 'utility versus versatility' argument. She can confuse folks with her illusions, and steal from them, but that seems to be about it.  
_

 _Me, on the other hand, they think I'm a powerhouse (and considering I tore down a goddamn building, they may not be wrong.) with a brain. **I** talk back, she gets pissed, but doesn't want to turn around and piss **me** off for risk that I'll leave as - as I said earlier - aside from them, I've nothing tying me to any one specific faction._

 _Or - also likely - I'm being incredibly arrogant and am overstating my importance to her, and my constant attempts at getting under her skin will backfire one day and she'll disintegrate me._

 _That's probably something I should worry about more. Pretty much **everything** I do is operating under the arrogant assumption that Cinder won't kill me. If I'm wrong, or Cinder just decides one day I'm too much trouble, she's more than capable of working all of this without me - there's an entire show dedicated to proving that right. _

_But, there's not much I can do about that, though. I've made a role, I've got to play it. Hopefully this little conversation I've had will convince her there's more to me than meets the eye, that I should be kept around, even if it means dealing with my bullshit.  
_

 _For now I've got to focus on my training. I've got to perfect my shields and figure out how to use my semblance to ape the Flash._

 _'Till next time._


	11. Neurotic Birthday Celebrations

_AN_

 _I'll probably be slowing down the updates here in a chapter or two. Been going so fact because I've been trying to make up for lost time._

* * *

Chapter 10

* * *

 _For the Record  
_

 _Holy shit it's working!_

 _Thank **god.** Gotta be honest, I was giving up hope on this working out like I'd hoped - I fried two tablets already (thank god I pried out their hard drives). Was starting to think I wasn't nearly as good an engineer as I thought I was.  
_

 _It took two weeks of hard work in between paaaaaaainful training and control sessions, but I was finally able to bridge Remnant and Earth technology. I'm nowhere near getting Earth programs working on Remnant computers, but I was at least able to build something of a 'universal charger', of sorts. The only real problem there was that I had to find a way to measure amperes and voltage and match it to..._

 _Ah, you don't care about this and I could ramble on. Point is: My shit isn't dead anymore. Yeah I'm down two tablets, but that's why I brought so many spares, and made sure to pry out the hard drives, so I lost the devices, but not the data. I'm going to have to consolidate all of that data sometime soon, actually, get a good handle on everything I have. Also, it was during this two week marathon of various builds that I realized that, once I had a way to turn these things on again - I was literally carrying around information that could break the universe, and leaving it unprotected such that anyone determined enough could crack my password and see the entire (currently released) RWBY series._

 _So I've started carrying that SD card on my person at all times, now. It's in a small strong box about half the size of a cigarette box - the guy who sold it to me promised it could take a bullet and still be fine, or my money back. So I called his bluff and shot it, right there. It works, and I've since discovered Remnant people can **also** shit their pants in fear. _

_I'm kidding._

 _But at least now the knowledge of the future won't be falling into anyone else's hands, and now I can charge my Earth tech. I've now got **time** to write up a program that'll give me an Earth English keyboard on a Remnant computer, and time as well to find a way to make Remnant computers understand Earth programs. _

_And in case it needs to be said: They finally got around to giving me a few of my own. Now I've got a Remnant phone ('Scroll'), and a Remnant tablet (Also Scroll)._

 _Onto the real news: Mercury swung by for a day or two about a week ago. Slept one day all the way through, next day said he was 'this close' to finding Adam Taurus, and should be getting back to us in a few days, and that was a few days ago. So it won't be long, now. The good news is that I know I won't have to be fighting this go around, but the bad news is I know the Fall Maiden is coming up real fast._

 _Problem: I'm still nowhere even close to figuring out how to go superspeed. (Until I have a better name for TK-based super speed, I'm just going to call it Speed Force.). I'm not at all willing to try and just go hog-wild and wing it, because I may very well flatten myself against a wall if I mess up._

 _I mean, half of it is already done: I know I can move myself with my semblance, and that the speed at which I move is really up to me. I just envision anything from Iron Man-esque rocket boosters pushing me in the desired direction, to a big freakin' wall making the same push, but on my entire body. So that's done, I can do that. But I can't find a way to increase my reflexes to that kind of a speed. Any idea I have is either stupid (praying I'll get used to it through practice), lethal (forcing my neurons to fire faster with my semblance), or **stupidly** lethal (trying to gather in electrons to electrically stimulate my brain to run faster). _

_It was a miracle I was able to get the Power Glove - training with it is going well, by the way - but I'm starting to think that Speed Force is too far out of my reach. I may just have to try the whole 'tackle Qrow and slip him the message' idea._

 _Wait._

 _Hoooooly **shit -** I think I've been thinking about this all wrong. _

_I don't have to physically give **Qrow** the message - I could very well slip it to the **Maiden** during our fight, and so long as he gives her first aid and checks her injuries, he'd inevitably find it. _

_Could it be that easy?_

 _I wouldn't even need the Speed Force, then - I'd just have to focus on bulking up my defense and offense. Let my reflexes develop naturally._

 _This might be worth looking into._

 _Anyways, aside from that, there wasn't much that's happened. It's been two weeks, and while I won't say I've **mastered,** and I won't say it's **perfect,** I will say my TK shield idea is coming along wonderfully. I'm able to keep them up and repel most of the attacks that come my way, and respond in kind. Problem is that while it certainly stops physical objects, I've noticed that air still gets displaced and will go through - so if someone hit me with a pneumatic battering ram, for instance, I'd stop the ram, but the recoil, or the shockwave, would still hit me and play hell with my organs. Smaller impacts, like bullets, or punches, those are fine - the displaced air isn't enough to damage me - but the bigger stuff is what I need to worry about. So it's not perfect, but it's a lot better than I had earlier, and who around here can punch like a battering ram?  
_

 _I'm also working on a way to make my strikes hit harder, and I'm using mantis shrimp as my influence. The long and short of it is that these shrimp are able to strike their pray so hard and so fast that they boil the water around them, creating cavitation bubbles that, when they collapse, basically **wreck** their prey, hitting them with several hundred pounds of force. For comparison's sake, trained black belts - people who literally punch for a living - are among the only people alive who can reach that kind of striking force. _

_From what I understand, they do this by coiling up their muscles and then lunging forward. Obviously, I can't do this - but what I can do is use my semblance to move my body. So, I'm hoping that, whenever I hit someone, I can 'pulse' my semblance and shove my fist forward like a rocket, giving me two strikes for the price of one, and making sure the second one hits a **lot** harder. So, using the black belt analogy, my first impact would be the black belt punch, and the second one would be the equivalent of that same black belt strapping a rocket to their elbow and using that to increase their impact force. _

_Problem: I risk dislocating my shoulder doing this._

 _Not everything's perfect, but I'm hoping that, given the incredibly small distance my fist will be going for the second impact, a lot of the potential danger will be mitigate; and so far, I haven't had many problems with something like this, it's worked fine. A few minor accidents here and there, but nothing my Old Man Logan healing factor hasn't dealt with._

 _And I once again draw attention to the fact that my body is clearly changing, with this aura. The more and more I train and practice, the faster I can feel the changes coming on. Things like picking up a couple marbles and juggling them around just a few weeks ago took all of my concentration to do, let alone doing well, but now I can do it with ease. Now I'm making progress on using my semblance as a methods of maneuvering around the battlefield, using it to attack, to defend, whathaveyou. And that's ignoring the effects my aura is having on my body - I ran a mile in four minutes, and that was a week ago. I don't have access to weights, but I'm all but willing to bet I can lift more than a couple times my weight, without my semblance._

 _All of this in a **month.**_

 _This is Goku levels of exponential growth. I've gone from scrawny Steve Rogers to supersoldier Captain America in a **month,** and I'm showing no signs of slowing down. Now, I know this will sound stupid, but this is starting to worry me. Seriously. Aura, and all that, it's supposed to be powered by our soul - anything with a soul, has aura. _

_But Earth Humans - I'll call them Terrans - and Remnant Humans - they'll stay Humans - evolved in two completely different environments. Could it therefore be possible that the 'rules', and such, of aura are also different? For instance, from that I've been able to surmise, humans can't go in the hole - they can't ever draw more than they have, and they can survive at absolute zero - that's when their shields break and they become vulnerable to injury._

 _But what if that rule is different for terrans? What if my soul isn't powering my aura - it **is** my aura? That I'm so strong because I'm drawing from my actual life energy? Same stuff that keeps me alive is what gives me these powers, so what happens if I run out? Do I die? Am I a candle that's burning twice as bright? Is all of this stuff happening to my body, all of these changes, is that me having one last big flare before I burn out? Could this explain why my shields drop when I attack, and go back up when I'm idling around? _

_What if I'm becoming so strong, so quickly, because I'm actively dying? That my soul has its own equivalent to a fight-or-flight reflex, and right now it's firmly on 'Fight'? That these powers and these abilities I'm being given are my soul trying to give me the chance to get away from perceived threats so I can... Well, put a cap back on it? Seal it up again?_

 _I'm going to have to keep an eye on this. It may very well be just me being paranoid and scared of what I'm capable of. It may literally **just** be exactly what Cinder said - that we just build and build and build up our aura throughout our entire lives, and this is what happens when all of that buildup finally gets released. I may very well just be overthinking things and this all is a non-issue. But if I'm right... Oh man, I may be in some kind of trouble. I **really** hope I'm not turning out to be a blood mage. That shit's scary._

 _But, I won't be ending this on all doom and gloom. After I updated the clocks and calendars on the dead devices, I realized something. Unless I've messed up, my birthday's today. I'm eighteen._

 _Alright, show of hands: How many folks can say they celebrated their eighteenth on another fucking planet? In another **universe**?!_

 _Can you **imagine** the street-cred I'm generating right now? Superpowers, interdimensional travel, functionally becoming Captain America through my aura... A life model after Nathan Drake's heart, and now I'm going to baptize my adulthood prooooobably by preparing to fight God! I want you all to realize that if I survive to my **nineteenth** birthday, the only way up is to actually make good on those Jesus jokes I made earlier. Go to a bar and grill, turn the water to wine and watch the bartenders shit themselves while I get schnockered. _

_'Till next time._

* * *

There were many things Aldric could probably be doing at the moment - things far more important or worthwhile than what he was doing at the moment. However, if he were to be honest with himself, considering that he likely wouldn't be celebrating birthdays in a conventional way anymore, he'd have to take what he could get, and where he could get it. So, as his birthday present to himself, Aldric was fiddling with his Power Glove, it connected wirelessly to a tablet-sized scroll he'd been given days ago, and with Johnny Cash playing in the background, providing a soundtrack of sorts to what was honestly a project pointless in everything but sentimentality.

No, he wasn't trying to sharpen hardlight blades, crack or enhance its programming, or anything of the sort. He was diving through the color settings. The Power Glove had a 'memory' option that kept a record of the various shapes it had made and how often it had made them. Appropriately, the Captain America shield was at number one, with Wolverine Claws at number two, and bullets and arrows at three and four. This all played into the memory option - he was trying to program the Cap Shield to display a certain trio of colors whenever he formed it. Beyond his own sentimentality, there really wasn't _any_ reason for him to be swapping out the pale blue hardlight wireframe for a more opaque, metallic sheen red, white, and blue; but damn it, it tickled a certain part of him that he didn't get to indulge often outside of movie theaters and conversations with his few comic-savvy friends.

It would also probably be the closest thing to a birthday present he'd get, today.

As he whittled away the time, hammering away at the tablet-sized scroll, one of two given to him by his 'allies' of sorts, he heard someone knock on his bulkhead door. He reached over and stopped the gentle caw of music, and bade the person enter. Surprisingly enough, where he'd been expecting Cinder, continuing his and her little cat and mouse routine, he got Emerald, whose head was tilted to the side and her eyes were narrowed.

"What was that?" She asked.

"Hm?" Aldric hummed, eyes still locked to his computer. "The music?"

"Yeah." Emerald strolled inside and slid into a free chair. "Never heard anything like it."

Aldric grinned, "ah, that's 'cause that's Johnny Cash, lady." He drawled, "never a finer artist. My folks were into things like Metallica and Guns n Roses, but once I heard Cash's dulcet tones, I was hooked."

"I remind you that you're referring to things I have no basis for." Emerald deadpanned.

"And I remind _you_ that pointing it out just encourages me to keep going." Aldric leaned back in his chair and swiveled around to face her. "Remnant doesn't have country music?" He asked.

Emerald shook her head, "nothing like that." She said, "we don't really have a _country._ Most crops and livestock are grown in towers."

Aldric whistled, "sometimes I forget how different your world is from mine." He said, with a light nod. "Here, expanding a mile or two is a lethal venture. Back home, there were entire epochs _defined_ by us gobbling up new land."

Emerald grew a distant look in her eyes, "sounds nice."

 _I'll skip how we then proceeded to breed ourselves crazy and now we're running out of room._ Aldric thought, as he swirled back to his desk. "I could play some more for you." He mentioned, typing away at his keyboard, opening up 'spectral wavelength' settings. _Here we go..._ He frowned at the holographic screen.

"Oh - no." Emerald shook her head, getting to her feet. "I don't want to disturb -"

"Lady, you and your friends saved my life, and turned me into..." He bit back the word 'Superman', and instead went for, "well, a Huntsman." He said, with a sidewards nod of the head. "And besides, you've suffered a lot under me and Mercury's joint snide efforts. You want to listen to my awesome-ass music, it's the least I can do." He nodded back to the chair, "sit down. I'll put on the good shit." He said, swiveling around in his chair and reaching for his phone.

He heard Emerald's chair creak under her weight after a hesitative second. With a grin, he flicked on Live at Folsom Prison, and then turned back to his scroll.

 _"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash..."_ It began, as Aldric flicked through his scroll, sending a command to the Power Glove to form the shield, such that he could visually track the color changes.

Time continued on in relative silence, as the music played and his shield went from varying shades of blue to red, and temporarily to a vibrant lime-green. He continued fiddling with the settings, and as the halfway mark on the song hit, Emerald spoke up.

"Is all of your music like this?" She asked, her eyes locked onto the shield.

Aldric shook his head, "I sincerely hope the implication that you have homogeneous music in this world isn't true." He said with a wavering voice and a comical frown.

"No, no." She said, "I meant _your_ music, specifically. Your library."

Aldric hummed, nodding his head. "No, I've got a lot... And then a lot more from what I looted from the plane." The shield turned a bright pink, briefly casting him in the powerful light. "That's not right..." He undid that selection, and it became purple. "Well... Shit." He frowned.

"What're you trying to do?" Emerald asked.

Aldric chuckled, "something really stupid." He said, "you guys have comic books, here?" He asked.

Emerald was silent a moment, "yeah." She nodded.

"Sweet." Aldric commented, "back home, there was this one comic, called Captain America. Started out primarily as a piece of pseudo-propaganda during war, but it was still pretty nice. The long and short of it was that this scrawny kid - about as thin as I was when you found me - got selected by the army to become a supersoldier... Basically a Huntsman without the aura."

"Okay."

"Dude was a paragon. Truth, Justice, Righteousness, the whole nine yards. He was an idealogue, incorruptible. His _symbol..."_ He rapped his knuckles on the shield, the sound of pinging glass joining Johnny Cash. "Was a circular shield. Star in the center. It was indestructible, absorbed all vibrations, the works. Dude was a badass, and he beat people with a shield."

Emerald grew a revelatory look in her eyes, "he used his defense as an offense."

"You're learning." Aldric grinned. "Yeah. I took the shield idea from that story, the star spangled man with a plan." His grin turned to a frown, "ooooonly problem is..." He turned to the now bright white shield. "It's supposed to be red, white, and blue... Not..." He fiddled with a slider, and then the outer edges turned red. "Well, actually that's getting closer." He commented.

"You're doing this for a comic book?"

"Hm... Not _just_ for one... But let me put it to you like this." He leaned back in his chair, briefly exchanging a glance with Emerald. "Sometimes, the world just _needs_ a hero." He said. "Not a fighter, not a soldier or an icon, but a _hero._ A symbol, if you want to get philosophical. 'Cause, people, they live and die, yeah?" He said, locking his gunmetal gray eyes to her red orbs. "But _symbols..._ Those live on. They're incorruptible, they're aspired to. They're immortal, in their own way. It's why you've got folks _rallying_ around things like Beacon, or the White Fang, or Atlas. Those aren't people, because people die. But symbols, the ideal that they represent, they're something more." He explained, "and sometimes, that's all someone needs. Something to aspire to, to believe in."

Emerald frowned, "I think I understand what you're saying." She said, "you believe in what this... Captain America represents?"

Aldric chuckled, "actually I'd call myself..." A pause, before he nodded. "Yeah." He settled, deciding not to pile Superman onto this. "It's not necessarily easy to nail down _exactly_ what he believes in and aspires towards, but it's more the generalities. Righteousness, justice, freedom, that sort of stuff. You show me an army that doesn't have a symbol that serves as a rallying cry, I'll show you one that'll fall _real_ fast." Though it was funny, how he voiced aspiring to Marvel's boyscout when he was arguably being anything but. Ozzymandias would probably make Captain America sick to his stomach.

"So you emulate him..." She frowned, "to provide yourself a symbol? Or those we fight for?"

Aldric chuckled, "well consider we're actively fighting _against_ the majority here, and they'll likely see this as the antithesis to everything I just laid out." He said, leaning back forward and resuming his adjustments to the Power Glove. "But I still believe in the principle of the thing. The concept of a hero. The symbol." The second ring remained white, whilst the inner ring turned a deep shade of red. "If I had to pin a specific reason on it..." Inside the inner ring, it turned a bright blue, with a star in the center remaining a stark white. He grinned, and picked up the shield, affixing it to his arm.

Affixed to his lean arm, the shield seemed to thrum, the noise of lowly ringing glass having given way to that of dull metal. "I'd say it's to remind _me_ why _I_ fight." He was actively planning to collude with a doomsday cult-slash-terrorist group, and was making peace with the fact that he'd have strong role in the deaths of a _lot_ of people; he needed this single, small beam of light in that field of darkness. Some small, insignificant symbol to remind him of what he was doing, and why.

But, he couldn't leave it at that. Ignoring the levels of angst in that train of thought alone, he couldn't let them think he doubted The Cause.

So he cracked a grin, and said, "and the Cap was the _definition_ of a badass." The shield vanished as he leaned back in his chair, depositing the small cluster of nanites back with the rest of the power glove. "What's the most powerful Grimm on Remnant?" He asked, "because there was this one story where something stronger and angrier than _that_ was rampaging all across the world. Cap was dead at the time - that happens a lot, they die and come back to life - and folks were pretty sure he commanded enough respect that he could have stopped that thing just by _standing in its way."_ He rubbed his hands together.

Emerald blinked, her eyes narrowing. "No." She said, "there are some terrifying Grimm on this world, Aldric. I doubt -"

"Any that can pick up and hold mountains?" He asked, "clap so hard they create shockwaves? I tell you - just _one_ superhero from Earth would be enough to solve a damn good deal of Remnant's problems." He clasped his hands behind his head.

"You really think they're that powerful?"

"I'll put it to you like this - Captain America was just a mortal man. A supersoldier, peak human strength, yes, but a man nonetheless. He's _not_ a Superman. Cap punches cars and he dents the door. Superman punches cars and there's no planet anymore."

Emerald gave him a incredulous look, "I... I don't know what to say to that. I can respect having symbols to live up to, and all that... But idealists hardly survive in this world, Aldric."

"Oh?" He asked, leaning back in his chair. "Do tell."

Emerald matched his posture, looking at him challengingly in the eye. "First off, the Grimm _feed_ off of negativity. They are literally attracted to it."

"Yeah."

"So when the idealist dies, and his followers lose hope, it _only_ helps the Grimm." She explained.

"Okay." Aldric nodded, "and that explains factions like the White Fang? Emerald I'm pretty sure religion would _cease_ to exist if our little discussion here was as cut and dry as we make it seem. Black and white, from what I know of you so far I'd figure you know the world operates in that gray area."

She nodded, "it does, but I'm making a point. There's a reason your heroes live like they do only in picture books. Even Huntsman and Huntresses only do jobs if they get paid, and they're the closest around to heroes as you describe them."

Aldric pointed at her, "and yet do they _not_ instill hope? Are they _not_ a symbol?" He asked.

"You have a point, Aldric, but mine is still valid, wouldn't you agree?"

Aldric nodded, "that's why _my_ heroes wear masks, Emerald. Why they have, and in some cases are themselves, symbols." He turned to his scroll, "here." He pulled up an image of the White Fang. "If this guy, what's his name? Taurus? If he died, another dude would just take his place. Boom. The entire faction still moves on. Why? Because they believe in the symbol, in the ideal." He said, turning it to her. "Your argument is in the Huntsman, and it's a more than valid argument... But they support the Huntsmen and Huntresses as an institution, not necessarily a person. The headmaster of Beacon dies? Next person will move up, the entire academy won't just fall apart overnight.

"A Huntsman dies, the _person_ is dead, but the _symbol,_ the _ideal,_ that'll live on." Aldric pressed. "So let's say _all_ of the Huntsman _rallied_ around just one man, yeah? Let's say he was the face of the entire organization, and everyone joined to aspire to be him, specifically. He dies, they all grow disillusioned, and leave. But if that man preached an ideal, gave a rallying cry... When he died, they'd instead fight on, to respect his memory." He said, "to bring it all full circle, sometimes people just _need_ a hero." He shook his head, briefly gesturing with his hands. "Simple as that."

Emerald sighed, "you really believe that?"

Aldric laughed, "lady, I'm a living example." He said, "that week I was on my own? I pretty much modeled my every action after one simple question: What would Nathan Drake do?" He said, "now, Drake wouldn't necessarily be a _hero_ per-se, but he was still a symbol. He represented survival, that one doesn't need a best-laid plan, just a good idea and a better means of improvisation. He was a man who refused to die." He leaned back and looked up to the ceiling, his eyes clouding over with a distant look in them. "When the Beowolf first found me, I didn't think I'd live to see my next birthday." He said, leaning back forward, and then gesturing to the room around him. "Now look at me." He grinned.

Emerald blinked, "wait, it's your birthday?"

Aldric nodded, "eighteen years." The longest part ironically being the last few months.

"You've been spending your _birthday_ arguing bullshit comic book ethics instead of going out drinking, or having bad food." Emerald deadpanned, "Aldric even when I lived on the _streets_ I celebrated my birthday."

Aldric gave her a false frown, as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Noooow hold on there, my green-haired, red-eyed friend. Debating bullshit comic book ethics is what I _like_ to do. You want to know what I was doing the day before the trip that brought me here?" He asked, "debating with a buddy of mine whether or not Superman could break Cap's shield. I do that for _fun,_ thought experiments, and the like. I like to do it. Partying, drinking, all that? Never appealed to me. I'd rather get a good night's sleep." Though bringing up alcohol wasn't necessarily an unappealing option for the crash survivor-turned antihero. He would love to forget about all of this for a few hours.

Emerald shook her head, "I can't - no. Unacceptable. Come on." She waved at him, standing to her feet.

"Uh -"

"No butts, come on."

"But I didn't even -"

"Ah!" She shook her finger, and then physically hauled him to his feet. "No! Come on." She hopped out of Aldric's room. _"Cinder!"_ He heard, as he cut the power to his phone and killed the music.

 _"What?"_ He heard a muffled voice respond, as he donned his Power Glove and grabbed his coat.

"Aldric thought he could keep his birthday a secret from us. Let's take him to Junior's and see how Earth people get drunk."

 _"Emerald you cannot be serious."_ He heard Cinder say, from within her room.

"Uh, to be fair -" Aldric voiced, his deep drawl filling the air and penetrating Cinder's room. "I seem not to have a say in this. I think that would extend to you. I've never seen Emerald get excited before." He gave her a glance, "it's kind of scary." He deadpanned.

Emerald waved him off, "bad food, good booze, and he's on Torchwick's payroll so he'll give us both without argument."

"Should I mention that, technically, since I'm on another planet we don't know how the local food and drink will -"

"You've been eating and drinking with us for weeks, shut up." Emerald voiced tersely.

"Yes ma'am."

Cinder's door then swung open, she in her customary red dress, though her heir not nearly as neatly brushed as it usually would be. "Emerald, I do not think it would be the best idea to get him drunk." She said.

Aldric blinked, "wait, I don't hear you saying no -" He pointed at her with a knife hand, "are you helping her?! Do I have _no_ say whatsoever?" He looked between the both of them. Did they plan this? Was his birthday just a good excuse for _them_ to get out of the ship for a few hours? He didn't like this.

 _"No."_ They each said, "we do not know how much control he may have over his semblance when inebriated." Cinder continued.

"I never pegged _either_ of you for people to celebrate birthdays. For Chrissakes I was fine just fiddling with the Power Glove." He got Captain America's shield, the real deal - or as close to it as he could get - he was _fine._ He didn't need a party.

Yet somehow, within fifteen minutes, he was being dragged out of the Aviator by the two people he would have suspected the least of desiring a night on the town. He would have thought Mercury would have pushed him into this before these two. Again, he reminded himself they were _human_ like everyone else, and not just one-dimensional characters from an anime, but still. It hadn't been a move he'd expected in the least.

As the moon drew higher in the sky, Aldric found himself being guided through Vale until they were standing in front of a several-story brick building with a sign hanging from its front that read 'JUNIOR'S'. There was a line to get in and a bouncer keeping the line from moving too fast. Aldric tried to use this as an excuse to leave - especially as he could hear the thumping beats of a _nightclub_ echoing out from the inside, but he was soon silenced by a look from Emerald. She grinned at him, and sidled up to the bouncer.

He didn't know what she'd said, but two minutes later they were inside, and Aldric found him deafened to his very thoughts. Not, however, to the voice of a certain orange haired mob boss who happened to be looking over his shoulder as they entered. Torchwick's one visible green eye brightened with no small level of amusement, and he quickly dropped into a large, flourishing bow.

 _"Well my, oh, my!"_ He called out over the loud, booming music, as his guard circled around him. _"What a pleasant surprise!"_ He straightened up, resting both hands on his cane. _"What, may I ask, are three of my four most dangerous partners in the world doing at a place such as this?"_

Aldric could hardly hear the man over the booming music, his chest vibrating to its bass. Cinder dropped the jovialty just as soon as she'd picked it up, though she had to raise her voice to match Torchwick's. _"Celebrations. Same as you, I would suppose."_

As they spoke, Neo slinked over to Aldric, giving him a polite smile and a nod, her hands held behind her back.

 _Oh yeah... I kind of cost you your umbrella._ Aldric nodded, "er... _Sorry about the umbrella!"_ He called out, the bright white lights from the densely populated club floor making their rounds over the group standing in the middle of the entrance.

Neo waved her hand side to side, indicating she thought nothing of it. Aldric fought to keep a straight face as he realized that she clearly wasn't finished with their conversation.

Fortunately, Torchwick drew his attention. _"I'm afraid not, Miss Fall, as I'm here on business. Mutual business, I might add."_ He said, with a nod, and a brief, accompanying frown. _"The owner here owes me quite a few favors, and to move the quantities you've requested of me I shall need to call some of them in."_ He clicked his cane on the floor, _"but I can tell you're not here for that. So how about I show you three a benefit or two of acquainting yourselves with myself? Follow me, my good sir and ladies!"_ He rounded on his heel and marched through the looming double doors leading out to the club proper.

Before he even knew what was happening, Neo had managed to hook her arm around his and was forcibly dragging him after the Legion. They soon were in the club proper, but were orbiting the checker-tiled dance floor and the large glass pillars that shone with bright light. Instead, they were heading towards one of the club's enormous walls, itself lined fully with a ceiling-height bar.

Aldric, however, wasn't preoccupied with how the barkeeps would even remotely be able to reach the bottles at the top of the shelf. Instead he was reflecting on life - specifically, when he'd lost control of it. How had he lost control of his life? When _specifically_ after the plane crash? He thought the whole point of the Green Hornet plan was all but _specifically_ to keep control of it, and yet here he was - about to get drunk because other people wanted him to. So much for that peer pressure crap in elementary school. Granted, he doubted that applied when all of his peers would meet a stretched definition of gods, back home, but he felt the point still prudent. Being forcefully dragged into a nightclub by two strange, arguably sociopathic women, to meet up with another woman who'd tried to kill him, and her boss who had ordered his attempted murder, Aldric had _not_ expected this night to go this way.

 _For Chrissakes, I just wanted to fix my shield, watch Superman and go to bed! I did not want to get drunk in a fucking nightclub!_ Aldric thought, a herculean amount of effort required for him to still have a straight face as he was dragged around the nightclub.

 _"Tell me, to what are we celebrating this night?"_ Torchwick hollered over his shoulder.

 _"The man that seems to have won the affection of your bodyguard. He's celebrating another year on Remnant."_ Emerald responded, her hands resting in the pockets of her shorts.

 _Wait, can we back up a second?_ _What did you just say? Did I hear that right?!_ Aldric blinked, turning his wide-eyed, fear-filled gaze from the back of Emerald's head down to Neo, who simply skipped along, her arms wrapped around his and her head leaning against it. _When in the flaming fu - who in - how?! Am I high?! Did I take that Oxycodone? Am I drooling in my bed right now? Jesus, take the wheel! I'll be a good boy, just stop with the madness!_

Torchwick wasn't even phased by the comment, _"well, celebrate indeed!"_ He said, with a grand wave of his hands. _"To survive another year, and especially in your line of work! It calls for congratulations!"_ He said, as they rounded the dance floor approached the bar. _"Why, what luck! Junior!"_ He called out, holding his hands out to his sides as he approached a heavily-built man sporting a crew-cut and a red tie.

The man _somehow_ managed to hear his name over the music, and while Aldric was tempted to mouth ' _SAVE ME'_ when he whipped around, he knew far better. _"Eh - Roman!"_ He spoke with the deep tone, and the high volume of a man more than used to having to compete with his music to be heard. _"I wasn't expecting you, tonight!"_ He said, arcing his back low and extending his hand.

Torchwick gave it a brief shake, _"oh, I came for business my good sir, you know that. But I may make a brief request, see -"_ He nodded over his shoulder. _"Some of my friends, there. They've lived..."_ He cast his glance over his shoulder, briefly frowning, as if in thought, before smiling and turning back to Junior. _"Eighteen_ long _years, and in perhaps some of the worst conditions and jobs imaginable. So I **must** insist - please, some good food and better drinks, yes?"_

Junior briefly cast a glance over the rest of the Legion, his eyes narrowing as he realized none of them could be over twenty - save maybe Neo, but Aldric had no clue how old she was. He may have noticed Aldric's pallor and his strained neutral expression, but clearly his apprehension at providing people not-of-age alcohol was swiftly crushed by his clear respect - and perhaps fear - for Roman Torchwick.

He nodded deeply, _"of course, sir!"_ He turned around and snapped his fingers at one of the bartenders, she snapped to attention at his fierce look. _"Hey! Get these four -"_

 _"Three, Junior. Much as she may be smitten I'm afraid Neopolitan is on the job."_

 _"Yes sir - three! Get these three a booth, get them whatever they want!"_

The bartender nodded and soon rounded the bar. Aldric felt actual chills go down his spine as Neo quietly ran her fingers down his arm before she disentangled herself with him, and joined Torchwick, who smiled and tipped his hat to Cinder as she, Emerald, and Aldric followed the bartender. As Torchwick rounded on Junior and began discussing whatever business the two had, Aldric once again found himself wondering just where, when, and how he'd lost control of his life.

 _"And what can I get you three tonight?"_ The thin, tattooed woman asked, a pad and paper in hand as the Legion took their seats in a corner booth, so deep in the shadows Aldric could hardly tell what color his skin was.

Aldric just barely managed to speak before the objects of his confusion for the night. _"Please, dear God, something carbonated and sugary. Soda - whatever these two say do **not** let me get drunk."_ He pleaded, though a smile was finally starting to grow on his face, as the reality set in.

Fortunately, the bartender didn't hear the undertones of his plea, and instead thought it a joke. _"I'll be assure to accommodate Junior's esteemed guests, sir."_ She said, writing something down on her pad. _"And for you two?"_ She shouted over the music.

Emerald called out, _"alcohol enough for the three of us!"_

Cinder simply said, _"water. A large glass, and a single shot of whisky."_

 _Jesus Christ these two know more about booze than my Uncle!_ Aldric thought, as the waitress nodded and retreated. _"Okay - now was it you, or you?"_ He pointed to Emerald, then Cinder. _"Which one thinks Neo wants in my pants?"_

Emerald laughed, though it went unheard over the music. _"Aldric, she's been hanging off of you and pressing her face on yours ever since you broke her femur. You didn't_ _notice?"_ Even Cinder agreed, with a subtle nod.

Aldric, however, shook his head, _"no! Hell no! Good - no! She's mute, isn't she? I thought she was getting her point across!"_

 _"Clearly, not well enough."_ Cinder deadpanned. _"How do humans from Earth celebrate birthdays, Aldric?"_

 _"You're asking me this_ _now!"_ Now the smile was firmly stuck on his face, as he lightly slammed his hands on the table; not because he was angry, but to emphasize his point. " _At a goddamn nightclub I didn't want to go to!"_ He ran his gloved hands through his thick hair. _"Oh God! When did I lose control over my life?"_ He asked, leaning back into the booth.

The bartender chose now to make her return - a large bottle of soda and a frothy mug of some golden liquid slid in front of Aldric, a similar mug slid in front of Ember and Cinder, and then a tall pitcher of water and an accompanying glass towards Cinder, before she finished it off with a small shotglass. _"I'm right over there!"_ She pointed to the bar, to which Aldric looked - Torchwick and Junior seemed to be in the middle of it, considering the former's animated, angry-looking expressions. _"Just wave if you need me!"_ Aldric retreated his gaze with another shiver down his spine when he caught Neo sneaking a peak.

 _Seriously. How is_ that _a thing?!_ He demanded of himself, as he took a large swig of the cherry-flavored soda, and slid the mug of alcohol over to Emerald. _"You're not getting me drunk tonight, lady!"_ He pointed to Cinder, _"and you encouraged her! I thought you were the brains of this operation!"_

Cinder simply smiled and downed her shot, before she brushed her hair out of her face. _"You've done nothing but nearly die and train since you came here, Aldric. Even I see the value in a night off."_

Aldric laughed, despite himself, and ran his gloved hand through his hair again. His idea of a night off, and hers, were clearly two different things. Seriously - he would have been more than fine just fiddling with his power glove and going to bed after one or two of Christopher Reeve's Superman movies. _That_ was his idea of a good night, alcohol and deafening techno music never factored into it.

 _"Oh god..."_ He blasphemed, letting his gaze flow over the dance floor. The main doors to the club had long since swung shut since they'd gone through it, and the floor was still as densely packed as it had been on their entry - moreso, even. He saw a DJ in a bear mask on the mix table, throwing his hand up in tune with the music. _"Let me tell you two - shit food, my friends, video games, and comic book movies. That's my idea of a good birthday night."_

Emerald gave him a faux frown, _"oh, so we're not friends then, Aldric? Is that what I heard?"_

Aldric gave Emerald a knife hand, _"that is not what I said and you know it!"_ He laughed.

 _"I think we may have entertainment."_ Cinder intoned, attracting the attention of the other two present.

 _"Oh? Is Torchwick giving the boot to Junior?"_ Aldric cast his glance over, and saw Torchwick revolving on his heel in an angry manner, and marching away from Junior. Junior soon retreated to his bar, leaning upon it as, next to him, two women in frilly dresses, one red and one white, gave him looks of sympathy.

 _"No, but she's approaching the bar now."_

Aldric frowned, and looked out to the side, where he saw a tall blonde approaching the bar, on the other side of Junior. Aldric was stricken with a strange sense of deja-vu. As the blonde conversed with the nightclub owner, Torchwick gave the table a brief visit, bowing to Aldric.

 _"I must say, Mister Aldric."_ He said, looming over the crash survivor. _"Though it is clearly no stretch of your abilities, that you've survived another year in our world is definitely a worthy achievement, especially around those you acquaint, and for that I congratulate you."_ He said with a deep nod.

Aldric grinned, looking up to the orange haired mob-boss. _"Yeah."_ He groaned, _"I just wish that I'd gotten to... You know... **Choose** where I go."_ He and Torchwick shared a chuckle.

 _"Well, if there's anything I've learned in my years my good sir, you never refuse the directions of_ one _beautiful woman. Let alone two."_ He extended his hand, _"and even for its ending, it was a wonderful show you put on when last we met. My partner here wouldn't cease speaking of it for more than a week!"_

Aldric blinked, as he shook Torchwick's hand. _"Wait, she can talk?"_ He shifted his gaze to Neo, who simply smirked.

When Neo opened her mouth, however, the sound of a _huge_ and heavy mass of glass shattering reached all of their ears, overpowering even the music. Even Torchwick jumped, as he whirled around to see Junior flying through one of the glass pillars that decorated the club. The flashing lights and music both died down as screams rose up, and many began to evacuate the club. Aldric saw more than a dozen men in dark black suits, likely security, surrounding a blonde woman on the dance floor.

""Wait, I blinked, do it again." Aldric deadpanned, his voice now more easily able to carry to other ears.

"Oh my..." Sang Torchwick, "come along, Neo. It best we retreat before the police arrive." He waved to Neo, who in turn waved to Aldric, but Aldric's eyes were glued to the dance floor, as the black suits charged the blonde.

"Uh... Should we leave?" Aldric asked his companions, as the blonde launched herself into the air and, when she fell back to the ground, slammed her fist into it - the resultant explosion sending black suits flying. _"Jesus!"_ He jumped.

Emerald gave him a glance, "I'm surprised you're not jumping at the chance, Aldric." She said, nodding to the dance floor.

Aldric did a double-take. "Are you insane?!" He demanded, "lady, I'm not going to fight some chick whose punches -" Oh. _Shit. "- Explode!"_ He stressed, a grin stretching across his face as he turned back to the blonde. Yup. He was starting to understand where the deja-vu was coming from.

She stood atop the DJ's platform, bodily hauling him over his table and shooting him into the air, a wide grin on her face showing she was clearly having a good time. When the DJ's body hit the ground, the two red and white dressed women from earlier began approaching.

Cinder even had a small smirk on her face, "if you do so truly feel as if this venture was a waste, Aldric, perhaps this could liven it up for you." She said, taking a sip of her water.

"Maybe we'll get you something nice if you win."

"I have to be high right now. This isn't happening." Aldric shook his head, "fuck you!" He pointed to Emerald, "f-" Cinder gave him a look of caution. "fff... I'm not happy with you either." He dropped his hand, "this isn't, I'm not - no - I'm... No." He shook his head; and as they spoke, the dance floor literally began exploding in time with the three-way battle raging upon it. "No!" Had they spiked his soda? Was he having a really vivid nightmare? Or was his luck _really_ this bad? How in the flaming fuck was he going to get out of this? He could probably _wait,_ but he also wouldn't put it past the universe to make the blonde notice them out of spite, and pick a fight anyways.

"Isn't our goal to stay _under_ the radar, anyways?" Aldric pointed out.

Emerald shrugged at this, "he's got a point, there." She admitted.

 _Oh thank god!_ He breathed.

In response, Cinder turned to Emerald, a single eyebrow arced. "You forget what her semblance is." She said, turning back to Aldric.

"And now _she's_ got a point."

 _Oh dear god!_ "Why?!" He groaned, laughing despite himself. "Why do you two want this so much?" He paused, "no - who are you two? I'm dreaming right now." He tangled his fingers in his hair. "Hoooly shit, I'm not dreaming. I return to _why?!"_ The blonde was now down to one opponent, who she was making quick work of.

"You need to let off some steam." Cinder said. "Unwind."

"Fighting a girl whose _punches fucking explode_ is unwinding." Aldric deadpanned. "I still fail to see a valid reason for this." He paused, "wait..." His eyes widened, and he gave the two suspicious, shocked looks. "Did you two fucking plan this?!" How on Earth _could they?_

The innocent grins they shared told him they had, indeed, planned this. If Aldric had to guess, possibly from the very beginning; did this explain why they were acting differently?

 _"How?!"_ This was another test! Sweet Jesus he was going to have a heart attack before he hit nineteen!

"If you win, we'll tell you."

"And if I _don't?!"_ Aldric almost screamed. "What the fuck _then?"_ He laughed, slightly hysterically.

"Don't." Was all Cinder said.

Aldric still couldn't reconcile this complete one-eighty, making him shake his head. "Please explain this to me." He said, as the conflict between the blonde and Junior's henchman continued to escalate. "Considering our whole goal here, I've been led to believe, is to stay under the fucking radar... How does picking a fight we _literally_ have _no_ stake in help us?" He asked. "Fuck - I'm willing to accept that you're asking me to fight a chick whose punches explode, despite _both_ of you knowing that could be very lethal. Fuck it - I'll take that as it stands. But the entire time I've been here, from fleeing the forest to getting the eff out of dodge with that first encounter with Torchwick, it's all been on the basis of _stealth._

"You know... Not attracting attention?" He asked, "isn't the whole point of that not picking fights when we can avoid it?" He was even willing to forgo the fact that they were asking him to fight a very high-profile target and the risks that posed to his whole Ozzymandias plan; at the moment he was just trying to figure out whether or not he was high and hallucinating, or lucid, and this all was _really happening._

Cinder's false image was beginning to frown, now. "Aldric, it sounds as if you're refusing orders." She said, threateningly.

Aldric's head slumped, _"oh Christ..."_ He groaned, running his hands through his hair. "One more try -" He looked back up, "seriously. If the whole point of this test is figuring out if I know when and when not to fight, please don't even remotely get me wrong - _I know when not to."_ He had more than his fair share of scars to prove that he knew which battles had to be fought, which ones sat out on, and which ones to be run away from.

Cinder actually faltered at this, briefly flicking her gaze downward as if in thought, before it raised up. "I'll give you a small concession." She nodded to the blonde, as she continued to brutalize White Dress. "That woman is one of Signal Academy's top graduates. Skilled enough to receive a full scholarship to Beacon - and you know of Beacon already." She nodded. "The intention here is not to expose ourselves, but to test _you."_ She said, "if you can defeat huntresses in training by yourself, with the three of us you will be able to defeat far more." She finally let out.

"One of these days, one of these fights, my luck is going to run out and it will be at the _worst_ of times." Aldric deadpanned, turning his gaze to Cinder. "You and I, we're..." Aldric sighed, getting to his feet and slipping his coat off, "we're going to have to have a serious talk about these lethal tests of yours, Hot Stuff." He snatched his soda off of the table, and downed it as fast as he could.

"As we are about this display of disloyalty." Cinder intoned.

"Ah..." He shook his head, "fuck it. I'll argue the difference between that and self preservation later." He looked down to the dance floor. "Whew..." He rubbed his hands together, "this is gonna be a long night..."

Not seconds later, White Dress was sent sprawling across the ground and the lights began to brighten. Aldric saw White Dress lumbering to her feet and retreating, as the blonde was searching for her next opponent. Junior, the madman who held a rocket launcher that looked big enough to level the building, now stepped into the light, eying her angrily.

Anything he may have said, however, was prematurely cut off when the blonde's ear twitched, and she whirled around, throwing a powerful haymaker punch at the flying red, white, and blue mass hurtling towards her and filling the air with the ringing sound of a hammer striking an anvil. However, powerful as her wrist-mounted weapons were, they weren't strong enough to overcome the force behind Aldric's throw. She saw it burst forth from the clouds of smoke made by her explosive projectiles, and with a wide grin she threw both hands up, catching the shield and absorbing most of the impact. When she finished sliding across the mostly trashed dance floor, she looked up, seeing Aldric slowly walking down the steep stairs, his hands in his pockets and an exasperated frown on his face.

"Okay - dude." He looked up to Junior, "just go. This..." He cleared his throat, "this night hasn't gone like either of us could have hoped." Junior gave him a scathing glare, but soon realized he was one of the people with Torchwick's group. It appeared as if he were briefly toying the notion of looking this gift horse in the mouth, but seeing the wide grin on the blonde's face, he soon realized that this wasn't necessarily something he'd want to be present for, and turned tail, jogging away.

The blonde looked over her shoulder, frowning, as she straightened her stance and briefly toying with Aldric's shield. "Aw." She groaned, her frown turning to a smile. "I thought he looked tough." She tossed the shield up and down, like a Frisbee. She turned back to him, "hope I didn't get something in your -" She cut herself off, "wait, you don't look old enough to be drinking." She tilted her head, frowning.

Aldric let out a deep sigh, "oh, tell that to my friends, would you? Please?" He held out his hand, "shield?"

She shrugged and tossed it over to him. "Pretty light-weight. I'm surprised it hits so hard." She said, whipping the hand that had taken the brunt of impact back and forth. "I bet your friends sent you down here? We their entertainment?" She asked with a wide grin; she leaned on one foot to look over Aldric's shoulder, "hello!" She said lightly, waving her hand.

From the shadows of the corner of the club, Emerald and Cinder merely raised their glasses.

Aldric nodded, "you're probably closer to the mark than you think." He said, the shield vanishing as he affixed it back to his arm.

"Well, I think I've got the time." She shrugged, "still a little amped up from his 'henchman.'..." She said, flicking her fingers at the final word. "Probably still some time before the police show up. Waddaya say?" She asked, her smile wide and challenging.

Aldric gave a tired sigh, nodding. "Yeah, sure." He grunted, wondering if this wasn't the part of the game where Nathan Drake was _supposed_ to get his ass kicked. He wasn't overly fond of the metaphor, he soon decided, before he dropped into a light defensive stance. "Give them their show, go home, slip into a coma, sleep the rest of my birthday away." He remarked, off-handedly.

The blonde gasped, eyes growing wide. "It's your _birthday!"_ Oh shit, not her too. Granted, for Cinder and Emerald it had likely been more of an excuse than it was a reason, but that didn't mean hearing it was any less terrifying, considering how the night had gone thus far. What the fuck was it with these people and trying everything they could to kill eachother as a means of birthday celebrations? "Oh, we _have_ to go, now!" Yup. That had probably been amongst the worst things he could have said, because now she looked a far different, more vibrant kind of excited.

Such a thought was only confirmed as Yang Xiao Long put up her fists, and with a wide one-sided grin, charged Aldric.


	12. Yellow

Chapter 11

* * *

Deep in the center of what had only minutes ago been a densely packed, strobe-lit nightclub, Aldric contemplated the meaning of suicide. Strictly speaking, it was the act or attempt of taking one's own life, usually by intention. By that definition, _everything_ he had done during his time here on Remnant could be considered him attempting suicide, as everything that had risked his life had come about because he'd, in some way, shape, or form, sought it out. So did that mean he was _incredibly_ suicidal, only really bad at it? Or clinically insane, and merely surrounded by people who thought he wasn't?

Regardless of the answer, his most recent suicide attempt, and coincidentally one of the most lethal seventeen - or was she sixteen, at the moment? - year old women on Remnant, charged him from her position on the other side of the now brightly lit dance club. Pride shone in her deeply purple eyes, mixing with the thrill of a fight she no-doubt expected to be a good one.

 _Nathan Drake... Nathan Drake!_ Aldric grunted, hopped back a step and threw his arm up, his shield quickly popping into existence and absorbing an explosive punch from the blonde fighter.

Her arm recoiled from having all of the energy of her punch shot right back at her, and Aldric turned it into another chance to attack, thrusting his shield forward and bashing her with its edge. However, she had her right hand up and intercepting it in the time it took him to blink, immediately halting its advance and blocking the blow. Had he not had his specific brand of foreknowledge, he would have been amazed at the strength this woman posessed - hell, he _did_ know and was _still_ surprised! But he shook that surprise off when saw her swinging her left arm underneath the shield in a powerful a uppercut; Aldric quickly thrust his open hand forward and caught the fist, pushing it back with a violent shove just as her weapon went off. Aldric noticed that, while he certainly felt the heat, he hadn't sensed anything beyond a concussive force pressing at his shields, but he filed those thoughts away as Yang threw a wide cross that hit his face, snapping it back and forth as it was briefly covered in the smoke of her detonation.

 _Yup, again with no shrapnel!_ He thought, as he then felt her grabbing at the edge of his shield. _Oh shit!_ He braced himself and when she tried wrenching his shield from his hands, he leapt into it, turning it into a lightning-fast backflip.

She succeeded in tearing the shield from his hand, but not in injuring his hands. So with a frown, he clenched his right hand and he swung it in a wide cross. With little more than a grin, Yang brought the shield up to deflect the blow, but found that the moment Aldric's fist made contact with it and reestablished the connection with the nanites, it vanished in a brief shower of light embers. Aldric's fist continued uninhibited, his slamming into her face; it recoiled all of an inch before, with a grunt, he shoved forward again - this time with his semblance.

The second impact occurred so quickly after the first that Yang hadn't even felt the delay, only the result: Being shot across the nightclub as if hit full-force by a battering ram. She bounced once off of the ground before she found herself partially buried in one of the few remaining great glass pillars. When she shook the stars from her vision, she saw Aldric, leaping through the air and driving his knee into her chest. With another telekinetic pulse, this impact too was exponentially increased, and she was blasted through the pillar in a shower of glass.

Through the falling glass, Aldric saw her flip back to her feet, the grin not having left her face for an instant. When he saw her rear her arms, he realized what she was doing and was able to crouch down and summon his shield just as she punched the air - a missile rocketing out of her gauntlets and hurtling towards him. It arced through the air and was joined by three more just like it, and all four slammed into his shield, but he didn't feel any impact, and the moment his radar pulse told him the missiles had stopped raining and she was charging, he hopped to his feet.

Yang was in front of him a second later, a straight punch already sailing for his face. However, with a clever, subtle use of his semblance, Aldric was able to jerk his shield arm upwards and shove its rounded edge into her elbow, throwing the punch way off target. Now with her briefly stunned, Aldric reached up with his free arm and locked it around hers, before hauling her over his head and bodily slamming her onto the dance floor.

Aldric managed three strikes with the edge of his shield before she deflected him and landed a strong punch to his chest. The crash survivor stumbled backwards, coughing, but an idea forming in his head. A lot of the problem, he was rapidly seeing, was that her weapons created _massive_ amounts of concussive force, whether or not they actually hit him. It seemed akin to getting hit by a small, speeding car, and was enough that even though he pushed them away with his semblance-led barrier, he still felt the hit; bruises were forming all over already, and he was pretty sure he'd cracked a rib or two. But his stunt a moment ago with the shield had him thinking, and briefly wondering if he hadn't been thinking about this entire defense problem backwards.

Why even absorb and reflect potentially titanic impacts, when he could just _de_ flect them, and not even get hit in the first place?

 _Well... No better place to learn!_ Aldric grunted as he absorbed another car-strength series of blows from the shotgun-punching warrior woman.

When he sensed a brief pause in her punches, Aldric lunged forward with both legs, tackling Yang and burying the broad side of his shield into her stomach. She grunted from the impact, and tried to wrap her hands around the edges of his shield - exactly as he'd hoped she would. The moment he felt her push against him, he reared his free hand, and then let the shield vanish. Yang was briefly set aglow by the fading multicolored photons, and was stunned by the sudden drop in resistance - which cost her the ability to defend against Aldric's next meteoric punch.

The trick, he'd learned, to the 'Mantis Shrimp Punch', as he'd dubbed it, was to pulse his semblance not before, or after he felt his fist hit - but the exact moment he felt it. Even with his steadily improving reflexes, instant reaction was literally impossible, and that only helped him. After all, every action had an equal, and opposite, reaction - so using Yang's body pushing against his fist, and his own fist briefly shooting an almost infinitesimal distance backwards, all of a sudden there was a slight, barely perceptible distance between his fist and her. In a concept similar to Bruce Lee's one inch punch, Aldric pulsed as much strength as he safely could from his semblance, and his fist would rocket forward again, netting him two blows, each exceptionally powerful in their own right, for the price of one. The only catch was that, unlike the mantis shrimp from whom he'd stolen the idea, he couldn't just coil up and do this willy-nilly - he needed that first impact such that he wouldn't tear his arm out of its socket; he'd learned that the hard way, and Emerald had griped about it for hours after they'd reset his arm.

The end result was, if Yang's punches were like speeding cars, Aldric's were like out of control dump trucks.

Yang flew backwards with a pained grunt, but then thrust both of her arms behind her as her feet dug at the ground. Both of her gauntlets fired as one, and she rocketed back towards Aldric, her right hand reared for a powerful Superman punch. Aldric braced his legs behind him and frowned, she reached him and swung with all of her might, unaware that he _pushed_ with his own might - just not with his hands. His semblance pulsed powerfully, and as he yanked his head back, he pushed on her fist. Yang completely missed his head, her fist swinging right by him, such that he felt little more than a light breeze. Her next attempted strike came curving upward with her left hand, he wasn't able to push this one fast enough and felt it graze his cheek, but it still _missed,_ and in a way much easier than his initial idea.

However, Aldric knew better than to rely on this, and while he would continue to test and refine this new idea for this fight, 'new' was the operative word - and it would likely fail, as exemplified when Aldric lunged forward, burying his shoulder into Yang's stomach and sending them both skidding across the dance floor. Yang had one hand grappled onto his ribs and the other hammered downwards - he wasn't able to push aside any of the blows, instead having to absorb them with his barrier concept. He felt bruises welling up on his back, his bones fracturing with blinding flashes of pain, and felt the lances of ash and fire burning at his flesh.

Aldric rained his own punches into the side of Yang's stomach, relishing in the feeling of her ribs bending, and one even cracking, under the enhanced strength of his blows. After he returned her assault in kind, he thrust his palm into her gut and shoved her away from him, the both of them using it as a chance to build some space between them and recover.

Aldric, however, took this as a chance to continue the assault, and with a telekinetic push, he launched himself forward, leaving a deep crack in the dance floor. His hand rocketed around in a powerful superman punch, Yang grinned and met it with a punch of her own. The resultant shockwave sent a shower of previously shattered glass raging around the room, but the two paid it no mind. Aldric landed on his feet and threw three punches, trailing upwards from Yang's stomach before he ended it with a powerful right cross and a thunderous left elbow to Yang's face. She spun into the impact and hammered her fist into Aldric's hastily raised shield with the sound of a hammer striking an anvil.

Her fist recoiled again as the kinetic energy was reflected right back at her, but she didn't let that impede her, lifting her boot and attempting to plant it on Aldric's chest. Aldric, however, used his semblance to dodge the kick, and Yang stumbled to her knee. Aldric quickly followed it up with a powerful strike to the back of her head, it whipped back and forth and she tried to respond with an uppercut, but Aldric caught it with his hand and used his semblance to halt it entirely as he rained down a second meteoric punch to Yang's face. The recoil of this one was greater than the last, and Aldric ended this brief beatdown by throwing her hand to the side and grabbing her head with both of his. She struggled against it, knowing his intention, but an application of his semblance let him win this struggle, and he rammed her nose onto his knee.

She was sent sprawling backwards, but despite the cracking noise, the grin on her face never once was wiped away. Aldric, however, was clenching his jaw and fighting back tears of pain - this woman's skull was so thick he was pretty sure he'd hurt his knee more than his knee hurt her nose.

 _I've never had a fractured knee, before._ Blithely thought the fighter, as his opponent recovered. _Is this what that feels like?_

Yang grunted as she got back to her feet, finding Aldric still standing where he was, his shield raised defensively, only the upper half of his face visible. He was breathing heavily, feeling the bruises, welts, fractured and broken bones, and more than a few open wounds pulsing all over his body. As much as his TK barrier _worked,_ insomuch that the strikes didn't hit him, there was still the problem of air displacement. She was generating enough kinetic energy to send regular people through tree trunk-sized pillars of _glass._ Even if he blocked the punch, that didn't stop the shockwave and the air displacement - resulting in a much more minor, but still hard impact. Instead of being hit by speeding cars every time, he was being beaten with a baseball bat. The only way to effectively defend against this, he was learning, was to block it with his shield, or use his semblance to dodge it.

Aside from that, he felt _everything._

 _Best defense is a good offense... What was I smoking? Was it the Oxy? Can you smoke that?_ The first damn chance he'd had to test this in the field, it had resulted in Neo stabbing the shit out of him, and then testing his 'perfected' version resulted in _Yang Xiao Long_ showing up and showing him how full of shit he really was. Hilariously, the only routinely effective method of defense he'd found thus far was the Cap Shield. _If I can't get this deflection thing working for me, I may have to change tactics._ He saw Yang reloading her guns, the grin on her face only widening. _Christ, I'm burning a lot of time jumping back and forth in combat strategies, here._ He shook his head, and charged forward.

Yang was immediately on the defensive, backhanding away the shield after Aldric hurtled it at her. It spun to the wall, Aldric used his radar pulse to keep an eye on it and his semblance to bounce it back to him, as he and Yang engaged. Befitting of her primarily boxing style, she threw several lightning-fast punches at Aldric's head and chest, he smacked away one, took another to the head, and caught a third, wrapping his arm around her own and throwing two meteoric mantis punches into her stomach, before thrusting his hand out to the side. He actually saw Yang's eyes flash with interest when the shield finished bouncing around the club and landed in his hands, but this interest was replaced by a lance of pain when Aldric smacked the shield across her head as if it were a skillet.

Yang spun away from the impact, but when she came back up she punched at the air, sending several missiles out of her gauntlets. Aldric cursed and slid the shield onto his right arm, tanking three missiles, but being sent flying through the air when the fourth and fifth hit the ground at his feet. When he landed, he found Yang there, she hopped onto him, straddling his chest and ground-pounding his face. Aldric's vision briefly flashed white and gray, and he felt half of his face flare up as if it had been burned. On instinct, he shoved both hands forward and into her stomach; he may have put a little too much power into his semblance, as a second later she was buried into the light fixtures on the ceiling, but at least he hadn't torn the entire nightclub down.

Progress.

With a pained grunt, Aldric hauled himself to his feet, seeing his shield on the ground just next to his left foot. He felt at the right side of his face, and pain lanced up again, yup - she'd either broken or cracked his skull, just above his right orbit. Considering he wasn't screaming in incoherent pain however, he was willing to place a little faith on the latter. Regardless, he wiped the blood off of his forehead in an attempt to keep it from flowing into his eye, coughed out a small dollop of blood from his mouth, and then looked up to Yang.

She disentangled herself from the lighting fixtures, sending sparks falling through the air. With a grunt, she broke free and fell back to the ground. She used a timely burst from both of her gauntlets to keep from falling like a boulder, instead landing softly, and turning her grinning face up to Aldric, who stomped on the edge of his shield. It sprang up into the air, and he caught it, affixing it to his arm with a determined scowl to match her prideful smirk.

 _The good news here, is that neither of us are trying to kill eachother. That's the good news._ Thought Aldric, as he raised his shield again. _The bad news, is that I remember her semblance. Every time I hit her, she gets stronger. That shit's going to come back to bite me, if I don't break her shields, get her to give up, and soon, at that._ Though, seeing a single bead of blood flowing down from her scalp, it made him feel confident about his chances, as well as reinforcing his earlier idea about Aura Shields, in that they negate the lethality of most attacks, but some force still bleeds through to cause injury. Despite this confidence, he still felt all of his injuries mounting - his breathes were starting to come out in wheezing rasps, from his ribs pressing against his lungs, and the blood from the cut on his head was doing its damnedest to blind his right eye.

Aldric frowned, deciding to throw a little MMA theory into the mix - Yang was a boxer. The vast majority of her strength came from her fists, which meant her legs were her weakness. If he could sweep her legs out from underneath her, and get her pinned to the ground, he'd have a firm advantage. This in mind, Aldric shifted his center of gravity lower, crouching down and shifting his grip on his shield, before beckoning to her with a 'come hither' motion. Yang took the bait and decided to take the initiative this time, raising her hands in a boxer's stance and charging forward.

She reached him in the blink of an eye, and he thrust his shield upwards to defend against a shower of punches, each explosion accompanied by the shrill sound of thick ringing metal, like a bell toll. As she focused on trying to wear down his defenses through brute force, Aldric leaned backwards, falling onto his free hand and kicking his legs outwards in a wide, sweeping motion. Yang's legs were swept out from underneath her, and she fell to the ground with a loud thunk of skin on glass, and a shout of surprise. Aldric spun into his circular momentum and was above her in a second, he smashed his shield onto her right leg three times before she swung her left leg up in an attempt to catch him off guard.

Aldric lunged backwards to dodge the swing, and then shoved his shield forwards - her leg then hit his shield and was stuck in its awkward position, freeing Aldric to rain another meteoric blow onto Yang's right leg, a thick purple bruise welling up on her thigh. However, before he could follow up with another one, she used her gauntlets to launch herself away, sending herself to the other side of the dance floor, and Aldric sprawling away from the dual shockwave. They both hopped to their feet - Aldric with blood flowing freely from his head wound, Yang with a more weight onto her less injured leg, as she tested the one he'd just tried incapacitating.

He, however, let the first grin of the fight grow onto _his_ face. He'd found a good strategy, her legs were definitely where he had to focus, from now on.

Yang was nodding as she hopped from one foot to the other, her injured one unsteady, but still usable. "Oh yeah, you're definitely better than these hacks." She gestured to the rest of the nightclub with her head, her long blonde hair flowing with the motions. "I can see why your friends are using you as dinner theater." She said, wiping away the blood leaking out of her scalp.

"'Friends' is subjective, really..." Aldric deadpanned, his breathing still heavy, as he wiped his own blood out of his eye.

"You thinking of going to Beacon, Bar Boy?" She asked, as she pumped her gauntlets, a shotgun shell flying out of each.

"Maybe..." He reared his shield arm, " _someday!"_ Aldric grunted as he hurled his shield at her.

She ducked underneath it and charged forward, either not having caught onto the fact that it could bounce off the walls and right back to him, or uncaring as there wasn't much she could do about it. She threw a wide right cross which Aldric deflected, she attempted to follow it up with an uppercut, but Aldric used his semblance to dodge it and escape scot-free. Another three machine-gun speed punches, Aldric barely managed to move fast enough to dodge the three, and before Yang could throw another, the shield made its triumphant return, smacking into her back and stumbling forward - right into Aldric's fist. Her head snapped back and forth, her smile growing wider as she saw in her peripherals, the shield bounce up into the air from the impact, and Aldric snatch it out of the air.

She used her forearm to block his next shield-bash, "aw, not now?" She asked, her own voice strained as she and Aldric struggled against eachother. "You look old enough!" She threw her fist forward, but Aldric palmed it away and responded with a cross of his own - she tried to dodge, but Aldric used his new defensive method in reverse, slowing down her motions enough such that his hit still connected. "And you're pretty good!" She commented, after her head snapped back into position.

Her next attack was another punch, which Aldric caught, immediately regretting his decision as he felt a horrendous lance of pain shoot through his hand, suspecting bones of having broken, but praying they'd only been fractured. "Thanks for the compliment..." He said, the both of them locked in a struggle of strength. "But I doubt that's where I'll be going... At the moment!" He began applying his semblance to his shield and his hand, pushing back against Yang and winning their struggle.

Yang, in response, grinned and shoved her knee upwards, prompting Aldric to fall back a step, their arms still locked together. She then stomped her foot downwards, forcing him to slide what had been his backfoot back again to avoid her breaking his foot. A moment later he he responded in kind, swinging his leg around and trying to kick Yang's knee out, but she yanked up her leg and guarded against the attack before shoving his leg aside. He, however, used his semblance to keep his balance and snapped his leg back, smashing the toe of his boot into her thigh and causing her to stumble. Despite this, she kept up her struggle against him, and tried throwing her head forward to headbutt him.

He jerked his head back to avoid the strike, and then planted his front foot firmly on the ground, so he could brace himself as he lifted his backfoot. He swung it around in a powerful roundhouse and caught her in her abdomen. She grunted from the impact, but used his now awkward balance against him, suddenly dropping all struggle and yanking both of his arms back towards her. He stumbled forward on his one good leg, and was sent right back as she this time successfully slammed her head into his own with a loud crunch.

 _Oh... Is my nose broken?_ Aldric wondered, as he wiped blood from his nose.

"Still got some tricks to learn, though." Yang grinned, crossing her arms.

Aldric pressed at both of his nostrils, blowing a huff of air out of each one, ensuring them still open. "Do I?" He asked, with an arced eyebrow.

Before Yang could even respond, she heard it - the sound of something inside her precious gauntlets and locking in place all of the moving parts. She'd no idea that Aldric had set this up from the very beginning of the fight. When she'd stolen his shield from him, and he'd regained contact with it, he'd shut it off, but hadn't used his semblance to recover the nanites. Instead, he'd taken advantage of their incredibly small size, which allowed them to stick to her like wet sand. With a brief mental command, he'd had them begin replicating - nowhere approaching lethal levels, however. Only small portions of the inner layers of Yang's shirt, and any sweat and blood they came into contact with, with the end result being enough nanites to do what he required of them. Following this, throughout the entire fight he'd been slowly pushing these nanites down to her gauntlets, intent on neutering them, jamming them up tight such that they couldn't fire anymore. Their brief struggle mere moments ago had given him the last few seconds he'd needed to ensure everything was in place before he dropped the 'killing blow', as it were. Now sufficiently clogged up, her gauntlets wouldn't be firing _anything_ without one hell of a cleaning. The biggest risk the entire time had been her noticing the nanites, but he got around that by keeping up the pressure, and using his semblance to spread them so thin that, if she were to notice them, she would think them nothing more than sweat covering her body.

 _Thank **god...**_ Thought the fighter, whose breaths were coming out rapid and gasping. He knew that if he hadn't done something about her weapons, he wouldn't have stood a chance at really winning this fight; but with them out of comission, the only thing he had to deal with now was her natural strength and her semblance - both of which his Cap Shield _alone_ should counter, let alone his semblance.

Yang chuckled, "oh, I think I like you!" She looked up, Aldric seeing the briefest flash of red in her eyes, "what's your -"

 _"Yang!"_ A new, shrill voice called out.

Aldric sensed something new approaching him, and it was on instinct more than anything else that he fell into a defensive stance and brought his shield up. However, a massive scythe, the blade nearly as long as he was tall, arced around the shield and, in the time it took him to blink, was yanked backwards, tearing his shield from his grasp. Aldric recovered quickly, but wasn't able to dodge the _enormous_ slug that was blasted out of the scythe's barrel. It slammed into his barriers, gifting him with the feeling of several already stressed ribs fracturing further and a few breaking, and sending him sprawling backwards, sliding across the ground.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, sis!" He heard Yang call out, as he croaked in pain. "Ruby, for once it really isn't what it looks like!" She hopped in between her dark-clothed sister and Aldric.

 _Great... Why don't we call in the rest of 'em? Give us the whole gang?_ Aldric shook his head clear of stars, "there are two of you?" He croaked, coughing up blood and feeling the terrible sensation of something sharp poking at his lungs.

Carefully, he felt inside with his semblance and found that one of his ribs was jabbed up against his right lung like a dagger, and though it hurt like holy hell, he had to drag it away and forcibly reset the bone to make sure he wouldn't be puncturing his lung anytime soon. He really didn't want to test his Old Man Logan healing abilities against _damaged organs._ Wolverine was nigh unkillable, but Old Man Logan could _die._ It hurt like hell and he could now say he knew what one bone grinding up against another felt like, but the lack of pressure on his lungs was as liberating as the action was painful. Now free of this danger, Aldric looked up and past the blonde, where her shorter sibling stood, her face showing hesitation as she glanced past Yang and to Aldric.

"But I saw -" Ruby began.

Yang again shook her head, "we're just having a little fun, Rubes." Yang stepped forward and planted her hand on the scythe's haft, lightly pushing it away. "Put that away, yeah?"

 _And I thought **Yang's** guns hit hard, Jesus Christ..._ Aldric groaned, as he could feel his heart thundering in his ears. "Wait, am I supposed to believe you two make trashing nightclubs a hobby?" He grunted, hauling himself to his feet and briefly casting his eyes up to the Legion's corner. Cinder and Emerald weren't doing anything, leaving him to conclude that, for all intents and purposes, he was still being tested. He had to remind himself why he wasn't jumping the gun and actively attempting to kill those two.

Yang turned to him and shook her head, "nah." She said, still breathing heavily. "You just happened to get lucky tonight." She slowly revolved her head back to Ruby, "doesn't explain why you're here, though." She said in a singsong voice.

"I saw bumblebee outside, and heard your weapons going off." Aldric didn't know whether he should approach or stay put, but he wanted his shield, and wanted it without overtly tipping off Yang to what his semblance was, and so he cautiously began plodding over to the duo. "What are _you_ doing here?" She asked, as her scythe folded up, and she let it hang from her back.

"Eh - it's a long story." Yang said, giving Ruby a one-armed hug. "Tell you what, you let me and..." She gave Aldric a look, as the crash survivor bent down and grabbed the shield.

Aldric hummed, "well if I'm Bar Boy, why not call me Beebee?" He was pretty sure the Legion wouldn't want him dropping his name every chance he got.

Yang rolled her eyes in an animated fashion, "let me and Beebee here finish up. We're almost done, just need a minute to get back to speed. Once we're done, we'll stop somewhere and grab a bucket of strawberries on the way home. Sound good?" She asked, in a sisterly tone.

Ruby's previously cautious, wary expression turned around on the spot. "Oh! Yes! Thanks Yang, that sounds awesome!" Aldric didn't even see when she wrapped her arms around her sister, only that she was suddenly trying to squeeze the life out of her.

Yang returned the hug, and after a light prod, Ruby retreated to the edge of the dance floor, sitting on the steep steps and laying out her collapsed scythe across her legs.

The blonde turned back to Aldric, who had spent so much time around the Legion that the ironically appropriate, given the universe he was in, break in the tension felt utterly foreign to him. "Kind of broke the mojo, yeah?" He grunted, as he used his hands and his radar pulse to feel at his chest, confirming that while more of his ribs were fractured and broken than weren't, none of them were in danger of piercing his lungs any longer. They were just causing a _lot_ of pain.

Yang gave him an apologetic shrug. "Sorry about that... So..." She raised her fists, "where were we?"

 _Apparently..._ "Last I checked..." Aldric dropped into a defensive stance. _Completely forgetting I just jammed up your guns._ "I was planting my foot firmly somewhere between your lungs and colon."

Yang chuckled, "nice." And she launched herself forward.

As it turned out, she did indeed _totally_ forget Aldric had jammed her gauntlets up, as when she impacted his shield not with an anvil strike, but the sound of metal striking glass, a shocked expression briefly played her features. Aldric threw her hand to the side with a jerk of his shield, before he lunged forward and smashed an uppercut in her stomach. She threw a cross at his head, but a timely application of his semblance let him dodge that. He spun into his dodge and bashed her with the broad edge of his shield, sending her stumbling away, where Aldric had enough space to get a running start and ram the edge of his shield in her back.

She kicked out with her leg and forced him to smack it back down to the ground, but this proved to be what she wanted, as she pivoted on her rear leg and brought her fist down onto Aldric's head. Aldric spun to the side to avoid it, but Yang lunged inside his defenses and smashed her fist into his gut. He was stunned long enough for her to follow it up with three rapid fire crosses and then a knee to the chest. Aldric stumbled backwards, hefting his shield to bear against another powerful right.

Peering around his shield, he saw Yang pumping her fist, the gears inside her gauntlet grinding against Aldric's Power Glove. "You've got these gunked up good, Beebee! How'd you do it?" She gave him a feral grin, a flash of red flitting through her eyes.

 _Not long at all._ Aldric dropped the shield and landed a meteoric blow to her cheek.

She recoiled quickly, blocking Aldric's next wide right and catching his left, but Aldric followed it up by lunging forward, burying his good knee into her gut and his head into hers. She stumbled backwards and braced both legs behind her, her eyes taking on a more vibrant tone of red and her grin growing wider. She shoved her fist forward, Aldric deflected it and backhanded her, following it up with an elbow, which she returned in kind, ducking under him and burying hers into his gut. She quickly followed this with a savage uppercut and a straight that had Aldric's head snapping back and forth. When Aldric saw her clenching her right fist tightly, her eyes seemingly aglow with fire and her fist radiating aura, he knew that this was it - her killer move. He prayed he'd be able to react quick enough, as he hopped back.

She took the bait and charged forward, her right fist reared and radiating with her fiery aura. Two steps later and she was within striking distance, so Aldric landed on his backfoot and crouched down low, summoning his shield and bracing against it. Yang was a second too late to adapt, her momentum already sending her forward too fast, and she subsequently slammed her fist into his shield. The sound of a massive brass bell toll mixed with an equally titanic explosion, all the energy of Yang's attack plowing into Aldric's shield and being deflected back outwards at equal intensities. Yang herself was flung backwards as the entire nightclub shook from the shockwave - glasses on the bar lining the walls shattered and shook, the glass from the pillars flew outwards in a razor-sharp fire. Even Cinder and Emerald had to brace themselves from the force of impact.

With the sound of a bell toll still echoing in everyone's ears, Yang grunted, clearly dazed and not having been remotely prepared for her attack to, quite literally, backfire. When she opened her eyes, she saw the last vestiges of her aura shields fizzling out, and found Aldric standing above her, a dark gray pistol with a collapsed bayonet held in his hand, and his shield still affixed to the other. The pistol was pointed right at her, and Aldric had a deep frown on his face, his shield covered in dark scorch marks and his hair made wild by the raging winds of the shockwave.

Her back still on the ground and both arms splayed out to the side, she looked up to Aldric and arced an eyebrow, "are you _sure_ you don't want to go to -"

 _"BANG!"_ Aldric bellowed, briefly shaking his gun, and causing Yang to flinch. He grinned, "you flinched." He let go of the gun, it spinning by the trigger guard as he placed it back in its holster, and held out his hand.

Yang rolled her eyes, "shut up." She accepted his hand and she was hauled to her feet, glass and debris streaming off of her back as she dusted herself off. "Seriously. You apply to Beacon I'm pretty sure you'd be a shoo-in."

Aldric shrugged, "I've got more important things to worry about." He grunted, nodding up to the legion, before turning to them, arms held out to his sides. _"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!"_ He roared out, almost coughing by the end of it, thanks to his damaged chest.

He could imagine Emerald rolling her eyes, but the two descended regardless. Now without the hysteria of being press-ganged into a fight, and the light of the rest of the club to illuminate them, Aldric saw Emerald's handiwork. She had turned the two into two completely different people - Cinder even had bright-red hair and was a full foot taller than she had any right to be. Emerald, on the other hand, had gained ten pounds, paled to something resembling Aldric's skin before he'd come to Remnant, and her bone structure had changed to make her face much more narrow.

 _Alright... You did good._ Though now he was wondering if she'd changed him at all, and if so, what he looked like.

Yang, however, was staring up at Cinder. "Beebee. _How?"_ She looked from him to her.

Aldric frowned, "wha - oh." She was making a dig at him; despite the changes, both of them were still very attractive, with Cinder now looking to be at least ten years older than him. "I know how to pick 'em, don't I?"

Cinder grinned, "thank you, for entertaining us tonight." She said, her voice much lighter than it usually was. She handed him his coat, which he slung over his shoulders, wincing as the fabric dragged against his more open wounds. "I must say, I clearly am not paying you enough, if you can hold your own against one of Signal's brightest." She said, as Ruby made her way over.

"That's my sister!" She happily cawed, hopping on Yang's shoulders. "She's gonna be a huntress, you know!"

"Indeed?" Cinder shifted her gaze over to Yang.

It was frightening how good she was at this.

Yang shrugged her shoulders, one hand clasped over Ruby's to keep her from falling off of her back. "That's the dream." She said, with a smile. "Your bodyguard's tough, miss. You know how to pick 'em." She nodded, before sharing a smug look with Aldric. "Clearly out of his league."

Aldric was just happy she'd made a bodyguard joke and not a sugar mama joke, that's what he'd been expecting out of her. Cinder returned Yang's nod with one of her own, "not as much as I may have thought, but I thank you nonetheless."

Soon after, the two groups parted ways, with the yellow and red quarters of the future team riding off on the former's deafening motorcycle. Once they were out of sight, Emerald dropped her illusion, and Aldric dropped to his knees, his arms wrapped around his chest.

 _"JESUS!"_ He screamed, loud enough that his voice cracked. "I think it would be easier to count the ribs that aren't fractured!" He coughed, "ow!"

Cinder rolled her eyes, and hauled the crash survivor to his feet. "I would point out you survived much less critically injured here than you did your previous battle." She said, as police sirens greeted their ears, and they made their way back to the docks with the Aviator.

"There's a good explanation for that, hot stuff - that chick..." He grunted, rubbing at his mangled ribs, "her weapons weren't penetrative. They caused concussive force and minor burns, little else."

Cinder granted Aldric a curious glance, "how did you figure that out?"

"Air displacement." The crash survivor responded, "my shield..." The red white and blue disk briefly appeared, before fading away. "It absorbs vibrations and deflects them. Every time she punched it, I didn't feel a thing, but..." He patted his aching chest, "when she'd punch the barriers I make with my semblance, I'd deflect what little ammunition was sent my way, but the air that was displaced would still hit me. Not nearly as hard, but apparently, hard enough." He grunted, limping alongside the three of them. "Compare them to Neo's weapons, those were killing tools. They penetrated and stabbed, caused bleeding damage. Those killed people, but hers, they just caused physical damage. Compare a hammer versus a scalpel."

Cinder nodded, humming. "And of her semblance? It appeared as if you were able to ascertain its design before she made use of it."

At this, Aldric shrugged. "Every time I hit her, she hit back - harder." He said, "kept getting stronger every time, so... Two and two. It would either make her absolutely invulnerable and keep her empowered - which I proved wasn't the case when I made her bleed - or what went in, would come out." He reasoned, "I saw her focusing all of that energy I'd inadvertently donated into her fist. Even without her gauntlets working, it'd still pack a wallop." He turned around, now walking backwards so he could look right at Cinder. "And I'm willing to bet a lot on the fact that I survived because she didn't even intend to kill me.

"Before you ask, there was a look in her eyes. She was a fighter first, pride, and whatnot." Aldric said, nodding his head side to side. "I doubt she'll consider lethal options... Against humans, at least... Until she graduates Beacon." He shook his head, "but, let's discuss something a bit more prudent - did you two _plan_ that bullshit? _How_ could you even have known some random blonde would crash into a nightclub and tear apart the staff?"

Emerald shrug, "she did it before."

Aldric blinked, "say what?"

"Torchwick's got connections throughout the entire criminal underworld, and even in the more legitimate sectors, even Beacon." Cinder said, "she's looking for someone, and has taken down four other clubs. He noticed the pattern, remembered we were testing you, and brought it up. We told him to subtly guide her to Junior's, and we took you here."

"And you knew _when_ she'd be there... How?" Aldric arced an eyebrow.

"Luck." Cinder deadpanned.

 _In other words: Shut up._ Aldric sighed, letting out a light wheeze as his damaged ribs pressed against his lungs. "Please tell me the the lethal combat tests will stop, after this. I really don't want to find out the limits to Aura-based healing." He said, clearing his throat. "Old Man Logan could be killed, after all." At least, far easier than his younger counterpart.

"You ruined it." Emerald voiced, as Aldric faced forward, "you almost went an entire conversation without making some obscure reference to your home."

"Lady, obscure references to my world are _literally_ how I survived before you three showed up." The crash survivor pointed to the mint-haired terrorist, "one day I'll tell you who Nathan Drake is, and how modeling my entire fucking life after him saved it." He rumbled.

Emerald rolled her eyes, and Cinder picked up. "For what it is worth, Aldric." She attracted Aldric's eyes, "that you've survived training with Mercury, a battle against Neopolitan, and..." She hummed, briefly casting her gaze around, before looking back to Aldric's. "Didn't lose, against Signal's brightest... It says more to us, about you, than you think it does."

"I'm lucky?"

"You're a far more natural born fighter than you ever thought."

 _There's a philosophical argument in there... Something about humans naturally skilled in killing people... But my I'm in too much pain to think about that._ "Okay sure." He said, as a few police cars roared past them, the wind howling in their wake and their sirens screaming. "Your police system sucks. We were in there for... Thirty minutes, I think." He turned back to Cinder, "you still didn't really answer my question, though." He mentioned. "I get the whole 'trial by fire' thing -" He indicated Emerald with his thumb, "her cutting the shit out of me with her sickles, and Mercury constantly breaking bones with this reverse-Winter Soldier limbs of his certainly hammer in lessons faster than training in soft padded rooms with body armor, but still. I feel I should point out that almost dying every time almost seems counterproductive."

Cinder shrugged, "you haven't." She countered.

"And if I would have?"

"Do you _know_ how much blood you lost after the temple?"

"I think that's besides the point."

"That _is_ the point, Aldric." Cinder responded, as the buildings grew smaller and the smell of saltwater filled the air. "As much as you play yourself off, you have shown yourself to, above all things, be a survivor. You survived the Grimm with no aura or even proper weapons whatsoever. You survived Neopolitan in spite of her actively attempting to kill you, and your defensive strategy placing your life in a higher systemic risk." Then she nodded behind her, in the direction they had just come. "And then a woman who has been accepted into the very institution against which we fight. As you pointed out she was not intent upon killing you, but I would then counter that, despite her intentions, your life was still in danger.

"Yet..." She drawled, with a deep bow of the head. "In spite of this, you have, in less than three months, grew in strength and skill enough to survive _every encounter."_ She pointed out, "what's more, be it by technicality or otherwise, you haven't yet lost."

Aldric frowned, "you put it like that, it sounds absolutely fucking ridiculous." This was a world of demons and superpowered people fighting said demons. How was he not dead, and more importantly, how had he not _lost?_ Some wins were arguable, but the point remained that from a certain point of view, he'd done nothing _but_ win

He shook his head. _Nathan Drake._ And he left it at that.

"You see my point, however."

Aldric nodded in the affirmative, "I may not _want_ to, but I do." Skill and strength had a lot to do with victory, but sometimes being lucky enough to survive was worth just as much. "I just hope you don't intend to shunt me into another lethal test."

Cinder actually managed to raise his spirits when she shook her head, as the three of them made it to the docks, and headed for the Aviator. "I believe, Aldric, that there may be no more need."

"Oh thank the lord." Aldric deadpanned.

Though, when they entered the ship, he began to feel as if her reasoning behind her saying such a thing was less because for success reasons, and pragmatic ones, as waiting in the dining room, covered in light wounds and bruises, and mowing through a meal fit for several men, was Mercury Black.

"Oh, great." He called out, inhaling a submarine sandwich nearly as large as his head. "You're here."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _For Christ's sake, these three are going to be the death of me._

 _Six fractures, two breaks, all on my lungs. About as much of me is bruised as is not, and I'll have to count myself miraculously lucky this cut over my eye isn't scarring._

 _All courtesy of Yang Xiao Long. If I remember correctly (as I never downloaded them), I'm pretty sure I just ran into the Yellow trailer, and gate-crashed it like a dick._

 _The Legion was aware of her breaking nightclubs - apparently Torchwick is more Capone than I initially gave him credit for - and sooooooomehow was able to figure out exactly when she'd head for Junior's club._

 _I got my ass handed to me._

 _But, somehow, I gave as good as I got._

 _Been here less than six months, and I haven't conclusively **won**... Well, any of my fights, but I would agree with Cinder that surviving them is pretty awesome. Despite that, __I return to my point about Goku-level exponential growth, and I'll leave it at **really** hoping I'm not some kind of blood mage. _

_Now, Mercury's back. We're gearing up the aviator, he had to beat up an entire bar to do it, but he got White Fang's location out of 'em. We'll be out of dock by tomorrow morning._

 _So, that means within the next one or two months, we'll be going up against the Fall Maiden._

 _Grimm nearly crippled me, Neo nearly killed me, and Yang whooped my ass._

 _Yeah, I guess I'm ready to box God._

 _'Till next time._


	13. Are we going to stand around all day?

Chapter 12

* * *

"What is it with you people and landing in caves?"

Aldric stood, his arms crossed, watching Mercury tossing the covering tarp over the Aviator, it nearly scraping the top of the cavernous ceiling above them.

"Seriously. Empirically speaking, in my experience with you three you've landed in more caves than you haven't." Aldric's head listed to the side, as Mercury stuffed his leg under the tarp. A loud sound of air bellowing met their ears, and the entire tarp unfolded in seconds, covering the entirety of the ship. "How'd you three even find this? We're in a gigantic woodland and you found the _one_ cave." He frowned, "is that Mercury's semblance?"

"Aldric, do you ever shut up?" Emerald asked.

Aldric thought back to his last fight with Cubone, and shook his head. "I'd say only when I'm on death's door, but... Yeah, no. Even when my ass is dying I've got a witty remark or two." A light billowing wind dragged at his long coat, "I'm pretty sure it's how I live. Food, water, air, snide rema-"

"I will seriously pay you to shut up."

Aldric chuckled, as Mercury slid down the surface of the ship. "You act as if money really has any value to me." Said Aldric, "like... Seriously. I'm from another planet and you three are taking care of my primary needs." He pulled out his scroll and gave it a wave, before he stowed it back in his coat. "Your threats and offers hold no value."

"Oh man - are you making fun of Emerald?" Mercury called out, as he reached them. "What's she bribing _you_ with? She tried promising some of your trinkets to me, a few days ago."

Aldric jerked his head back, before turning to the mint-haired woman, "oh, well, fuck you!" He grinned, "she's trying to give me money."

Mercury blinked, "Emerald - he's from another planet, and we're pretty much -"

"Yeah, I said that"

"Oh my god you two even _think_ the same." Emerald groaned, crossing her arms. "I never thought I was a bad person. Why am I cursed with this?"

Aldric let his hands drop, stowing them in his pockets. "Probably when you decided to tear me off of my planet." He deadpanned.

"I thought it was when she became a terrorist."

"Aside from the many multiple broken bones you give me every day, I think I like you, Merc." Aldric about-faced, looking outside the cavemouth, where Cinder stood, looking out to the thick forests, the treetops many different shades of red, as fall came by.

"That you mess with Emerald makes you fine in my mind, Aldric." Mercury gave him a pat on the shoulder as the trio approached Cinder.

"I hate the both of you."

"Oh you love me. If he didn't have someone to back-and-forth with he'd _only_ have eyes for you." Aldric shot back.

"He's not wrong."

"Shut it. All three of you." Cinder said in her airy tone, once the three of them made it to her. "Adam Taurus' camp is little more than ten kilometers in that direction." She nodded to the south. "He is less of an amiable creature than his predecessor, and your bickering will not set him at ease."

"Thank you." Emerald groaned.

 _There she is._ Aldric thought, giving Cinder a brief look, before leaning over and making eye contact with Emerald. "Have you ever been beaned in the face by light that imitates metal?"

"Aldric." Cinder grunted, an edge of frustration to her tone.

"That was the last one." Aldric assured. "So all of these folks we're going to meet are animal people." He said, as the four of them began trekking through the thick woods.

"Hybrids, closer to it." Said Mercury. "White Fang is a Faunus organization. Used to be a nonviolent one, but then the last guy got swapped out for Taurus, and now they're robbing trains."

"Plural?"

"Three this last month." Emerald supplied.

"Regular gang of desperados, huh?" Aldric frowned, "and we're hoping to get their help for numbers purposes, I assume."

"And to have a convenient scapegoat. Someone to take the fall." Mercury added.

"Hm." Aldric grunted, following the Legion as they continued through the forest. "So, I don't think I've been let in on why we're seeking Taurus specifically. From what I've read about the Fang, he's taken over here in Vale, but there's a bigger portion over in..." He paused, "I forget where it's called. So why Taurus, when we could go for the other guy?"

Cinder answered, "Adam Taurus is the man we need. His subsect of the White Fang is less pacifistic and more militant than Sienna Khan. He has a certain knack for inspiring loyalty, even in the face of certain death." A beat passed, "Aldric." she said, causing the man in question to jump at the sudden terseness in her tone.

"Uh, was I supposed to know that? Or did I ask something stupid?" What the hell had he done?

Cinder shook her head, "not that. It is something I realized we have not yet discussed."

"I didn't do it."

"Let me speak." She said, as the four of them ambled over fallen trees. "Yesterday at Junior's club. Had we not all but forced your hand, you would have refused my orders."

 _Oh. Shit, I forgot about this._ "In my de -" But Mercury held his hand out, silently shaking his head.

Aldric frowned, but bit his tongue, ducking under a branch as Cinder continued. "I do understand that you've nearly eighteen years of instinct from a world in which you are weaker by far than you are on Remnant. This has led to a self-preservation instinct perhaps disproportionately powerful when compared to those of us that have lived here, _with_ our aura. As such, I am willing to excuse your actions that night as that of one fearing life and limb.

"As well, I know from my experiences with you and what stories you have told that people from your world are inclined to the why of things. Questioning everything and refusing capitulation until such a time as you _know._ You, in a situation where you had no facts, instead sought to question me to ensure you had the facts and could thusly make educated conclusions and a sound plan based on said facts. Your mind, as you have often claimed, is among your greatest resources."

 _There's a but._ Thought Aldric, as Cinder turned to glare at him over her shoulder.

"However."

 _There we go._

"Questioning my orders is not something I will accept in any situations to follow." She warned, lowly. "I do not make these orders out of a sense of laze, or because I dislike you, Emerald, or Mercury."

 _I'm about to get the 'because I care' speech._ Aldric nodded.

"I make these orders because I know you capable of accomplishing them. Because I know you are strong, and because I know you've a trust in my _own_ intelligence."

 _Well, close enough._ "Okay." _Trust me, I know what I'm doing, you questioning it all puts us all in danger._

"We are fighting a war, one in which a single wrong move leads to death. Be it on our side, or theirs. I have reasons to make these demands of you. Some you may understand immediately, some you may not, but questioning them leads only to discord, and could kill us all."

 _Bingo! What's my - whoa._ He stopped in his tracks, when Cinder spun around with a flourish of her dress and a swing of her arm, his own pistol in her hand, pointed at his face.

"And I can tell by the look in your eyes you may very well have predicted my entire diatribe from the moment I began it. You seem an intelligent enough man to have made the conclusion." She challenged.

 _Can she read minds?_ Aldric arced an eyebrow, but otherwise remained still and neutral.

"I cannot read minds, Aldric. But I can read you." Aldric had to exercise a lot of self control not to blanch at her words. "You wear your heart on your sleeve, as it were. There aren't many things you can hide from us, let alone me. It is an admirable trait, but I also see deeper, that you are more than capable of keeping secrets. That you mask this ability with your humor and snide remarks."

 _I'm trying to be a terrorist to other terrorists, lady. If you can predict that, I will **let** you shoot me._ Aldric slid his hands into his coat, silently letting her continue.

"But as I said, this is an admirable trait. You do well at it... Well enough that I believe I may have surprised our companions." She frowned at both Mercury and Emerald, who wisely didn't even so much as move, simply watching the conversation. "But this hides a weakness. You think, and perhaps while you do trust us, as do we, you, you do not trust us nearly as much as you do yourself, and that is what leads you to question things you do not yet understand. It is what led you to question _me_ yesterday, and as I said, I cannot tolerate it."

 _Full circle._ Aldric kept unflinching eye contact with Cinder.

"So, I shall be blunt: If I told you to stand there, and let me pull the trigger of your weapon, and that you would be safe, I would need you to follow those orders." She stated, airily, but with a firmness to her voice that Aldric knew she wasn't kidding around.

Aldric's expression remained neutral. _I can sense the safety's off, and there's a round chambered. But you pull that trigger, the bullet will bounce away, I'll rip out the branch hanging above you and smack you with it... But that's not your intention. I know your point, but the gun is throwing me off._

She continued, "I understand more than you may think the scope of your skills and the scale of your power. That small dissection I just listed was but a fraction of what I have learned of you in these few weeks." Aldric made a mental note to change the passwords on all of his devices. "While you have not seen me, I have watched your training with Emerald and Mercury, have observed you studying our world, attempting to bridge our technology and yours." Change them twice. "And I have been directly present for your battles against both Neopolitan and Yang Xiao Long. I know what you are capable of, and as such, if I give you orders, I expect you to follow them. To trust me, in that as I know what you can do, I know what _I_ can do _with_ you... Without... Question." She steadied the gun, "now stand there, and let me pull this trigger. You _will_ be safe."

Aldric was pretty sure the doubt he felt only fed her point, and he kept his gunmetal gray eyes locked to hers for the few seconds of silence she allowed him to make one of his characteristic retorts. Emerald and Mercury both looked back and forth, watching the one-sided exchange with awe and interest, respectively. Each of them were all but salivating at the chance to see Aldric square off against Cinder in a verbal sparring match, but Mercury was repressing a grin, at Aldric following his advice.

After another moment's pause, she pulled the trigger, and the sound of metal striking metal and grinding to a halt met everyone's ears.

"You need to clean your weapon." Cinder tossed the gun to him. "Your brain is a weapon, Aldric. And a resource. I do intend to make use of it, and am not discouraging your educative tendencies. But as do you trust your people's knowledge, I need you to trust in _mine."_

He caught the gun like a knife, using his semblance to catch it by the barrel. "Message received." He grunted, before adopting a lighter tone. "How'd you even get this?" He asked, his neutral expression melting away to a practiced smirk, as he stowed the jammed pistol in his coat.

"You're a far better fighter than you ever will be a thief." Cinder responded, nodding idly towards Emerald, who didn't make eye contact with him. "And your coat interferes with your senses."

Aldric shrugged, "I think it looks badass." He deadpanned, as the four of them continued making their way through the forest. "It's a cape, and a coat, all in one. It's fucking awesome." Said coat billowed as a light breeze picked up.

Mercury now broke his silence, clapping his hand on Aldric's back. "It makes you look Atlesian." He pointed out, as he stepped in front of Aldric and over the felled tree Cinder had stood upon.

"That may be true, but my point stands. If you were raised on hollywood movies, video games, comic books, and anime like I was, you'd appreciate the appeal of a heroic, billowing cape, and the function of a trench coat." Aldric argued.

"Again!" Emerald groaned, "he said... What, fifty words? A couple sentences? He talked for two minutes and he couldn't go that long without referencing his home!"

"My parents taught me from a young age that there exists a quote from _anything_ that can make your point perfectly." Aldric shrugged nonchalantly.

Though, he was appropriately concerned with Cinder's comments about him keeping secrets. She couldn't _know,_ could she? How could she? Was she bluffing, telling him she knew and that this was his only chance to not go Green Hornet, or foreshadowing a completely different point? Regardless, it had been scary how well she'd been able to read him, and it stunned him enough such that he didn't even consider firing back. At least now he understood, if not the whole thing, then at least part of the purpose of her spending so much time with him. She was getting a good read on him.

* * *

Hours later, as the moon grew higher into the sky, they found themselves approaching a small clearing, with men in white and gray armored uniforms and wolfish masks covering their faces, patrolling the perimeter. Aldric had gotten people in the trees on radar a kilometer ago, but a look from Mercury told him to not say anything about it. When they reached the edge of the clearing, several of the patrolmen had them at gunpoint. Aldric didn't miss the fact that he was the one Cinder made eye contact with, when she ordered everyone to allow themselves to be searched, to identify their weapons.

However, none of the three Fangs that searched him identified his Power Glove. It made him feel confident in his earlier ideas about it being a good surprise weapon, and if he had to guess based off of this, they likely thought they were _real_ gloves, and were just encrusted with dirt. When they found his gun and laughed at how badly jammed it was, and then proceeded to poke fun at him for only carrying one weapon, and a poorly maintained one at that, it only led credence to this theory. Astonishingly, however, everyone was _returned_ their weapons.

 _Yeah, laugh it up._ Thought the crash survivor, as he and the Legion were led at gunpoint through the camp, to an enormous tent in its center. _This goes south, I'll break your jaws with solid light._

As they continued through the camp, Aldric felt out with his radar pulse. There were thousands of people here, and considering he'd felt more in the trees, he was certain in that this wasn't the only camp, and probably not even the main one. Aldric couldn't help but grin as he took in all of this information, all of the tactile sensations, it was like a third eye, laying a three dimensional, tactile map of the entire camp, directly in his mind. He saw everything as it was happening, exactly the way it was happening. He saw a few Fangs sparring on the other side of the camp, and distinctly felt the heat of their blades clashing. He sensed one Fang giving medical treatment to another, who seemed to be nursing wounds from the local Grimm. He could see their faces and draw up perfect mental images of them, from the mole hidden in the hairline of the medic to the wrinkled scowl of one of the sparring Fangs. One discovery, however, almost made him stumble, as he'd completely forgotten to expect it. Tucked away behind Adam Taurus' tent, helping a few Fangs with their swordsman forms, was a certain cat-eared Faunus.

 _God damn... I'd forgotten she would be here. I thought she'd left by now..._ Thought Aldric, his hands folded behind his back and a neutral expression locked onto his face, as they approached Taurus' tent. _So I've seen Ruby and Yang, now Blake... Kind of. I've run into Torchwick and Neo, and several major players from the Legion. I swear, doesn't Weiss live in Atlas? If that's where the Fall Maiden ends up being I'm going to give up on Ozzymandias and the Green Hornet and just go full Joker. Someone's playing with me._ But he shook these thoughts from his head as they made it to the main tent.

Warmly lit, and with both side walls lined by guards, Aldric, Mercury, and Emerald were all forced to their knees while Cinder was walked forward. Aldric saw a massive, leather-like map hung on the rear wall, displaying the entire world of Remnant, and standing in front of it, his back turned to the Legion, was the blood-red haired leader of the White Fang.

"That you came here so brazenly speaks of the level of hostility of your intentions; and for that I will at least give you a chance." Said Adam, not turning to face them. "Speak, human."

Cinder folded her hands in front of her, "Adam Taurus. Leader of the White Fang, allow me to begin by saying it is indeed an honor to be in your presence. My name is Cinder Fall." She said, her tone warm and airy, a far cry from the cold fury from just a few hours ago. "I come here to seek an Alliance, between your faction and mine."

"To what end?"

Cinder smiled, "you know as well as I that the world in which we live is a corrupt one. What we seek is something akin to what you seek: Change. We seek to usurp the kingdoms and establish a fairer system, one in which no one faction or person holds all power. Where normal people are just as powerful as Huntsman, and where Huntsman are just as vulnerable as normal people." A pause, "where fau -"

"Save it." Adam waved his hand, now turning to them. "So let me get this straight..." He began pacing, his coat swishing with each step, as he locked his gaze to the ground, looking distant in thought. "You could have gone to anyone, for help. You could have made a deal with a gang leader, or paid off some huntsman that had strayed from their 'righteous path'..." He stopped his pacing to turn fully to Cinder, "but instead, you seek an audience with me." He looked down at her.

Though he couldn't see it, Aldric could sense Cinder's expression. It remained guarded and warm, without an ounce of mirth, or anything that could even remotely set Adam off.

"You're the one we need." Cinder responded, confidently. "Your skill, and your ability to lead those beneath you. You're an exceptionally valuable man, Adam. And we've put a lot of thought into -"

She was interrupted by Adam, who pointed at her and adopted an angry tone. "Then you're _clearly_ not thinking straight! If you truly understood me, then you'd know that coming here was a mistake." He growled, a scowl on his face. "The White Fang is not an organization for hire. We're a force of revolution!" He declared, clenching his fist.

Aldric saw in his peripherals Emerald and Mercury share incredulous looks. Mercury turned to exchange a glance with him, but Aldric shook his head, his gunmetal gray eyes locked onto Adam's decorated mask, his mind wondering how his butterfly effect hadn't changed the end result of this encounter. Yes, he doubted simply being in this world would change Adam's ideology, but considering chaos theory, he was surprised how little of note had changed, here.

 _But, then again, I beat the hell out of Yang, and received just as good. The butterfly effect probably just hasn't come full circle, just yet._ He considered, an ominous shiver running down his back.

"I believe our plan will be beneficial to all parties involved." Cinder pressed, a sidewards nod of her head; Adam began pacing again, and Cinder continued. "I have... An associate, in Vale. He and I are working on a revolution of our own. But we cannot do it without _your_ forces." She said, watching as the White Fang's leader paced back and forth, his sheathed sword clenched in his off hand. "We need -"

But he interrupted her again; Aldric was starting to like this guy. "What you _need_ is to leave." He growled, turning his masked eyes threateningly to hers, and brandishing his weapon. "You're asking my men to die for your cause. A _human_ cause." He placed his hand on the hilt of his blade, and Aldric noted the amount of disdain lain in the word 'human'. "That is _not..."_ He declared, "an idea, I am willing to entertain." He said firmly, as the sounds of crickets and the night-based creatures of the woods surrounding them made their way to Aldric's ears in the ensuing silence between them.

Cinder let the silence continue for a moment, before she bowed. "Very well."

Mercury must have sensed a snide remark coming from Aldric, because as they grew to their feet, he swatted his arm. Aldric, who at least had _some_ self awareness, enough to know that he should save those kinds of remarks for when they weren't surrounded by a camp of armed men and main characters all willing to die, frowned at Mercury, as the Legion of Doom vacated the White Fang's camp. He distantly heard an exchange between a certain cat faunus and her leader, but it was too distant to make out.

Once they were out of earshot of the White Fang, however, "uh... _What?"_ He _did,_ after all, have a role to play.

Mercury joined in, "yeah, Cinder - _what?_ That was two weeks for... Ten minutes?"

Cinder turned her gaze threateningly to the two talkers of her group, her orange eyes all but lighting up the darkness between them. "What did we just finish discussing?"

"That was according to plan." Aldric deadpanned. "Sending Mercury to get his ass whooped for two weeks, and coming here to talk to Taurus for a quarter of an hour and get rejected, was all a part of the plan." The plan sucks, he didn't say.

"It was." Cinder insisted, raising her hand; Aldric saw a bug crawl out of a white glove, coming to rest in her palm. "Now we know where he is." She turned to Aldric, "did you see it?"

Aldric blinked. _Oh shit... Think of - the map._ "The map?" He asked, to Cinder's nod. "Were a bunch of 'em. One was local, had our location marked."

"And how is your reading coming along?"

"Well enough to know that they wrote 'Train Comes Here' in big, bold letters, next to an x-marks-the-spot." Aldric deadpanned "What're you thinking? We'll come back?"

Cinder nodded, as the bug vanished from sight and she lowered her hand. "They will be here for weeks yet. We've time." She turned her gaze back forward.

"So what now?" Mercury questioned.

"There is another task we must attend to."

 _Oh I've got a bad feeling in my bible._ "And what would that be?" _Is it time to work on the Kratos impression? I can scream but that's about it._

"Emerald. There is an inn, not far from here running down the main road." She turned to Aldric, "Aldric should be able to take you there."

 _Uh... Shit. I'm going to have to remember those maps better._ It had already started fading from his mind, he'd have to pray he could bring it back.

"What are we looking for?" Emerald asked.

"Not what, but whom."

 _Yup. Gonna have to **burn** that bible._ Aldric thought, as his eyes lowered, seeing Cinder pull two pictures out of thin air, handing them to Emerald and aldric.

"We need to find her. She is important to our plans." She said, as Emerald took it. "Very important."

Emerald frowned at the picture, "okay. You need us to go now?"

"That would be preferable." Cinder said, tersely.

Emerald nodded, and slowed her pace to match Aldric's. "Where are we going?"

 _"Uh..."_ Aldric reached in his coat for a compass. "I guess..." He frowned, "east. Main road should be east." _Oh god please tell me the main road's east._

Emerald frowned, "you _do_ know where we're going, yes?" She prodded, as she and the crash survivor separated from Cinder and the assassin's son.

"Of course." Aldric pointed ahead of him, "forward!" He smirked.

"Oh god she left me with you." Emerald muttered, the shock evident in her wide red eyes.

* * *

"How the hell did you get lost?!"

"In my defense, I grew up in a world where navigation was pretty much done _for_ me, and I'd never traveled much farther than my house, on my own." Said Aldric, as he pulled out a tent from his bag.

"You had a compass!" Emerald shouted, as she set up her own tent. "How did you get lost and you had a compass!"

"Emerald, we'll be _fine._ We get a few hours sleep, wake up, find the road. It is literally that simple." Aldric pressed.

But Emerald, angrily shoving the tent rods into place, shook her head. "How do you go from personable, listening to music and tinkering with your Power Glove, to downright _foolish?"_ She demanded, her teeth grating. "Are all of your people like this?"

Aldric felt tempted to mention how she wasn't helping the situation, but he didn't want to get sickled in his sleep. "For what it's worth I _am_ sorry." He said. "I wasn't expecting to play navigator." He was also pretty sure the problem they had run into was he'd failed to reconcile their position in the forest with the position of the White Fang's camp.

"You've built a reputation smarter than, and if not, at least _as smart_ as Cinder, and you don't remember the map." Emerald growled, frustration leaking into her voice.

"Being intelligent and having a photographic memory are two different things..." Aldric pointed out, as he finished assembling his tent, and turned to the pile of wood they'd assembled. "I would also argue -"

"Aldric, I'm going to say this once. I am very frustrated right now, and your constantly joining Mercury to get under my skin doesn't help. So if I'm short with you, I _do_ apologize, but _please -"_ She whirled around, "shut -" She blinked, seeing the roaring fire in front of her. "Did..." She turned to see Aldric sticking something into the dew-covered dirt. "Did you just start that?"

Aldric nodded, "see? I'm useful for _some_ things." He said, over the light hissing of the fire.

Emerald thought she saw steam rising from the object he'd stuffed in the ground, but she shook her head, sighing. Having lost a lot of her steam at the surprise of having seen Aldric not only start a fire, but do so remarkably silently, she turned back to her tent. "Just get some sleep."

Aldric, however, elected to take another option, pulling up a small log and sitting in front of the fire, his coat tossed over the log like a cape. When he confirmed Emerald was gone, he reached back forward and gingerly pulled the fork out of the ground. Its upper half was glowing red hot, whereas its bottom half was covered in a rapidly receding, thin sheet of ice. Aldric hummed, and stuffed the red-hot fork back in the ground.

 _Okay..._ He leaned forward, staring into the fire. _How to salvage this._ He pulled a scroll from his coat pocket. It didn't have a connection to the Cross Continental Transmit System, but it did still have the things he'd downloaded onto it.

The maps he had were useless, as none were local, but it still gave him a halfway decent frame of reference. He picked the best one - a map of the Kingdom of Vale - and zoomed in on the general area he thought them to be.

 _Okay... So._ He frowned, _White Fang camp is... Here, I think. We walked a few kilometers south, then Emerald and I broke off. I know we made it East because my compass said so. Remnant's north and the geomagnetic north are the same as Earth's, so that's not a worry. So the question is, where did we fuck up?_ He stared at the map. _And how can I unfuck up?_

His biggest problem, he knew, was the enormous and thick population of trees in these woods. It wouldn't have been hard at all for them to get lost, or turned around for even a minute. They could have taken a roundabout route, or perhaps passed by a bend in the road altogether and overshot it. If he had a vantage point, one really high up, _maybe_ he'd be able to get them back on track, but he wouldn't trust himself to climb trees. It wasn't that he had a fear of heights, but a fear of falling. Getting thrown eighty feet through the air by a demon tended to do that to folks.

The falling issue _could_ a non issue with the Power Glove. The hardlight absorbed vibrations - if he made a Cap Shield and fell on it, yeah he'd still get hurt, but it would be less 'Humpty Dumpty' and more 'Fell a few feet off the stairs'. What's more, he had his semblance to slow himself down even more, so what little force of impact he _would_ have would then be absorbed by the shield and he'd get away scot-free.

He blinked. _Now there's an idea, actually._

He'd always said he wanted to fly. What better a time was there to figure out than now? And if he found the main road and fixed things up with Emerald - as well as he could, at least - that was just a bonus. He got to his feet, stowing his scroll back in his coat pocket.

 _Okay... Okay okay okay. I can pick stuff up easy enough, just gotta..._ _Pick myself up._ He held his hands out in front of them, palms downward. _And since visualization is half the battle... Let's go Iron Man._ His frown deepened in concentration, and all around him the dirt, and even some of the embers from the fire, began to levitate in the air, orbiting around him as if he were a sun, and they, the planets. _And..._ He crouched down, _go!_ He launched himself into the air.

He made it all of six inches before coming right back down, netting little less than a hop. Aldric's shoulders slumped. _Oh come on, I jumped higher than that at the ware -_ He shot into the sky.

 _"JEEEEEEEESUUUUUUUUUS!"_ He screamed, as he cleared the treeline in half of a second, likely long since out of Emerald's earshot. _"Plan B - plan b - PLAN B!"_ He shoved his arm in front of him and summoned his shield, curling up behind it and trying to use his semblance to slow himself down as he began rocketing towards the ground again, his body eager to obey Remnant's gravity again. As he crashed through tree branches and grunted with each impact, his entire body tensed as he awaited the sudden stop that would come with his hitting the ground, and in his mind he was visualizing a gigantic net, similar to that which circus performers used for safety.

But it never came.

He slowly creaked open one eye. _No way..._ He opened the other one. _Is the shield **that** good? I now fully believe Cap can jump out of helicopters, now. _

But when he peeked over the edge of the shield, he found that he hadn't even hit the ground. Point of fact, he was still hovering a good half foot above it. The crash survivor laughed hysterically, not believing what his eyes were telling him.

 _Okay... Just... Keep doing what it is I'm doing._ And slowly, he gained more height on the ground, going from six inches to one foot, and then again to two. Cautiously, he killed the shield, letting his limbs dangle as he continued gaining height, the image in his mind going from that of a net to that of a giant disembodied hand grasping at the core of his body and slowly lifting him up. _Slooooowly..._ He grunted, chest tight and muscles tense from concentration. _Slow - shit!_ He dropped a few feet, but caught himself with a painful lurch and a bark of fear.

He hovered here, ten feet off of the ground, for several minutes, before he oriented himself rightside up. The ground now beneath his feet, and the sky above him, Aldric looked upwards, a determined, if tense, frown appearing on his face. With a thought, he then rocketed back upwards again, straight through the hole in the treeline he'd made earlier. The slipstream he generated briefly brought some debris and detritus along for the ride, but they didn't follow him all the way.

 _And put on the brakes!_ Aldric thought, throwing his hands upwards and envisioning a counter force pushing downwards. Instantly he began slowing down, until he was now hovering in the air, more than a kilometer above the forests.

"Heh... Hahaha!" Aldric laughed airily. "Yeah! Yeah, I can fly." He grunted, slowly revolving on an axis as he took in the world beneath him, his coat billowing in the wind like a cape. "I just... Can't go too fast, yet." He didn't want to knock himself out by going anywhere near Mach-speeds, he didn't know how to pressurize his body like the G-Force suits fighter pilots wore. "Okay... So." He cleared his throat, turning his gaze downwards.

He had no clue where he was.

 _Fire... Fire... Where is our - fire!_ He saw a dull orange glow through the roof of the forest. _Okay, so that's where - FUCK!_ He dropped another few feet, but was able to catch himself before he got going too fast. "Alright, new plan." He spawned his shield, the hardlight, having been programmed to mimic a metallic sheen, did not generate its own light, but rather that of the shattered moon above them. "Keep you out at all times, just in case. Now... We're there..." He began looking outwards, slowly spinning himself in the air.

Bingo.

Just a few kilometers to the northeast, he found a neatly divided line in the woods. Pushing himself forward, he flew to this line and found a wide road, paved into a path by repeatedly being beaten down by travelers. Now having found the main road, Aldric kept himself aloft and picked up speed, flying northwards until he found a crossroads, with a sign posted. He dropped through the air and landed with a heavy thump and a grunt, but otherwise, with no injuries. He stumbled forward, having to regain his balance after having been so tense for so long, but when he recovered, he looked up to the sign.

 _Ooooof course._ It was so dark out, that the light provided by the moon was insufficient to read the dark writing on the sign.

But, that was where having a weapon made out of hardlight came in handy. Yes, he'd modified the settings to get the claws and the shield to look exactly like their metal counterparts, but everything else? That still had a bright LED blue glow. So, away went the shield, and out came a small orb in his palm, which he held up to the sign.

 _Versatility over utility._ Aldric grinned, as he read off the name of a few distant villages running away from the cross-roads, and an inn in immaculate, expensive-looking lettering running farther still down the larger, main road. _Fifteen kilometers... That's like... What, ten? Twelve miles? Goddamn Imperial System. Should've swapped to metric like everyone else._ He turned down the main road. _So... Average running speed of sixty... Distance of ten... Shit, I'll make it in ten minutes if I run._

So obviously, he took to the skies and made the same distance in three. He felt light headed coming back down, but otherwise, was satisfied with himself. He could run faster than most cars, and could now _fly_ even faster than that. Obviously, he couldn't fly everywhere, and would likely be running more often. Until he figured out how to protect his body against the G-Forces of high-speed aerial travel, this newfound power wouldn't see much use outside of long-distance travel and perhaps maneuvering mid-combat. Any chases he ever got in would likely be done through running.

 _I will only somewhat complain._ Thought Aldric, as he pushed open the swinging doors to the inn. _I mean, what looks cooler? Iron Man flying past the cars? Or Captain America and Black Panther out-fucking-running a bunch of speeding cars on a highway? Yeah, I thought so._

Somehow he just knew eventually he'd get in a foot-race with Yang's motorcycle. He just _knew_ it, and couldn't help but imagine the look on her face as he gained on her. If he figured out how to use his semblance alongside it, he could very well outpace all but the best ground vehicles. Now _that_ thought was appealing, especially for the part of him that wanted to mimic the Flash. Not that he'd be getting something _that_ fast down in time for the imminent Fall Maiden fight, but he digressed. Pipe dreams were good for inspiration.

Entering the inn, he found himself assaulted by warm air that provided a stark contrast to the chill of the night outside. "Welcome to Bron's!" He heard an elderly gentleman call out, waving from the front desk.

"Shut the door." Another, raspier voice called out, from the dining area. "Letting the warm air out."

Aldric did just that, slipping his coat off and hanging it on a coat rack, not really sure of what he was doing aside from memorizing where this place and the road were.

 _It occurs to me..._ Aldric thought, as he sat down at a table in the sparsely populated dining area, and looked up at a television screen, it showing minor news he didn't really care for. _I'm unsupervised right now. Like, more than my nightly walks, even._ And they'd stopped taking bi-nightly watches of him a day before Yang. _I wonder if I can't use this somehow..._ He hummed, leaning forward and blankly staring at the television. _Well... What the fuck **can** I do? I doubt hotels have public-use computers, let alone inns in the middle of bum-fuck nowheresville; and even if it did, I don't know the contact information of **anyone** important, so I couldn't send them a message. _

"Can I help you, sir?" Asked a female sounding voice.

Aldric looked up and saw a faunus woman with dear-ears poking out from her scalp, looking down at him with a platter held vertically against her chest. After a moment, she took a half step back, the look on her face changing to one of fear, and Aldric didn't realize why until it occurred to him that the frown on his face could be mistaken as fierce in most circumstances. Considering the stuff he's been through, that his frown had evolved this way didn't surprise him; what _did,_ however, was how quickly he raised his mental guard around her. It was as if he'd suspected her of being Legion of Doom-levels of able to fuck with him, and had instantly categorized her as not only a mental equal, but superior, and thus someone he had to be incredibly careful around.

Damn, two - or was it three, now? - months of nonstop lying, tension, and getting the holy living snot beaten out of him had really ruined some of his people skills.

He shook his head, "oh, I'm - I'm sorry." He said, swapping out the frown for a smile. "Been a long few days." He chuckled. "And, err, that depends." He said, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, and pulling out his wallet. He had a few lien cards given to him 'for emergencies', with ties to Cinder and Mercury's accounts. "What kind of soda do you guys have?" Might as well enjoy an hour or two away from the Legion.

The faunus' demeanor changed instantly at the warmth in Aldric's voice, and she leaned forward, "well..." Aldric couldn't help but notice how pronounced her cleavage became from the pose, and it made him wonder if bartenders and waitresses here in Remnant were paid like ass, like on Earth. "Depends on what you're looking for, sir." She said, with a nod and a wink. "Is there something specific?"

 _Am I hot by Remnant standards, or have I always been good looking and the chicks in highschool would rather... No, I'll let this one die out._ Aldric shrugged with a quick sigh, "you've got me at a disadvantage, ma'am. I know flavors, not brands. Er..." _What does root beer taste like? Wasn't it... Shit. It was in Fallout... Sunset something. Build more mass with sass... Sunset Sass... Sunset - Sarsaparilla!_ "I know it as root beer. Got a... Sarsaparilla taste to it?" Did Remnant even have Sarsparilla? Or was he confusing the shit out of her?

Apparently yes to one and no to the other, as the faunus woman nodded. "I think I know exactly what you're talking about, sir. Would you like that hard or soft?"

"Pardon?"

"She means..." Came the same raspy voice from earlier, as the speaker turned around, revealing a thin man in a tailcoat and a pirate-like tricorn hat. "Alcoholic or non-alcoholic." He growled.

 _Nice Jack Sparrow hat._ Aldric nodded, "soft, then." He said, "how much will that run me?"

"Only two lien, sir." Said the bartender, before she lowered her voice and leaned in close, "don't... Don't worry about him, by the way. He's a... A regular."

Aldric nodded, "gotcha." He grunted in thanks, before the bartender retreated.

Aldric let out a breath of air, leaning back in his chair and taking in the atmosphere of the inn. Built like a log cabin, it had a warmly lit interior and just enough background noise from the TV and a fire to be considered peaceful. Unfortunately, this peace was ruined when the regular came lumbering over, falling into the seat opposite Aldric, who opened his eyes at the thudding noise and the squeak of wood on wood.

"So... Tell me, kid." Tricorn rasped, nodding to Aldric. "You got somethin' 'gainst runnin' 'way?"

Aldric blinked, squaring his gaze on the man. "Say again?"

"Do... You... Have... Some _thiiiiing..._ 'Gainst running away?" Tricorn drawled, the man's breath smelling of liquor.

 _Why is the rum gone?_ "You're going to have to be more specific, sir." He said, leaning against the table.

"Oh, Gruno, please!" Came the bartender's voice, as she filled Aldric's mug with his requested drink. "Leave him alone, he's not -"

"An' I'm not causin' any trouble neither!" Gruno slammed a cybernetic hand on the table. "Jus' askin' questions! Kid shows up in an inn alone, siss down ata bar, covered in scars, you ain't curious?"

 _I think I liked your name better when I thought it was Tricorn..._ Aldric looked down, and saw the scars the man was referring to, the ones on his arms, most of which from his time fighting Cubone. "Could be a huntsman." He pointed out, with a sidewards shrug of the head.

Gruno shook his head, "nuh-uh. Young's you, you ain't graduated yet. You'd be with th'rest of yer team. So where'd you get'em scars?"

"Gruno, please..." The bartender came sliding over to Aldric's table, "I've got a high shelf waiting on you if you go back. On the house!" She said, desperately, Aldric could see a similarly desperate shine in her eye.

 _I wonder if it's because she didn't say 'no' to his earlier point, or if it has something to do with her winking at me earlier._ Aldric accepted what he prayed was a mug full of root beer, and leaned back in his chair, deciding he'd see this play out.

Gruno seemed tempted by the offer, but shook his head. "Nah. Nah - lissen, kid. 'Syer name?"

Aldric frowned, "Drake." He grunted.

Gruno grunted, "srange name. Okay Drake -" He burped, "if iss yer folks doin' the scarrin', I've ssstill gotta few tricks up my sleeve. You donna run away like that." He slurred, listing back and forth.

Aldric shook his head, "thanks for the concern, mister Gruno. But it wasn't my folks that did this." He said, taking a sip out of his mug.

 _Oh thank god._ Close enough to Root Beer for him to ignore the difference; he took another sip.

"Then... Who... Did?" Gruno growled, glaring at Aldric with two dark green eyes.

"Gruno - Gruno, come on." The faunus lightly grasped his shoulder, but Gruno shoved out of her grip.

"Shut up yeh Faunus cunt the humans are talking!" Gruno barked.

Aldric sensed a lot of heads turning his way with the radar pulse, now noticing how some of them were wearing hats and coats similar to Gruno here.

 _Not pirates, too far from the sea for that. Is this a gang? The matching outfits would fit the bill, but it'd certainly be a strange choice, to say the least._ Aldric leveled his iron gaze to Gruno. _The question is, is he so concerned because he's drunk, curious, and now won't accept no for an answer? Or is there something boiling underneath the surface?_ Aldric's eyes briefly flicked down to his arm. _Former soldier, maybe? Doesn't carry himself like a Huntsman..._

Cutting his thoughts off before the pause became pronounced, Aldric said, "that wasn't very nice."

"The fuck are ya, a faunus lover?" A new, deeper voice asked from somewhere else in the dining area; Aldric's radar pulse pinged him three tables to his rear-left.

His eyes, however, were locked onto Gruno's arm, and the Atlesian symbol painted on its wrist. There was a name, and it certainly wasn't Gruno.

 _Gang it is, then._ Aldric raised his gunmetal gray eyes back to Gruno's green. "I don't want any trouble, sir. I've come a long way... Just want to sit a moment, and rest." He said, briefly casting his eyes up to the bartender.

She seemed to have a fearful look in her eyes, jumping between all the other patrons as she slowly backed away from his table. Aldric started to wonder if there wasn't something more going on, if this was a regular occurrence here, or she was just very aware of the tension in the air.

Before Gruno could speak again, "if I offended you, I'm sorry. How I got the scars is... Kind of personal. Strictly speaking, I haven't even told the folks I work with, about it." How did he gut stuck in the middle of a brewing bar fight? Did Cinder choreograph this? Did she somehow have a hand in it, or was his luck _really_ that bad?

Gruno growled, the liquor on his breath nearly making Aldric gag. "I want a name, Drake. No one hits kids 'n my watch."

Aldric frowned, "but... Insulting bartenders..."

"Fuckin' faunus. Difference." Gruno grunted.

 _Oh am **I** about to take the moral high ground here? I don't think there's anything more ironic than that. Really._ Aldric sighed. "I should go." It would probably be for the better if he just avoided this.

He made it halfway to the coat rack before he caught eyes with the old man behind the counter, who mouthed the words 'Help Us', and briefly looked down to Aldric's gun. Aldric frowned, and continued walking, before he heard an angry grunt, and skin striking skin, and then a barked order for more drinks. He had been halfway through lifting the coat, and with a deep sigh, he let it drop.

 _Yup. The guy about to kill a goddess is going to take the moral high ground. There is a god..._ He thought, approaching the door. _And he has a sense of humor._ "Manners." He said, reaching up and twisting shut a lock with a loud, metallic 'clank'. "Maketh..." He locked the second door, sensing more eyes turn to him. "The man." He reached down and swung a bolt in place, with an equally loud 'thunk'.

"You know what that means?" Aldric asked, as he turned to what he would only ever describe as a pirate gang.

Gruno, in response, lumbered drunkenly to his feet, scowling at Aldric.

"No?" Aldric questioned, as he approached the dining area again, seeing a discarded glass on the table to his right. "Then let me teach you a lesson." And with a grunt, he heaved the glass off of the table, it flew through the air and right into the man's head, sending him falling to the ground in a heap.

The man's crew instantly looked to him, and then to Aldric, back to Gruno, and then back to Aldric when he drew his pistol - still jammed and uncleaned from earlier in the day - and slammed it into the table with a loud metal-on-wood 'thunk'.

"So." He grunted, "we going to stand around here all day? Or are we going to fight?"


	14. Or are we going to fight?

Chapter 13

* * *

"So." Aldric grunted, slowly making eye contact with all of the thugs in the inn. "We going to stand around here all day? Or are we going to fight?"

A beat, and then someone at the back of the dining area threw their hand in the air, "I surrender!" He shouted, a crazed, terrified look in his eye, as he no doubt saw the lack of hesitation in Aldric's.

That opened the flood gates, and the rest of them charged Aldric, pushing and throwing aside chairs and tables as the sound of boots and wood slamming and scraping against the floor filled the air. One particularly sloven man threw a wide right at Aldric one he reached him, but Aldric saw it moving so slowly that he didn't even need to use his semblance to help him dodge it. He jerked his head back and reached forward, locking one hand around the drunk's wrist and yanking him towards Aldric, before burying his fist into the man's ribcage. From the cracking sound he heard, he was pretty sure none of these people were aura users, and with that in mind, he followed up the first blow with an elbow to the side of the man's face. He fell back, but that didn't ease the flow of drunken goons.

Aldric ducked under another punch and lunged forward, landing two blows to the man's sternum before he jerked his head to the right - avoiding another punch coming in from behind him, which then surged forward and slammed into his target's nose, sending him stumbling back. Aldric grabbed the arm hanging over his shoulder and grunted, heaving the man over him and slamming him into the ground, before jabbing him in the face twice. Someone came charging in with a front kick, but Aldric elbowed it out of the way and into another man's knee cap. They both fell to the ground and managed to pull a third man with him.

Aldric sprung to his feet, his radar pulse telling him that there were ten men left still able to fight, including the three that had just fallen to the ground. Two of them charged him from the sides, but Aldric simply hopped backwards and they tackled eachother, their heads slamming into eachother and bouncing off like a cartoon. Aldric kicked the back of the knee of the goon on the left and slammed his fist into the head of the goon on the right - both fell to the ground, but he couldn't follow up the attack as another man came sprinting at him with a chair in his hand.

Even if Aldric hadn't sensed it, he would have heard the man's deep bellow. His gunmetal gray eyes locked onto the man, and with but a thought, he used his semblance to trip the man up. The man stumbled forward, careening towards the ground - Aldric deftly caught and ripped the chair out of the man's hands, before righting it and planting it right back on the ground, trapping the man's head between its legs. Aldric then sensed a man charging him with a knife, but he swung his hand in a wide circle, deflecting any potential stabs, locking his hand to the man's wrist, and twisting. The knife tumbled out of his hands, and with a pivot, Aldric's boot kicked up, catching the knife by the flat of its blade. With another kick, it flipped back up into the air - Aldric caught it with his free hand, and then slammed its handle into the man's forehead, before he pitched it over his shoulder, it landing right next to his gun.

 _Seven left..._ Aldric kicked the man who was struggling to get out from underneath his previously weaponized chair. _Six._ Gruno was starting to recover. _Seven again._ Aldric frowned, and the goons wised up - now charging him en masse.

Aldric planted his hands on the back of the chair and hopped up, bringing his legs up and through the gap in his arms and appearing for a moment as an ape. He slammed each of his boots on a different chest and pushed off of the chair, careening forward and smashing the goons on the ground, he heard cracked bones and groans of pain, but one had the wherewithall to grab at his leg.

"I got 'im!" He coughed.

"Fuck him up!" Shouted another, as they closed the gap made by his attack.

Aldric didn't even hesitate, throwing up his forearm to block a cross from a goon to his right, before countering it with a powerful punch to the man's gut. Another tried tackling him from behind, but Aldric ducked down. The tackler stumbled over him and Aldric smashed his fist into the nose of each of the goons he was standing on, the first to knock him out and get his leg free, the second to make sure he stayed down. When he came up, the goon that tried tackling him was flipped end over end, and Aldric was fast enough to land another punch to his chest that sent him flying several feet, scattering chairs and landing on a table, before sliding off of it and hitting the ground with a pained grunt.

 _Four._ Aldric hopped off of the unconscious goons as the rest backed up, many hosting bruises, all hunched over in defensive postures.

Aldric knew one had gone for his gun, and allowed him to grab it and press it to his head. He would admit, however, that the man pulled the trigger first and didn't try to get him to stop fighting instead. Regardless, as expected the gun jammed, and Aldric spun around, locking his arm to the man's and slamming his open palm into the goon's throat, sending him down to the ground, gurgling. Aldric tossed the gun back to the table, and turned to the two still standing.

Gruno was now slowly lumbering to his feet, his head bleeding from having a glass smashed against it. The other two exchanged a glance, one shook his head, but the other nodded fiercely. Aldric, however, took the initiative, and in the span of a second, his shield was summoned and was flying through the air. They managed to hear it humming through the air, but couldn't do anything to it - and it slammed into Left's face, before bouncing onto Right, knocking them both out as it came zipping back to Aldric.

The moment Aldric caught it, he quickly hid behind it as Gruno drew a gun and unloaded, first firing three shots at the shield, then adjusting, trying to hit Aldric's unprotected feet. Aldric, however, simply crouched down and those bullets were too blocked, falling to the ground in flat masses. Gruno's gun clicked on empty, and Aldric sensed him look from it, to the unconscious, groaning bodies on the ground, and then up to Aldric, who slowly stood to his feet, the top half of his face staring menacingly from behind his red, white, and blue discus.

"Oh fu -" Aldric beaned him in the face before he could finish speaking, the shield loyally returned to him without delay.

Aldric stared at the destruction, nodding to himself with a brief impressed expression, as he turned to the gangster who had given up. He had a witty remark to give, but he soon sensed and saw why he'd surrendered: To get Aldric's attention off of him so he could grab the faunus bartender, a gun pointed to her head.

"Al - al - alright! Now drop the shield!" The man stuttered.

Aldric's shoulders slumped, and his frown returned, but he humored the man, and dropped the shield. It hit the ground with the sound of glass hitting wood.

"Alright... Now I want you to - uh... Turn - turn around!" He barked.

Aldric crossed his arms, and pointedly looked over the man's shoulder, waiting. The man took the bait and, with a yelp of fear, wrenched the bartender around, expecting to see some kind of backup. When he noticed he'd been tricked, however, Aldric had already kicked the curved edge of the shield, bouncing it back up into the air. With a grunt, he spun around on his foot and slammed it into the shield's edge, sending it hurtling through the air. It smacked into the back of the man's head as Aldric hurried forward; he caught the shield mid-flight and then rammed it into the back of the man's head again before it had even finished recoiling.

The man collapsed into an unconscious heap, and as Aldric's shield vanished in a shower of embers of light, he reached forward and caught the doe faunus as her legs collapsed underneath her. It wasn't one smooth motion, but Aldric did manage to get her seated in a chair and, once she was situated, he fell into one of his own, his breathing quickened. He looked to his left and saw his drink still sitting where he left it. He reached forward and picked it up, sliding it back across the table and downing it in one go. It didn't do as much for his thirst as he would have liked - it being soda and all - but it helped satiate him for the moment.

"Phew..." He murmured. "Sorry about that." He said, setting the mug back on the table. "How much do I owe you?"

The faunus blinked her big, brown eyes. "Are - are you a huntsman?" She asked, her voice shaking.

 _Kingsman... Actually, considering._ Aldric frowned, turning to look at the collection of unconscious bodies, and noting the old man behind the main desk making his way towards him. "Nah." He shook his head. "Huntsman are good men. I..." He nodded to the side, "heh, well, I won't fit the bill for very much longer." He said, with a deep, slow breath, to get it all back under control. "I'm just a figment of your imagination." He nodded.

"By the brothers, sir, I cannot thank you enough!" Said the old man, rushing forward and grasping Aldric's callused hand, shaking it vigorously. "Those hooligans, they've been harassing us for weeks!"

 _I think that will probably get worse, considering the display._ Shit, he probably hadn't thought this through. "It's no problem, sir."

"No, please!" The old man said, "if there's anything I can do - anything at all, please do not hesitate to ask! I can... I can give you a room! A meal! I can give you the money from the register, if you want it!"

Aldric shook his head, "sir, I get the feeling their boss is going to come back for this. You're going to need that money to hire a real huntsman." The room sounded tempting, but if Emerald woke up and didn't see him there, she'd have a panic attack.

The old man, however, laughed. "Nonsense! That _was_ the gang, and by the time they wake up they'll find themselves in the back of a Vale Police van, worry you not, good Huntsman!" He assured, cupping both hands and curving his back, all but bowing to Aldric. "Please, sir. At least accept a warm bed, you look as if you have travelled far, and after this display I am certain you could use a bed and a meal! On the house!" He smiled, warmly.

Aldric shook his head, "there's..." Wait, this was supposed to be place him and Emerald were going to. "Well..." He reached into his right back pocket, "maybe you can help me." He pulled out the picture of Amber; and as he placed it on the table, he half wondered how Cinder had even gotten it in the first place. "Myself and some friends of mine are looking for her. You wouldn't happen to have seen her?"

The picture was in the old man's hands in a second, and he squinted at it. "Why... I think that's Miss Amber! Yes sir, we did see her, just last night!"

Aldric arced an eyebrow, "oh?"

He nodded, "yes, good Huntsman. She said she was passing by on her way to Gurstheim!"

 _How the fuck does_ Vale _get such a Norse sounding name?_ "How far is that from here?" Aldric asked, pulling out his scroll and pulling up a map.

The man slid on a pair of glasses and looked at his scroll. "It's quite a ways, I'm afraid, but if with haste you may be able to catch up with her." Aldric sensed the doe faunus looking at him with no small level of concern, probably for his earlier, careless comments. Damn it. "But it's still down the main road, Gurstheim, as I said." He leaned up from the map.

 _I was hoping you'd mark it, but okay._ Aldric stowed the scroll, "thank you, sir. I'll probably stay here a little while longer, and get out of your hair before the police show up."

The man nodded, turning to the faunus. "Please Rosa, serve him whatever he likes, do not charge him a cent!" He said, before sliding away.

Aldric cast another glance at the bodies on the floor, wondering if he shouldn't move them, or something. He turned back to look at the faunus, now named. "Just another one of these, please." He said, nodding at the mug.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _My ass just got into a bar fight. Sweet Jesus, am I in a bad movie?_

 _No, wait, I'm in an anime. All of a sudden the clicheness makes a little sense.  
Shit, all of my wish fulfillment does, too, now that I think about it.  
_

 _Anyways, pissed off Emerald (BOOOOOOOOOO!),_ _learned to fly (YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!), found the inn we're looking for, and promptly got into a bar fight (BOOOOOOOO!).  
_

 _Seriously - just showed up, sat down for a few minutes, and all of a sudden I'm caught up in some little crime ring and I'm beating the shit out of everyone. I didn't even need to use my shield, that's the scary part!_

 _Maybe Cinder has a point, I **am** just underestimating myself. _

_Anyways, figured out where TFM's heading, some norse-sounding village north of here. Gurstheim. Emerald is going to be amazed when she wakes up, figures out I did her job for her._

 _..._

 _Actually she's going to be pissed. God damn it._

 _But the police will be here in an hour or two, so I'm going to want to -_

* * *

"Excuse me... Mister Drake?"

Aldric looked up from his tablet, and saw Rosa there, drink in hand. He nodded, "thank you, Miss Rosa." He said, accepting the refilled mug.

"Can... I sit down?" She asked.

Aldric frowned, but nodded, as he switched the tablet off. The silence between them was uncomfortable, to say the least, but she did break it after a few minutes.

"You said you weren't a good man, Mister Drake... Would you be mad if I said I don't believe you?"

Aldric arced an eyebrow. He had no right to angst, and he at least thought he wasn't, but he also was pretty sure he didn't fit the bill for a traditionally 'good man'. 'Good Men' didn't join terrorist groups and plan on helping them, winning their trust, and ripping them apart, after having been complicit in the murders of many people. He'd also been responsible for a _lot_ of property damage, but considering team RWBY's future reputation, he was somewhat certain that didn't necessarily count.

"I mean..." Rosa broke eye contact with him, her pasty cheeks growing red as she looked off to her left, down to the ground. "Bad men wouldn't have helped us like that."

 _What if I said I actually got a kick out of it? If I said I'm actually starting to learn to like the fight?_ Aldric shook his head, "I appreciate the sentiment, Miss -"

"Rosa." She said, turning back to look at him. "Please, just Rosa." She insisted.

 _Well I can't tell her to call me Aldric, Cinder would shoot me._ "Then call me Nate."

She tried to suppress a grin, "that's a funny name." Before she blinked, and a horrified expression crossed her face, "uh, but, it's -"

Aldric chuckled, "it's fine." He said, "you're not the first to say that." He wondered what she'd said if he had told her his name was _Nebo._ Even _he_ thought it was ridiculous. "But like I was saying, I appreciate the sentiment, but..." He shook his head. "I disagree." Case in point: While he felt the man had a point, he didn't agree with Ozzymandias. Initially, at least - since he was actively drawing inspiration from the man, that opinion had lessened a bit, but the fact remained the same: He wouldn't call Adrian Veidt a 'good man'. "I just happened to be the right man in the wrong place." He shrugged, taking a sip of his drink.

"Sometimes that's all it takes." Rosa swallowed thickly, "can I ask why?"

Aldric shook his head, "I appreciate what you're doing, Rosa, but the shit I'm involved in..." He shook his head, and set his mug down. "It's going to make the news. And not in a good way." He would actually feel bad if he had to force choke this woman to make an escape.

At this, Rosa gave him an incredulous raised eyebrow. "Nate, I'm a bartender. I hear bad things." She shook her head, "I'd argue that your attempting to tell me 'no' is only further proof. You may not think you are, but I _do."_ She said, with a firm nod. "How - how old are you?" She asked.

Aldric grinned dully, it didn't reach his gunmetal gray eyes. "Eighteen."

Rosa blinked, looked down to his scarred arms and callused hands, and then to the men still lining the ground, before looking back up to him, eyes wide.

"Yeah." He said, raising his mug in a toast, before he took another sip. "Point something out, though?" He leaned forward, "I haven't said I _am_ a bad man, just that I wouldn't fit the bill of a 'good' one for much longer." But Rosa shook her head again.

 _Christ this woman is persistent._ "How old are _you,_ then?"

She grinned coyly, "isn't that bad manners, in humans?"

"I'm pretty sure beating the holy hell out of fifteen men in a bar is, too." Aldric deadpanned.

Rosa frowned and nodded, "point." She said, "I'm almost thirty."

"Well you certainly don't look a day over twenty." He said honestly.

Rosa smiled, but still looked deflated. "I still feel like I should help you, somehow."

 _I'm planning on killing god, lady. With a little 'g', but an 'o-d' right after it nonetheless!_ "I appreciate that, but what I'm doing is something I've made peace with." He said, emptying out the rest of his glass.

"What are you _going_ to do?" She asked, earnestly.

As tempted as Aldric was becoming to give this woman exactly what she wanted, he hadn't entirely ruled out the possibility that this was a set up by Cinder. Yes, the possibility was a remote one at best - how could she have predicted he'd learn to fly and go off to find the inn on his own? - but considering the other setups she'd made, he was also willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. As such, while he appreciated the chance that Rosa here was genuinely a nice person and was trying to help, he wasn't in a position to take said help.

So, he shook his head. "Call me paranoid, but I've got to keep some of this to myself." He paused a moment, "I appreciate what you're trying to do. I _do,_ and I'm not trying to come off as the proud holier-than-thou 'don't need your help' kind of a guy, but..." He hummed, "I'm not in a position to take help. I'm sorry."

"Are you sure?" She asked, "you just... You remind me of someone I used to know, and I lost him. If I can help you, I want to." She stressed.

But Aldric again gave her a negative shake of the head. "You can get me a rag, to clean my gun, and a pen and paper to write on, but aside from that?" He decided to throw her a small bone, "the people I'm involved with... They aren't as nice as I am. If I tell you anything and god forbid it somehow gets back to them, it won't be pretty. I don't want to put people in danger unnecessarily."

Rosa gave him a long, solemn look, before nodding. "Okay." She said, "I'll be right back."

Aldric gave her a thankful nod, and turned back down to his tablet.

* * *

 _\- leave soon.  
_

 _Just had an interesting conversation with the bartender lady. She was pretty adamant that I confide in her, and I came **this** close to doing it, too. But, Cinder's pulled off strange, miraculous ass-pulls before, so I wouldn't doubt it if this entire thing were some kind of set up. See what I do when I'm not directly under their watch. If I go spilling their secrets and mine, I'm screwed, this bartender's screwed, probably the inkeeper is screwed, too. _

_Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have someone beyond this journal here to get this shit off my chest to... And having it be a bartender would be pretty poetic, in its own way, but as much as I'm planning on being complicit in a **lot** of people dying, I don't want to be the cause of any unnecessary deaths if I don't have to be. If I can avoid killing people, or having them **be** killed, I will. _

_Shit, Neo seems to be into me, maybe I'll tell her.  
Not like she'll talk, amirite?  
_

 _I'm kidding, of course, but still. I'm in serious need of allies at the moment, and the Legion of Doom only kind of counts. I'm pretty sure if it weren't for this journal here, I'd have gone mad by now - and the journal in and of itself is one hell of a risk. Any of them figure out how to read Earth English and I'm **fucked.**  
_

 _Regardless, right now I'm cleaning my gun, and once I'm done with that and this, I'm going to write Qrow's note. Or at least **start** it, I need to know what we'll be doing, where, and when, before I can set up a meeting with this guy. _

_And I still kind of want some armor. Gave it a little more thought, I know I'm not going to be able to find my ass an armor that will let me survive big hits, but it should at least be able to relieve the smaller ones. I'm talking regular punches, knives, bullets grazing me - things that, if I can't deflect with me semblance, and that hit my barrier, will then hit my armor and be fully blunted. **Big** hits - things like Yang punching me, or Ruby's fuck-awful sniper rounds (did I mention I'm pretty sure Ruby's one shot broke more bones than the last half of mine and Yang's fight?) - I'll still take damage from that, I can't avoid it. But small hits, if they get through all of my defenses an armor should be able to negate any of the remaining force._

 _I also would very much like something lightweight and flexible, so I can keep up my agility in combat. This also plugs into something else - if possible, I'd want it to be non-magnetic, probably something like carbon fiber, or kevlar. Some kind of non-metal plates, maybe a liquid layer too, some kind of non-newtonian liquid, to add onto it, that way if I ever go up against someone like Pyrrha, I can drop the Power Glove and my sidearm, and they won't be able to do jack shit against me._

 _In other words, I actually **am** looking for a Batsuit. I swear I was joking, earlier, but the more thought I put into it the more I realize that that is pretty much what I'm looking for. _

_In a perfect world, there will be time enough before the fight with the Fall Maiden that I can fly to Vale (or maybe Atlas, I'll have to ask for opinions now that the goddamn planet is my playground), get a suit, and get back in time for the fight. Considering what world I'm living in, though... I'm pretty sure it won't be until well after the fight that I get something for myself._

 _I think Mercury may be able to help me out a bit, though. While we were training together he said his shirt had some light body armor, so he may know where to point me._

 _And yes, since I'm basically looking for a batsuit, I may very well make the armorer, or blacksmith, or whatever they're called here, give me a fucking bat symbol on the chest. I also find it somewhat entertaining how monochromatic my clothes are turning out to be (black shirt and coat, beige/khaki pants), and yet my Cap Shield is red white and blue. That's like if Batman - you know, 'Does it Come in Black?' - pulled out a rainbow batarang._

 _Made me giggle, and now the bartender is staring at me like I'm nuts._

 _I should go._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

He managed to take off from the inn with a few minutes to spare, before the police arrived. It was only through sheer luck that he found his way back to the campsite, but he'd spent so much time out and about that he only got two hours' sleep before the sun came up. Emerald decided to wake him up with a gunshot, and though it was unintentional, he got his revenge when he beaned her across the face with his shield, having thrown it out of his tent on instinct.

"Ow! Damn it, Aldric!" Emerald growled, kicking the hardlight discus away. "That thing actually hurts!"

"I make no excuses, you people have been training my reflexes, and you woke me up with a gunshot." A beat, "besides, you say that like I haven't hit you and Mercury with it repeatedly." Aldric grumbled, as he stumbled out of his tent, rolling his sleeping bag up.

Emerald recoiled her head, as the shield zoomed back to the crash survivor and vanished in a shower of light embers. "How late were you up last night?"

"Pretty damn." Aldric yawned, stretching his back. "I felt bad about us getting lost, so I hunted down the main road." He nodded over her shoulder, "about a kilometer that way. But I felt a... Walk, was in order." A pause, and then a grin. "A very enthusiastic walk."

Emerald's face fell into a wary frown, as she disassembled her tent. "What did you do?"

"I got into a bar fight and beat the living shit out of a bunch of pirates." He deadpanned, "but I figured out where the chick we're looking for is going."

"Wait, back up - _what?!"_ Emerald turned to look at Aldric over her shoulder. "Say that again?"

"I got into a barfight, knocked out about... One and a half dozen gangsters dressed up as pirates. The innkeeper thanked me by telling me where the woman we're looking for is headed." Aldric elaborated, as he folded up his own tent.

He sensed Emerald now turning to face him fully, her face the picture of shock. "Well?!"

"I got out before the police arr -"

"That's not what I was asking and you know it, Aldric." She barked.

He chuckled, "she's heading off east, down the main road to a town called Gurstheim. She left just the day before yesterday."

He heard Emerald shake her head and let out a soft sigh, "w - wow, Aldric." She said, "I'm... Sorry for doubting you."

Aldric gave her an incredulous look, "why Emerald, was that _awe_ I heard?" He asked in a singsong voice.

She rolled her eyes, "you ruined it." She said, finishing the packing of her tent. "So you got into a fight? You don't look nearly as bloody as you usually do." She pointed out.

Aldric stood up, stuffing the packed tent into his bag. "It wasn't aura users, just a bunch of gangsters."

"Do you believe us now?" She asked, as she too stood up, her red eyes shining with interest.

"Yeah yeah." He shook his hand, "we going back to the ship?"

She nodded, "I trust you know the way there?"

He'd seen the cave they had landed in during his flight the night before, he nodded. "Better than I did the road, yesterday." He said, nodding off in the direction. "So."

"Hm?"

"I know Mercury joined up because you two... Preeeetty much hired him after he killed his dad. I know Cinder's a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma. But I don't know much about you... Said you lived on the streets." He itched at his nose, the mid-morning chill settling into the air.

Emerald gave him a blank look, "a far cry from you trying so hard to get under my skin." She pointed out.

Aldric rolled his eyes, "I don't mean anything by it, I hope you know that." He said, "life's too serious to take seriously. I like to enjoy the little things, like laughing at people. But you'll notice, I make fun of you three just as often as I make fun of myself. Turnabout is fair play, after all."

Emerald hummed, giving him a once over before she turned back forward. "There's not really much to say." She began, "my parents dropped me off at school one day. By the end of the day I was in an airbus fleeing from the Grimm, I haven't seen them since. Found my semblance pretty quickly afterwards, and took to living on the streets. Cinder found me one day after I took something, and I've been with her ever since."

"How delightfully unrevealing." Aldric deadpanned, "never found your folks?"

She shook her head, "I don't like to talk about that." She warned.

"Lady, I may be a kindred spirit hidden inside a snide asshole. My Dad was on the airplane you three pulled out of the sky." Aldric countered.

Emerald was silent a few minutes, before she finally shook her head. "No. I never found them. They could be alive, they could be dead... I don't know."

Aldric gave her a moment of silence, "keeping the hope alive, right?"

But she shook her head, "if they were worth their salt, they would have found me. It wasn't a secret where the airships evacuated to, and the crews took down names and posted them publicly. If they're alive, they left me, and if they're dead, well..." She shrugged. "That solves that."

Aldric felt like pushing the subject, but decided it best to bite his tongue, and the two continued on in silence.

* * *

By the time they found their way back to the cave, the sun was high in the sky and beginning to dip down. The tarp had been removed and now the Aviator was out in the open, save for the cave above it. Aldric saw a few lights on inside, and he and Emerald both made their way in, seeing Cinder sitting at the dining table, and Mercury kicking at a punching bag, the air silent save for the chiming of the chains from which the thick bag hung.

Cinder looked up from a book she was reading, and eyebrow arced. "I was wondering when the two of you would return." She called out, attracting Mercury's attention and prompting him to relax his stance as he turned to them.

Aldric grinned, resting his hands behind his head as he approached Cinder's table. "We got lost something fierce." He said, falling into the chair in front of her. "Figured out her name and destination, though." He said, as Emerald slid into her chair, and Mercury approached.

Cinder closed her book with a light swish, and straightened her posture, interest gleaming in her bright orange eyes. "Do tell." She said, as Mercury turned a chair around and fell into it with a thwump.

"She's heading east, to a village known as Gurstheim." Said Emerald, "Aldric did most of the leg work on this. He learned that she left hardly two days ago, and we can catch her if we move quickly."

Cinder nodded, but said, "no. This woman is the Fall Maiden. New to her role, she may be, but our goal is to engage her in open combat. Charging ahead without a plan would be foolhardy and would get us killed." She said, sliding her chair closer to the table. "Her powers exist separate from Dust, but are tied to her aura. Our goal must be to whittle her down, to beat her to her knees and ensure she is capable of no possible struggle, such that I can steal her abilities."

Aldric wondered if Mercury and Emerald weren't questioning this because they didn't care, or because they felt it beyond their station. Aldric, however, said, "so... Enlighten me, please? How do you intent to _steal_ the powers of the Fall Maiden?" He asked, "some kind of ancient dust ritual, like you used to pull me out of the sky?" He asked.

Cinder shook her head, "there are things I cannot tell you, Aldric. Things neither you, nor Mercury, nor Emerald are yet ready to know."

"Sometime you're going to learn to take things at face value." Mercury deadpanned, swiping a hand through his slightly sweaty hair.

Before Aldric could counter, however, Cinder shook her head. "He has survived thus far by specifically not doing that, Mercury." She said, giving the assassin's son a fierce look. "I would recommend you not question him, as you would not question me." Her tone was firm and low, leaving no room for debate.

 _Hooooly shit, am I right below Popo on the pecking order? When did **that** happen?_ He nodded, "okay. So how do we whittle her down?" He asked, getting things back on track. "You've said several times she operates on different rules than us. So how do we fight someone like that?"

Cinder nodded, "fortunately, we've an advantage. She, while not new, is inexperienced. Many of the specifics of her abilities remain beyond her." She responded.

Aldric gave her a dull look. "So..." He drawled, waiting for an actual answer to his question.

"Consider all semblances you have seen thus far. Assume she has them as well, and an intrinsic mastery of them, and the ability to use them in such a way that she does not deplete her aura."

 _So she's a tank with nuclear rounds. Fuck me..._ Aldric leaned back in his chair, "so... Me, if my semblance didn't also _drain_ my shields." He summarized.

Cinder nodded, "as such we must be _very_ careful." She looked up to him, "I pray you have been working on your defenses." She said.

Aldric nodded, "had an idea, about that. But question, first - when do we want to hit her? Like, how soon?"

She hummed, "assume she is on horseback, but not in a hurry." She pulled up her scroll and began bringing up maps of the area. "She couldn't reach Gurstheim any sooner than a week from now. We would want to attack within three days, such that any town guards or Huntsman staying locally wouldn't see or hear our battle." She gave Aldric a look, her pale face cast in a blue glow by the scroll's display. "Why?"

Aldric shrugged, "I can fly now, I can head back to Vale and pick up some armor. Layer that on my semblance barrier and my deflection tactics, I won't be untouchable, but I should be able to take the same hits without nearly dying every time."

They stared at him, Cinder with pursed lips, Mercury with an open-mouthed expression of shock, and Emerald with slumped shoulders.

He stared back, giving them each a blank look.

"What?"

"You can _fly."_ Emerald deadpanned.

Aldric, in response, slowly began levitating out of his chair, stopping once he was a foot above the table, sitting cross legged with the tail of his coat hanging below him. Once everyone had recovered from their shock, he began to settle back down.

"How fast?" Cinder asked.

"I would assume, as fast as I want. But I can't go _too_ fast, without some kind of pressurized suit to withstand the G-forces. Else all the blood in my body would drop to my feet, I'd black out, fall out of the sky, and probably die on impact." Unless his luck held out and his suddenly not using his semblance reactivated his barriers, in which case he'd survive the fall but would wake up with one hell of a headache.

Cinder looked down to her scroll a moment, thinking, as all eyes turned to her. "Could you return to Vale and be back within three days?" She asked, turning her eyes back up to him.

Aldric shook his hand in a 'so-so' fashion. "Maybe. I would think so, but... Well..." He shrugged, grinning sheepishly. "Never really flown before." He chuckled.

Cinder turned to Mercury, "give him a list of the best armor shops, and ensure he has access to your funds." She ordered, "the moment he gives them to you, I want you to leave, and be back as soon as possible." She turned back to Aldric.

Aldric did a double take, "what about planning? You want me to be _gone_ for that?"

"The plan, is simple, Aldric." Said Cinder, nodding to him as Mercury pulled out his scroll. "Were we lacking you we would have to attack her swiftly and damage her aura, such that I could steal her abilities. But that ran many risks, not the least of which being a slow transfer time. It would have to be a tightly choreographed dance, of sorts. But _with_ you, the plan instead is simply to attack, with, quite literally, everything we have." She folded her hands on top of eachother.

"And... You just expect me to... What... _Know_ how to fight with you three?" He asked.

"What have you been doing these last four months, Aldric?" Cinder asked. "Training with these two, you know how they fight and how to fight with them." She said, slowly. "You _do_ know how to fight with them."

"But I don't know how to fight with you." He pointed out.

"A mistake, but a calculated one regardless." Cinder countered, with Aldric noticing Emerald's head whipping back and forth as they had their exchange. "I have been observing you train and have seen all of your battles. When the time comes for me to enter the fight, I will know how best to use your skills in combination with mine. Together we _will_ defeat her, and we _will_ steal her abilities." She didn't even slack in her posture, "you see, there remains a clause in the passing down of the abilities of maidens." She explained.

And suddenly, as if a button was pushed, Aldric understood Cinder's plans. In canon, she doubted whether or not she could kill the Maiden fast enough such that the last person in Amber's thought would be her. Here, however, she had three people fighting alongside her - one of which being touted as an all powerful Super Saiyan. Her intent was no longer to steal Amber's powers with the Grimm Bug - it was to have the Legion whittle her down so much that Cinder could join the battle at the end and land grievous injury after grievous injury, ensuring that Amber was scared of _her_ the most - as Cinder would be the one making her bleed. Then she would land a killing blow, in such a way that Amber died _instantly,_ the last person she saw, and subsequently the last person she thought of, being Cinder.

 _Magnificent bitch, I'll give her that._ He thought, "and that is?"

"It's done." Said Mercury, a moment before Aldric's scroll vibrated. "Here, you're going to need a few of these." He reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a stack of coins, all of a platinum sheen.

"The abilities of the maidens pass down to those who are last in their thoughts before death. Exclusively female, exclusively young. With your help, layered on top of Mercury and Emerald's, we can weaken her to such a way that I can land a killing strike. The last person she sees, and the last person she thinks of, will be me, and I will be the one to gain her powers."

 _I have never been so terrified of being right. How the fuck to I fix this?_ Aldric nodded, "what's our backup? Do we have one?"

"I cannot tell you, and of course." She responded, in order.

Aldric nodded, as he got to his feet, stowing Mercury's coins in his coat pockets. "If I'm to assume we're going to attack her pretty much the moment I get back... Where are we going to run to once were done, to lick our wounds?" He asked.

"We return to Vale." She said, "whereupon I can make contact with our leader, ensure my orders remain unchanged."

 _Meet Qrow in Vale. Sabotage the fight. A fight with a goddess. Shit._ Aldric nodded, "alright." He said, giving his coat a brief look. "Whew... I hope this can handle extreme altitudes." He said, turning tail and walking to the ship's exit.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Hey kids! Aldric the Terrorist, here, with a special public service announcement!_

 _Don't text and fly!_

 _Now that I've said that - flying long distance is fucking **boring**. It's cold, too - but zipping up my coat and using my Power Glove's heat settings keep me nice and toasty. It's also loud as shit, I have to crank the music to max in order to hear it. The good news is that it's not **difficult** to apply small amounts of pressure to my body, to keep my blood flowing properly. So I'm flying pretty wicked fucking fast, but Vale is still a long way away, so now I'm here writing this._

 _On my way to get the Batsuit, that way I'll be as ready as possible for the fight with the Maiden. That is **literally** days away, by the way - when I get back, it'll be right off to battle. _

_Also, holy shit, are we in trouble. Cinder's plan isn't to suck Amber's powers away, anymore - she thinks with me in the deck, she can **kill** Amber and take her powers the 'natural' way. Holy fucking Jesus, is that not good. But how do I sabotage a fight against a **goddess?** If I hold back, I die, if I don't, they get the power, Cinder gets pissed, she kills me, I die. If I don't hold back, she gets the Maiden powers, I lose any and all credibility with Qrow, have to fight for the Legion, and that's as good **as** dying. _

_I think I see an airship._

 _Maybe I can wound her, somehow? Do so in a way that ensures a slow death, and convinces Cinder that she'll be thinking about goddamn **anyone** but her? Then she'll have to use the bug, then Qrow can swoop in and I can pray for a little Canon time to make further plans._

 _I guess the question then would be how do I **wound** her? What fancy tricks do I have? I can... Slow, but not not stop, atomic movement, I can speed it up a bit, but barely enough to start a fire, and that was by striking a fork on dry wood. I can force choke people, but I doubt that would work considering she's this world's equivalent to Doctor Strange. _

_..._

 _Maybe I could cut her arm off? Or a limb of some sort? Get her bleeding a lot, that would put her in self-preservation mode, and even if she wouldn't be thinking clearly, I'd at least trust this chick enough to have been taught about her powers. She'd be actively **not** thinking about Cinder or Emerald, then, and Cinder's a smart woman, she'd figure this out, and would try for plan B. _

_With this option, at least I'd be capable - I'd just need a few hours to find the settings again on the Power Glove, and get some monomolecular/atomic action going. But doing this, I risk Amber being really goddamn weak and not being able to resist so much, but at least then Cinder wouldn't get everything._

 _Fuck. I'm in trouble, here. How do I get out of this? How do I **convince** Cinder that she needs Plan B? How can I get her to merge Plan B and plan A?_

 _Yep, it was an airship. I think I freaked out this chick sitting next to a window, she saw me gliding right alongside her, but before she could look again I dropped below it and sped past.  
Man I wish she could've heard me, though. I would have totally dropped the 'Wrong turn at Albuquerque' line. _

_And unfortunately, making a Bugs Bunny joke didn't give me any random ass epiphany._

 _So, what do I know? I know that the Maidens pass their powers based on the young woman last in their thoughts. Cinder's plan is to use this against her and **be** the last woman in her thoughts, so how do I convince her she might not be? And though it may seem obvious, I can't try and dress in drag like Bugs Bunny and convince Amber **I'm** a woman. I don't even want to begin on why I won't do that. _

_Emerald won't be any help on this either, she's loyal to Cinder like a dog to its master._

 _Wait, her eyes! **Holy shit,** her eyes!_

 _I knock out her god damn eyes, she can't see Cinder, Cinder won't take that big of a risk, Cinder will go to plan B!  
And I've got an in-built excuse!_

 _"How the fuck was I supposed to know to **not** gouge out her eyes? There's no honor in a street fight, hot stuff, and I was fighting a **goddess.** I wasn't holding anything back. I admit I may have gotten carried away, but I return to my earlier point: A fucking **goddess!** "_

 _And **all** of my 'victories' so far have been built on me sabotaging my opponents in some way. I put a gun to Torchwick's head, got rid of Neo's umbrella, and jammed up Yang's gauntlets. I've got precedence for this!_

 _Okay... Okay, whew. Now I actually have something of a plan.  
_

 _I just have to go for the eyes. They're the groin of the head, I'll be fine._

 _Okay, now I'll focus on flying again._

 _I think I can see Vale._

 _'Till next time._


	15. A Meeting Most Unwelcome

Chapter 14

* * *

There were three armorers in Vale that Mercury had listed for him as 'primary sources', his best bets at finding whatever it was he wanted. The number one on the list was an underworld contact of his father's by the name of Slate, and he was a few blocks away from the docks they had landed at during their first visit. By the time Aldric found it, it was well into early the next morning, but fortunately for him, Vale's underworld was of the 'Any Hour, Any Day' variety, always available to those who required their services. Aldric also found it somewhat funny where he found himself, after giving out a short passphrase. His best comparison would be John Wick's Continental; despite the place being firmly underground, it was regal in appearance and had an orderly, calm nature to it.

Aldric didn't let this lull him into a false sense of security, however. He was well aware that everyone in the main foyer was either an assassin, murderer, or some combination of the two, and he was willing to bet a lot of them had aura, and could thusly kill him without a second's hesitation. He also attracted more than a few eyes as he brazenly walked down the hall, towards the main desk.

A woman with hair pinker than cherry blossoms was Aldric's greeter, and if she had any reservations at all about an eighteen year old walking into a hotel for assassins, she showed none of it, instead masking it behind a professional air and a practiced smile.

"Welcome to The Garden." She said softly, in a voice just barely above that of the background din. "How may I be of service to you today?" She asked, in a Russian accent, one Aldric hadn't heard before, it giving him pause.

He snapped out of it, "yes." He cleared his throat, "I'm hoping the armure is in?" He asked, using the terms Mercury had provided in his text.

The woman nodded, Aldric noticed ram horns peeking out of her bright hair. "It is a rare day when he is not, sir." She said, "am I to understand that you are a new client?"

 _It is suddenly occurring to me that I'm in the middle of Remnant's literal **and** metaphorical underworld, and I'm okay with this, and I'm not okay with this._ But Aldric recognized her question nonetheless, Mercury having warned him that 'They', with the capital 't', were wary of newcomers, and this was where the coins came in.

Aldric understood them to be akin to an 'IOU' here in the Garden and its constituent organizations. It was less of a currency than it was a 'I did something to get a favor', with the coin acting as a physical representation of said favor. Mercury explained that with one coin, a person could spend weeks in the Garden, with amenities like food provided. With another, he could get medical attention until whatever it was that required said attention was fixed in its entirety. Any one coin functioned as a favor to be collected, and while they weren't all access passes, favors owed stretched a ways.

 _I'm going to want to figure out where he keeps these coins..._ Thought Aldric, as he nodded to the greeter and fished one of the platinum objects from his coat. Mercury had given him fifteen, and if Aldric understood him correctly, he would only need the one to get into the Garden, and the one to get the armor, should he find something they had, that he wanted.

 _Having favors in the fucking underworld... While arguably immoral, is never a bad thing._ He placed the coin on the front desk and slid it towards the ram faunus. _And his dad was supposed to be some kind of cross between Agent Forty Seven and John goddamn Wick, especially if Cinder sought him out herself. That means he's got a shit ton of these coins, and since Mercury's not stupid, he had to have brought, if not all of them, then a lot of them._ Better yet was the haphazard way he'd seen Mercury handle them - he'd just grabbed a bunch out of his pocket. He was _not_ keeping careful track of them, he'd just looted them, acting like a child with an expensive toy they hadn't had to spend any time or money on.

The faunus picked up the coin and gave it a brief inspection, before she nodded. "Very well, Sir..." She gave him a look.

As tempted as he was to demand she call him 'John Wick', he'd long since promised his pseudonym to a certain other badass. "Drake." He said, "Nathan Drake." And he had a _long_ way before he could ever claim to be approaching John Wick levels of badass; if asked, he would honestly say that he thought John Wick could solve one hell of a lot of this world's problems by himself, through sheer force of will.

 _Strictly speaking, if Black Widow became an Avenger solely because of how effective an assassin she is, that means John Wick would qualify too, and we **all** know which of those two would win in a fight. _ Aldric had to fight to resist a grin, as he thought of Keanu Reeves shooting people in the head in a Marvel movie.

Again, the greeter showed her professionalism in not even flinching at his clearly non-conforming name, simply accepting the coin and nodding once. "Sir Drake." She said, picking up a scroll from its dock behind the desk. "That door right there." She nodded to her right, as she cracked open the scroll and held it to her ear. "Take the stairs down two levels, then go straight through the hall, his is the rearmost door." She said, with a nod and a smile.

"Thank you." Said Aldric, as she began speaking into the phone, presumably to Slate.

He followed her instructions, noting the silence of the stairwell as he descended deeper, his boots echoing with every dull thud. He passed by one other Garden patron - he'd start calling them 'Gardeners' until such a time as he was corrected - who simply nodded to him once as they passed by. Aldric reciprocated the gesture and continued down until he reached the second sub-floor. He entered to find himself in a low-ceiling corridor, not at all like the spacious foyer or wide stairwell he'd just left. It was strictly utilitarian, dare he say spartan, in nature. At the door at the end of a long, narrow hallway, he entered, to find himself in a wide, warehouse like environment. Shelving units stacked to the ceiling and stretching from one side of the room to the other, all along its length and width.

Sitting at a tightly packed desk, he found a lean man with salt and pepper hair, looking up from a thick book. He looked at Aldric from over the thick rims of his glasses, his onyx eyes giving him an appraising look. He wore a simple vest and tie, and had a tan that felt out of place in such a sterile looking place.

He pushed his glasses up the rim of his nose, and stood to his feet. "Mister Drake." He said, with a warm smile. "An interesting pseudonym, sir." He extended his hand, which Aldric shook. "Though I can't say it's one I've heard."

"The best way to hide a secret is under the nose of the people you want to hide it from." Aldric countered, as he sat down in the seat in front of Slate's desk. "Pick a name no one expects to be real, no one will _believe_ it's real." He didn't point out that there was an entire underground hotel for assassins right underneath the capital city of the kingdom of _Vale._ That took balls.

"True you are." The baritone man drawled, in an accent that wouldn't have sounded too off had Aldric heard it back home in Georgia. "So to what do I owe the pleasure today?"

 _Right to business, then._ "I'm hoping you can help me out with that." Aldric said, "obviously, I need armor." He gave a brief jerk of the head.

"And here I thought you wished for my company, sir."

Aldric shared a grin with Slate, "I'm working with an associate of the Garden, he said this was the place to come if I needed special work done fast."

"Your friend is rather knowledgeable." Slate commented, not even asking who the friend was. "What is it you seek?" The man asked, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"Well -" Aldric cleared his throat, "I'm not looking to shrug off airship rounds. If I'm fighting something with that kind of artillery, even if I had all the aura and armor in the world, it wouldn't help. So what I'm looking for is something light-weight and flexible, let me stay agile." He said, gesturing with his hands. "Something that can defend against small arms fire and moderately sized blades, absorb the impact of punches, and the like."

Slate hummed, narrowing his eyes and looking at the computer to his left. "Sounds like you're wanting to stay away from metal, and that limits us, Mister Drake" He said, rolling forward on his chair and powering up the computer. "But fortunately, within limits are where I work best." He grinned, his rumbly, baritone voice sounding as if it filled the entire warehouse-like storage room. "If I'm to surmise, you intend to allow your aura to take the brunt of most of whosoever it is to face your ire?" He drawled, giving Aldric a brief sidewards glance.

Aldric nodded, "more or less." He said, "the armor is meant to be the last layer in my defense."

"Hm..." He tapped away at his computer. "Since you desire agility enough to completely rule out weighty metal armor, I assume you're more intent upon protecting your core and limbs than you are encapsulating your entire body, yes?" He got another nod from Aldric, "your arms and legs, and your core?" He patted his chest.

Aldric nodded. "Pretty much."

"And forgive me if I sound rude, but were I to take into consideration your age and choice of dress, would style matter at all to you?" He asked, an arced eyebrow.

Aldric was tempted to be snide, but felt it prudent to bite his tongue, instead giving Slate a nod. "Kind of a... Muscle cuirass, sort of look. Black and gray, if at all possible." Aldric gave a half shrug, "I'm a comic fan."

"Well we've all our vices, in this line of work, sir." The man drawled, focusing attentively on the screen. "Alright, I think I've something you may find useful." He grabbed at the edges of the screen and with a practiced motion, turned it to Aldric. "Carbon fiber tri-weave, kevlar reinforcement... Thin and flexible, it can take most Atlesian small arms and standard blades with only moderate damage. Overlaps in key areas to avoid potential separation of the plates were you to make sudden, harsh movements." He pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose again, as Aldric slid forward to look at the screen.

"Padding allows you extra protection against melee attackers... Should give you a few chances to survive anything larger than a boarbatusk." He drawled, "and though I wouldn't try and take point-blank an attack from a Huntsman, wearing only this, by your description this seems the best of what you look for. A good last line, anything that gets through whatever defenses you've already established on your own, may not have enough force left over to penetrate this armor." He leaned back in the seat, letting Aldric give it a look over.

 _I wanted a batsuit, god damn, I got my ass a batsuit._ He said, looking at the dark armor. Gauntlets and vambraces to protect his forearms, knee-high boots to protect his legs, and a cuirass in the approximation of a human torso. If Aldric wanted a batsuit, this may very well be the closest he could get without going hog-wild and asking for the full-body suit of armor. _And I'll get my Knightmare look to boot._ Aldric idly wondered if he wasn't in a coma, considering how much video game and comic book stuff he was able to pull on and find in this world. Yes, it was an anime world with anime cliches, but still.

"Anything I need to worry about?"

Slate gave a shrug of his shoulders, "well, as I said, anything larger than a rifle, or more penetrative than a standard dust round, and you're looking at projectiles bleeding through. A blade longer than a knife could, in the hands of a skilled swordsman, slip in between the plates and get inside, and this here won't do too terribly much in regards to facial protection, so a skilled marksman could take advantage of that. Aside from that, however..." He drawled, "I would think this is what you're looking for."

The face worried Aldric a bit, but he wasn't willing to dedicate to a cowl, he doubted he could pull that off without looking insane. "Maybe a ballistic face mask, of some sort?" He asked, giving Slate a brief look, before turning back to the screen. He bit back a comment about being more than willing to pull off a Winter Soldier look.

Slate sighed, "that would certainly give you some protection, but stopping bullets wouldn't protect you from the force of impact. Big enough round could still snap your neck."

Aldric nodded, "yeah." He was more thinking about something to protect his identity, when it came time to meet Qrow. "But, this is good." He said, with a nod. "I'll take it."

"Wonderful." Said the man, "I've approximated your measurements, Mister Drake, just give me one moment."

An hour, one coin, and one size adjustment, later, and Aldric found himself in a fitting room, adjusting his new armor. It was strange, looking at it he'd expected a noticeable weight on him, like letting a backpack hang from his front and back, both of them fully loaded with textbooks. Instead, the weight was more akin to wearing a heavy jacket. Moreover, Aldric could hardly feel the cuirass restricting his movements, almost as if it wasn't even there to begin with. Rapping his knuckles on the plates on his chest, Aldric nodded, impressed at how firm and unyielding it was.

Aldric adjusted the fit of the gauntlets and vambraces covering his hands and forearms. Neither they nor the boots had the bladed fins, but he was fine with that. He had initially worried about these interfering with the Power Glove, and these worries hadn't been unfounded, as the nanites were underneath the gauntlets, and thus he couldn't remove the constructs and, for example, throw his shield. However, the solution had been simple: Sliding the gloves off, and reapplying them on these armored gauntlets, and then everything worked perfectly. The boots required a small sacrifice, in him giving up his regular boots, but the trade off was, remarkably, among the most comfortable pair of shoes he'd ever worn.

The end result made Aldric feel like Batman in a trench coat. He lacked the trademark cowl, but had gone for a face mask, instead. He would give Slate credit where it was due - the man had picked out a half-face mask that would conceal his identity and provide him limited protection from gunfire, without the mobility and visibility losses that came with wearing a full helmet. He gave himself a grin, as he nodded at the mirrors he stood in front of. Really, the only thing the whole getup was missing was a bat symbol, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn't justify asking Slate to make the addition, not with him operating on limited time. If he really wanted to, he could add one himself after the fight. If he survived the fight, at least.

Exiting the fitting room, he found Slate standing calmly a few feet away, a neutral smile stretched across his face, and his hands held behind his back. "I trust everything is to your satisfaction, Mister Drake?"

Aldric nodded, "yes, thank you." He said, "have a nice day."

"And you as well." Said Slate, slowly making his way back to his tightly packed desk. "And good luck with your hunt." He added, with a smile that reached his eyes.

Aldric nodded, but said nothing else as he exited the armory. Walking through the cramped corridors back to the stairwell, he found that, coinciding with his stomach growling, that he hadn't eaten since before Adam Taurus.

 _Alright... Been about a day and a half... Ish... Since I took off from the Aviator... Take about an hour, maybe two, to eat some food, and then get back on the road?_ He nodded to himself, _I doubt Mercury would mind. Dude gave me a fistful of these coins, what does he expect me to do, starve myself?_ A sidewards jerk of the head accompanied his logic, as he stepped out into the wide stairwell, and turned to the sign that indicated the armory.

One level above, it said, was a dining area, and everything below was the Garden's suites. Aldric began ascending stairs, idly wondering why the place was called 'The Garden', as his new boots made much lighter thunks on the stone steps than he had an hour earlier. It made him chuckle, thinking about how, technically, he had more weight than he did earlier, but was making less noise.

 _You know... Sound is just air vibrating at different frequencies. Air is just gas, and gas is a state of matter... I wonder if I couldn't project my voice? Be the ultimate ventriloquist?_ He thought, as he reached the next floor up and entered the door.

He found an environment completely unlike the armory below him. Where the armory had been cold, sterile, and utilitarian, the ceilings hardly ten feet off the ground, the restaurant was filled with warm lights, high ceilings, soft music, and the din of silverware clattering and people talking. The floor wasn't linoleum, but carpeted, and the air was less chilled than the armory's had been. Aldric also saw more than a few people walking around in suits and ties, it made him briefly fear that he may have walked into the Remnant equivalent of a black-tie club.

Fortunately, a tall, thin waitress in a conservative uniform standing behind a podium hardly five feet from the door dispelled these notions. "Welcome, sir." She said, with a nod, attracting Aldric's gaze and prompting him to approach. "Table for one? Or are you here for the bar?"

 _Oh god no. Last time I was in a bar it exploded._ Aldric shook his head, "uh, table for one." He cast a glance around, "I hope I'm not -"

"Oh, no sir." She said, predicting his words. "Are you new here?" Aldric nodded, "if I had to guess, you were recommended?" Another nod, albeit a tentative one. Her smile only grew, "well, the Garden services a great many clientele. It is mostly utilized by workers seeking solace on a neutral grounds, where no business can be conducted." Jesus Christ this really _was_ the Continental. "However this does not preclude those in a more tactical state of dress. You'll find that, during seasons of high Grimm activity, as many will stay that wear armor as will those who prefer formal wear." She explained.

 _So, armored suits and ties versus actual armor._ Aldric began to wonder if this was a hotel for assassins, or one with a more general 'Underworld' function. Either way, at least he knew he wouldn't have to go out and find a suit if he wanted to eat here. "Thank you."

"Of course." Said the woman, with a nod. "Shall I see you to your table?"

Aldric thanked her again, and she guided him through the deceptively _huge_ restaurant. He got a few eyes as he walked through, but otherwise everyone kept to themselves. The waitress made a light hearted joke about hoping he wasn't seeking a corner booth, as the 'corner real estate' had all been taken. It took Aldric a moment before he got the joke - of course assassins would want nothing to their backs, so taking a corner booth meant they could keep an eye on the entire restaurant. He was pretty sure that, had such a thing not seemingly been forbidden here, they probably would have _actually_ fought over such spots. Aldric, however, felt no such desire. With his radar pulse, he could see everything, and none of them would be sneaking up on him.

So, he took his seat with another thanks, and ordered a soda while he perused the menu.

 _Thank gooood I can read decently enough, now..._ Aldric thought, frowning at the menu. _That would have been awkward..._ He sensed a few people approaching, one was tall and wore a - _Oh you've got to be kidding me._ He lowered the menu, and there stood Roman god damn Torchwick and his tri-haired bodyguard.

"You two didn't waste any time." Aldric deadpanned. "Like... At all. I've been here two minutes."

Torchwick's characteristically suave smile stretched across his face as he let loose a light bow. "You'll find, Mister Aldric, that when waltzing into the underworld as you did, you turn a few heads. May we sit?" Aldric noticed an edge to the gangster's normally airy voice, and a firm look in his green eyes, one that had never been there before, and it was the doubt as to whether or not this edge was directed towards Aldric, or something else, that made the fighter nod.

Of course, Neopolitan swirled into the seat closest to Aldric, silently sliding into position and resting one leg over the other, a wide smile settling onto her face, as her employer took up position on the other side of the table. Aldric forcibly suppressed a shudder as the little-miss Mafia Assassin let out another hardly disguised display of interest. It was less that he didn't find himself attracted to Neo - she was definitely an attractive woman - but it was more that a homicidal chick who seemed to carry as many concealed weapons on her person as physically possible, was all but actively trying to get in his pants. He made the analogy of someone knowing a person was a serial killer, having said killer try to kill _them,_ even if it hadn't been for any reason beyond they'd been told to, and then having said killer stopping just short of demanding they remove their clothes. It creeped him the hell out.

Fortunately, Torchwick only gave _one_ amused glance at his guard, before turning to Aldric. "I would assume our silver haired mutual friend gave you this place?" He asked, and when Aldric nodded, he added, "well, I do not know if you've noticed, Mister Aldric, but it is not often someone entirely new enters the Garden. I've been in this business for a very long time, and was only let in on its location a decade ago."

Aldric didn't like where this was going. "You're here, talking to me, to take the edge off, as it were." He was new, people here didn't like new, and Torchwick talking to him served both to annoy him, but also to display to everyone watching that he wasn't an enemy.

Torchwick removed his hat, setting it on his knee, and letting his cane rest against the table "Perceptive." He complimented with a nod, "that is more or less why I am here. These people are professional criminals, Mister Aldric. Hitmen, assassins, disgraced Huntsman, they all knew you were here the moment you stepped inside. But it was your nature as an unknown, and the rules of this little establishment that kept them from doing anything but watch."

Aldric hummed, "I heard one of the rules." He said, as he heard one of the soft songs flow into another one. "No business?"

Torchwick nodded, with Neo looking back and forth between the two speakers. "You'll find that while everyone may be armed, the only open carriers are the Garden's own security staff. Only they can break the rules, and only then, in service _of_ them, and _you,_ my friend, caught their eye the moment you walked in the door. It is a good thing our mutual friend gave you those coins... Else I fear what may have happened."

Their conversation briefly died down as the waitress returned with Aldric's drink, and resumed after the crash survivor made his order. "Well, for what it's worth, I appreciate the help." He said, with a thankful nod. "I seem to see you everywhere, in regards to this little underworld. You own this place?" He asked.

Torchwick laughed, "oh, no, dear boy. That would negate the entire purpose. A neutral grounds cannot be neutral if it is declared territory of a player." He explained.

Aldric nodded, sliding his gauntlets off and running his hand through his shaggy hair, idly noting that he couldn't remember the last time he shaved. "So why are you here in the first place? Hiding out?"

Torchwick shook his hand in a 'so-so' fashion, "somewhat. Some of my activities in service of our _other_ mutual friend have attracted a little attention from some unsavory, holier-than-thou individuals." A beat, "the police." He nodded, causing Aldric to chuckle. "Had my dealings with Junior gone awry this would have been my next stop to acquire bodies with which to conduct our operations, but our friend has requested I not move too hastily, until you've finished your dealings with the White Fang."

And now Aldric felt he'd nailed Torchwick's ulterior motive, he thought he was here on Cinder's behalf. "Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but we're still working on that." He grunted, leaning back in his chair. "Partially why _I'm_ here." He knocked on the new armor adorning his chest. "Hit a small snag, had to change plans. Now we're moving into something a little more dangerous."

Torchwick hummed, "I wonder how much something like that may have helped you in your little spat against against your admirer, there." He said, nodding to Neo.

Aldric couldn't avoid giving her a glance at this, she was leaned against the table, her head resting in her hands, her heterochromatic eyes half lidded as she met his gaze. Aldric felt a chill run down his spine.

"Well, you never learn faster than when you get your ass beat." Aldric said, turning back to Torchwick. "So, is she - "He turned back to her, "are you mute? Or... What?" He decided to ask, unable to get the question out of his head.

She gave a long roll of her eyes, as if thinking, before she shook a hand 'so-so'.

"Kind of?"

She nodded.

He sensed Torchwick grin widely, "should I leave you two alone, by chance?" He asked, his characteristic, light, airy tone returning.

 _Please, God -_ "No, I'm -" But Neo's emphatic nod seemed to overrule his words, in Torchwick's eyes. _Oh ff... God damn it._

Torchwick clapped his hands on his knees, "well... I'm quite aware that happy partners are loyal partners, and I've already eaten my fill." He said, standing to his feet. "Neo." He nodded, "once you're done playing, I'll be in my room. I hope to leave by tonight." He said, sliding his hat back on his head and snatching his cane off of the ground.

 _Why?_ Aldric suppressed a groan of terror. _You're leaving me alone with... I dunno, Harley Quinn! Do you know what you're doing? Do you **know?!**_ He nodded to Torchwick, "I knew you liked me." He deadpanned, as Torchwick circled around the table.

"Oh hush, young man." Said the gangster, as he patted Aldric's shoulder. "You'll find she's quite pleasant when not working." He let out a light hum, "good luck." He said in a singsong voice, as he trailed away with a swish of his coat.

 _Okay, don't let this die. If she's talking, she's not trying to kill you, you won't get molested by the psycho-assassin chick, and everyone leaves happy, alive, and with their genitals not having been cut off._ Aldric cleared his throat, "so... What do you mean by 'kind of'?"

Neo tapped one of her gloved hands to her throat, and then made a slicing motion. Aldric wondered if this was supposed to mean she'd gotten stabbed in the throat, or her vocal cords just didn't work. Fortunately, he had a few moments to think about it, as the waitress returned with a wonderfully large plate of steaming hot pasta. Aldric was more than glad to see that some things truly did transcend worlds, and Italian pasta was among them.

When he turned back to Neo, he saw she had pulled out a scroll, and was typing into it. He got as far as one fork-full of noodles before she placed the scroll on the table.

 _I_ can _speak._ It said, _but it is not a comfortable experience._

Aldric frowned, and gave her throat a brief look, before he swallowed the mass of noodles in his mouth. He didn't see any scarring that would suggest she'd been stabbed, so, "wasn't built right?" He asked, "wires got crossed, and all that?"

Another so-so. _Somewhat._ She typed, _in so much that, when I speak, it is painful, but not unbearable._ She gave him a conspiratorial grin, _and fighting a short assassin that doesn't even vocalize pain throws my enemies off more than you may think. An image is just as deadly as a blade. After that point, it's a game._ A pause, _and it amuses me. The whole image I have crafted. You have to enjoy the little things, and that my smile terrifies people certainly counts._

Aldric would give her a little credit, it definitely worked. Her just smiling and flaunting around threw him off more than it didn't, and that she genuinely seemed to consider it all a game? This chick was scary. "So you just... What, _like_ fucking with people." He deadpanned.

Her shoulders quivered in a silent giggle, and she nodded once.

"And you stick to _me_ like glue... Because..." He made a circular gesture with his hand, before he leaned back over his plate and took in more food.

She pursed her lips in thought, tilting her head over to the side, before she typed out her response. _You're cute._

Aldric stared at her blankly, and she gave him an innocent smile in return. A few more moments in this deadlock, before she huffed, and added more to the scroll.

 _Okay fine. I've fought a loooooot of people, serving Mister Torchwick. Many stronger than you. You're the only one who actually beat me. That makes you interesting, and I like interesting._ She told him.

 _Oh sweet Jesus, she **is** Harley Quinn. That's it, I'm dead. I'm a dead man. This is how I die. Does she have a knife down there, too? I wouldn't put it past her!_ Aldric gulped, "that's it." He deadpanned, giving the tri-haired mute a Kubrick stare. "Really."

She arced her eyebrow and curved up the corner of her mouth, challenging him.

"I think I expected more." He said, with a shrug, as he turned back to his food.

He sensed her giggle again, and a few moments later she tapped his shoulder, presenting the scroll.

 _Like what, may I ask? Did you expect a horrible story of how all of my previous marks merely laid down to die? How so many easy and quick victories left a void in my heart? Did you expect a story of how my defeat at your hands 'filled' this 'void'? And how I misinterpreted that kind of satisfaction of a fight well fought, and instead thought it to be lust? That I became desperate to find you again such that I could seduce you, and you could take somewhere private and ravish me? Please, Mister Aldric. I'm not so complicated. Give me a person to kill, a job to work, and now hopefully a body to warm my bed, and I'm an open book. Honest. ;)_

Aldric simply wondered how she typed all of that in five seconds. He gave her another look, and saw she was anxiously waiting to see his expression, trying to suppress a smile as she tilted her head down, watching him closely. He got the impression she was fucking with him, on some level. This was certainly nothing like talking to Cinder, at least Cinder had the decency to hide her sociopathy, Neo here openly put 'a person to kill' at the top of her list.

"I'm surprised you didn't put 'blood to bathe in' on that little list, there." He deadpanned, his tone low, hardly leaking past their ears.

She widened her eyes, pursing her lips in an amused fashion as she leaned back, her chest and shoulders quivering in amusement as his words registered to her. He saw her type out at lightning fast speeds. She paused a moment, raising her gaze to him and leaning in close, as if inspecting him, before she turned back to the scroll and finishing her message.

 _Though I did make such a refrain - how else would I keep such a great complexion? - I felt such a thing may be on the wrong end of 'too much' and 'too little'. You're cute, Mister Aldric, but I can tell you haven't lived our life very long. But that being said, I can see it in you - whatever it is you, Mister Black and Miss Fall and Sustrai are involved in, whatever your plans are, I can see in you a willingness to go through with it. It may not be long until you_ join _me in such a bloodbath.  
_

Was that a compliment, or a dig? He couldn't tell. She either saw in him his entire Green Hornet/Ozzymandias plan, or thought he was capable of killing all the people Cinder implied she was planning to do. Or both. He didn't know which was worse.

Aldric decided to deflect the whole thing, "I'll stick to a hot shower, thanks." He said, now nearing the end of his meal.

Her response was almost instantaneous. _That sounds great too! When?_

He couldn't help but snort. He had to play this carefully, not piss her off; but also, as much as it may not be the sane option here, he also couldn't kill her interest in him. If she had a romantic interest in him, if he ever got into some kind of trouble - be it with Cinder, or Qrow, or anyone else - he may be able to use that, and her, to fall back on. Yes, it meant flirting with psycho assassin, but the rewards may outweigh the risks.

So, he shook his head, "as fun as that sounds..." He rumbled, looking her up and down. "I can't even tell how old you are. What, are you... Like..." What was the rule? Take the number that comes to mind and subtract five? Or was it ten? "Twenty?" He arced an eyebrow.

She gave him an amused grin, as if to say 'Oh, that's how you want to play?', and a few moments later, she slid the scroll back across the table. As are you, _I'm old enough and you know it, Mister Aldric._ _Don't even play that game._ She wrote, _Besides, in this world we live, and in this job we work, you can die without any fanfare at all. A Grimm could show up and smash apart your house, a certain skilled - voluptuous, I may add - assassin may place you in her crosshairs... A fighter may drop a **warehouse** on your head. You've got to find what you can, when you can find it. **I** found **you,** and - well. I'm not letting go._ And to emphasize this last point, she wrapped an arm around Aldric's.

 _Don't freak out, don't freak out, don't freak out._ Though despite the mental mantra, he felt another chill run down his spine. "I get the feeling if you hear the words 'no' I'll get another boot knife in my back." Sometimes when he was asleep he thought could still feel that cold steel in his body.

 _You **are** perceptive._ She wrote. _I like the new look, by the way. The armor fits you well. Goes with the coat, though you could use more color._

Aldric grunted, finishing off his pasta. "Color like, what? White and pink?" He glanced at her tailcoat, but when he got an eyeful of cleavage he looked elsewhere. "I doubt I could pull that off."

 _An interesting choice of words, mister 'as fun as that sounds'... One moment you feign disinterest, and the next you're staring down my shirt. You enjoy being coy, don't you?_

Aldric rolled his eyes, "well..." He said, digging into his coat for the coin that would buy him this food, "I guess you're going to have to wait to figure that-" but, quick as a flash, he felt her hand grasping his wrist, and heard her clapping a coin of her own on the table.

 _Would you look at that._ She wrote, _I just paid for your dinner._ And Aldric was once again reminded the woman he was dining with was a goddamn sociopath that didn't hide it. _I suppose you'll have to entertain me a moment longer, won't you?_ Her hand slowly slid away from the table, as she let go of his arms and leaned back to her chair, resting her head on her knuckles, her dual colored eyes shining as she awaited his response.

 _Well... I could leave anyways, but then I'd be pissing her off... Or worse, she'd think I'm playing hard to get._ He suppressed a sigh, raising his gunmetal gray eyes to her brown and pink orbs. "I guess I could spare a little more time... But I _do_ have to head back, soon. Got a long flight ahead of me." He ran his hand through his shaggy hair.

She pouted, though he saw the ghost of a smile behind it, as she typed out her response. _Well, I guess that means we won't be able to have any more fun than we've already, party pooper. Give me a little while longer and then you can go. K?_ When she saw him nod, as the wait-staff took his dishes and Neo's coin, and abandoned them, she typed out her next words. _Now, I know you can't tell me what all it is you and Miss Fall are trying to do, but maybe you can tell me a little about yourself, yeah? How'd she rope you into all of this?_ She asked him, eyes shining with interest. _Mister Black, I understand. I worked with his father once. Miss Sustrai was a little surprising, but I saw her work, I understand her use... But you? Well, like I said: You haven't lived our life for very long._ He saw her rest her chin on her knuckles again, _so?_

Now this was an interesting little situation. This told him clear as day that she and Torchwick didn't know about where he came from, so now he had to come up with something. He shrugged, "came from a small town, way outside of Vale. It got wrecked by Grimm. Cinder strolled through, saw me surviving without any aura to speak of. Piqued her interest. I was pretty out of it from a bad hit, she and the other two patched me up and offered me a job." He shrugged, "they'd saved my life, so I said sure, been there ever since." Not necessarily a lie he'd have to remember, but also close enough to the truth that he wouldn't forget it. "How about you?" He asked, leaning back in his chair.

She arced an eyebrow, as if question whether or not he was _really_ interested in learning about her, but she typed away regardless, her smirk firmly pressed onto her face. _Oh, I'm not nearly as interesting as fighting Grimm without aura. I got in early, had no parents, woke up my semblance when I was ten, bla bla bla. A petty theft here and there, no one could find me because it was never **me** doing it. It was some faunus, or some overweight gray-haired man, or a thirty year old woman in an expensive dress. After a while I had to kill someone, and Mister Torchwick used that to put the pieces together, he tracked me down and offered me a job. ___That was ten... Fifteen-odd years ago, I don't remember. But I_ haven't been hungry or bored since._

"So Torchwick is your boss and your dad." A beat, "kind of." This also told him what he'd thought, earlier: Mid twenties. That scared him more than it didn't, actually, but he couldn't tell why.

She shrugged, and waved her hand again. _Kind of._ She parroted back. _Miss Fall had to have found you recently, if you were still so unskilled when we fought. I saw the footage Mister Torchwick wiped from Junior's club. How have you grown so strong, so fast?_

"Well, I don't like to die..." Aldric deadpanned. "That helps. Other than that? It beats the hell out of me."

She pursed her lips, head bobbing from side to side, as if to say 'fair enough'. _One last thing. Then I'll let you go, I promise._ She showed him quickly, before turning the scroll back to her. A moment later, she turned her scroll around, but instead of a message, Aldric saw an information screen. It took him a moment to realize she'd opened up her scroll's contacts folder. Next to 'Name' was 'Aldric (Cute Ass-Kicker)', and the contact photo was a picture of him he hadn't even been aware she'd taken. She was all but telling him to give her his number.

 _Well... Shit._ Aldric pulled out his own scroll. _I mean, I don't think the Legion will have a problem with this... But I'm giving my god damn phone number to a psycho assassin who all but just told me she killed before she was even a teenager. When did I lose control of my_ _life?_ He found his own contact information, and accepted Neo's scroll, before copying over the relevant data.

She clapped - _actually clapped -_ when he gave her the scroll back and saw everything she needed filled out. After she slid her scroll back into her pocket, she gave him a quick, tight hug. Aldric managed to predict the peck on the cheek this go-round, and soon after, the two parted ways, with her descending down to the hotel rooms with a spring to her step, and an umbrella in her hands that Aldric hadn't noticed until she'd picked it up, and with him going back up to the main floor.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I remember reading once, this news story about a cartel assassin. It wasn't one of those two twin brothers from Breaking Bad, but this woman who did work for the Mexican drug cartels. She got caught one day, and didn't even hide the shit she'd done. She explained in gory detail how she would decapitate her targets and drain their bodies of fluids into bathtubs because she liked watching them grow pale, and the blood flow down the drain. Sometimes she said she even went so far as to physically wring out the corpses to the last drop, like a fucking sponge!_

 _And that's not the worst thing, she said that most of the time she'd keep at least one of her targets alive, get them aroused and **then** kill them, and then have sex with the corpse. She said all of this with a straight face, like she were discussing the weather. "Oh, it's seventy six degrees, I fuck dead bodies, it's a little cloudy right now..."_

 _I remember reading this news story and there was this kind of... Abject fear, that gripped me. Like, that kind of fear you feel when you know that you won't personally experience something even remotely close to that kind of terror, but you're still scared to death of it. People like that **exist** , and she **admitted** to doing this. That's a kind of sociopathy that terrified me, when I read about it. _

_All of that - I feel all of that kind of terror, mixed with perhaps the most confusing arousal I've ever experienced, when I consider that Neo-goddamn-politan doesn't 'seem' to be attracted to me, she **is** attracted to me. _

_This is a chick that was dining in a restaurant for assassins, openly admitting that she killed before she was even eighteen, and 'hasn't been bored' since. For Chrissakes, she did it all nonchalantly, too!  
"Oh, after that I just **had** to kill." All casual-like. Like she were saying she had to fix a flat tire, or an EMT saying they had to stick someone with a needle._

 _"You're interesting." She says. "I like interesting." **She says.** _

_She's a few steps separated from a real life Joker, or Harley Quinn - No, wait, better - she's Yuno Gasai. Need I say more?_ _Fuck me.  
Back home, I was the single lonely asshole. Granted it probably had something to do with me wearing trench coats to an American highschool (not really a recipe for success, see.), but that doesn't change the point. I had... One? Ish? It's a strange story, but it didn't last long. Here? I've got a woman with a god-complex **trying** to come on to me, and a psycho assassin **actively** coming on to me. At least with Cinder I can make the excuse that she's trying to to foster some kind of loyalty, but with Neo? Jesus Christ.  
I never expected to have this problem, and now that I do have it, I don't know what to do. Like, at all.  
_

 _So, if it isn't obvious, I ran into Neo and Torchwick again. Mercury pointed me to 'The Garden', a Switzerland-like neutral hotel/meeting grounds for Vale's underworld. I picked up some armor (rocking the Knightmare Batman look, by the way), and got some food. Then I ran into them, Torchwick saved my ass from the suspicions of the local assassins, we shot the shit, and he played matchmaker by leaving me with the ice cream psycho._

 _Silver lining? I... Got a girl's phone number? I think? Kind of? I mean, she took mine down, I valued my life too much to ask for hers.  
But (tie it full circle) she reminds me of that cartel assassin lady, so I don't know if that's a **good** thing._

 _Worse, is that I'm tempted to say a 'sane Yuno Gasai', but I don't know THAT either! I haven't spent nearly enough time with her to judge if she's a saner, tamer Yandere queen, or if she just seems that way because I haven't seen her in action!  
Definitely someone to bring home to the folks, though:_

 _"Hey Mom! This is my girlfriend, she has superpowers, almost killed me, and pretty much kills people as part of her day job. Within minutes of our first date she made a joke about **literally** bathing in people's blood, and I honestly don't know if she was fucking with me or if she was serious. I also think she wants babies, and I would definitely fear for my life too much to say no, if she asked. She's pretty, though! Squint a little and lean back far enough, she doesn't look nearly as homicidal!"_

 _Though, funny part? All else being equal, I'm pretty sure my Dad would have pushed this envelope, if only to watch me squirm._

 _I miss that fat man.  
 **Boy** are these people going to be pissed they took him from me.  
But that's all I have to say about that.  
_

 _Anyways, I'm armored up, got myself a Winter Soldier-style mask and goggles for when I meet up with Qrow, I'm thoroughly trying not to think of the one good look I got down her shirt (I swear it was an accident. A thoroughly confusing, arousing accident. Jesus Christ.), and I'm flying back to the Legion.  
_

 _After this, I do my best Kratos impression, and pray I can kill a goddess._

 _Oh, and I made a plan for Qrow. I made a brief pit stop to write down the message._

 _The plan after the Fall Maiden is to go back to Vale and hide out, while we figure out our next step. Cinder alluded to getting back in touch with Salem. So, I wrote down two notes, one I plan to slip to the Maiden, one I hope I can slip to Qrow himself._

 _"Qrow Branwen, you are not alone, you have a friend on the inside. A kindred spirit who knows what Salem is doing is wrong, and an agent willing to serve the light from the shadows. We need to meet, before we lose any more Maidens. I'll be in Vale for one week after our attack on Amber, and will wait behind Mogar's Grillin' Bar. Meet me there, I am not your enemy."_

 _And I signed it Nathan Drake._

 _Hoooo boy. I hope this works._

 _If I don't make another entry, it's probably because I did a shitty Kratos._

 _'Till next time._


	16. Fight Night

_AN:_

 _Hooo boy._

 _Here we go, folks._

 _Let's play._

* * *

Chapter 15

* * *

It took him another day to make it back to the Aviator, and he was approaching being exhausted. Aura could work wonders, but going nonstop for nearly three days without any sleep at all, and spending every waking moment on flying - which only grew more mentally strenuous as time went on - it took its toll. Upon returning, he found that the Legion had left it the morning he'd arrived, and had given him a location to meet them at. Another brief flight and he landed in the forests a few days west of Gurstheim, and it took him a few hours of stumbling around before he was able to locate the Legion of Doom. They hid themselves well, masking their tents underneath some tall, thick trees and keeping their campfire limited to burning coals, with low flames. Aldric was only able to get a good heading when he found an 'X' carved onto a tree, and started following those.

Cinder also decided to scare the living hell out of him, burying an arrow into a tree as he came close. She appeared as if from thin air with a thin smile on her face, and gave Aldric a few moments to get his heart rate back under control as he followed her to their campsite.

"Amber is a few hours away. I would recommend you rest." She said.

"What's the plan?" Aldric asked, as he set up his own tent.

"Emerald is waiting on the main road. She and Mercury will attack first, and will signal your arrival. They will retreat to rebuild their aura, and then rejoin you once they have. I will join you all to ensure I land the killing strike. You must ensure each of you are out of her line of site when I do... I _must_ be the last thing she sees." She stressed, giving Aldric a fierce look.

The crash survivor nodded, humming in affirmation. "Any tips?"

"Don't die."

"You people are going to be the death of me." He returned, sliding into his tent, and falling to his back, losing the battle to sleep just a few seconds later.

In what felt like the blink of an eye, Aldric had been awakened, Cinder kicked at his feet, her face was set in a tight frown. He could tell time had passed, it was dark outside, and he was certainly more rested than he was earlier, but he also could have used a few more hours of sleep. Cinder, however, dispelled those notions quickly by shaking her head.

"Up." She said, tersely. "She's coming."

That woke the crash survivor up pretty quickly, and he followed Cinder, rushing through the woods at a frantic pace, before they came up to the edge of the trees. Beyond them was a wide, grassy clearing, which gave way to a dirt road flanked on both sides by wooden fence posts. Aldric saw Emerald standing in the center of the dirt road, and on the other side of the clearing, he could sense Mercury hiding in a tall tree.

He felt Cinder tap his arm, and she pointed to the west. Aldric followed her gesture, and saw a large, regal, white horse trotting down the dirt road, moving straight for Emerald. On this horse was a woman clad in light leather and thin metal armor and a thick, hooded cloak. The crash survivor frowned, as it dawned on him that this was really happening. The horse rider looked up to Emerald, and Aldric sensed her tilt her head to the side, as if in confusion. She guided the horse over to the side of the road and dismounted it, slowly, carefully approaching Cinder, but looking at the ground before her feet, instead of her face.

The brief exchange played out exactly as he expected it to. She got down on one knee and produced an apple from her cloak. He felt Cinder grasp at his bicep, and he gave her a sidewards glance.

 _"That apple..."_ Cinder whispered, so lightly that Aldric didn't even hear it. _"It didn't exist, a moment ago."_

Aldric was tempted to ask how she saw it, from their position more than a few dozen meters away, but _he'd_ seen it. Aura pretty much _was_ magic, it gave them vision comparable to eagles. "Magic." He rumbled, lightly.

 _"Indeed..."_ Cinder whispered, as Emerald prepared her weapons.

Amber, however, sensed something was wrong, her head snapping upwards. There was a moment's pause as Emerald feared her cover being blown, and these fears were founded when Amber launched herself backwards, the cloak flying away as she whipped out a staff, on each end being a different crystal of dust. Emerald charged, centering her revolvers on Amber and firing as rapidly as she could, but Amber threw her hand up and deflected each slug. When the bullets stopped coming, she whirled her staff around, spinning it so fast that it was a blur, with each revolution bringing forth a powerful gust of wind, with her acting as the eye of the hurricane she was generating. It twirled around and around, exchanged hands and revolved around her back before she shoved it forward, sending a hurricane-force gust of wind at Emerald, and causing her to fly backwards as it slammed into her.

 _"Wind..."_ He heard Cinder breathe. _"Get ready."_

Aldric slid his coat off as Mercury rushed in from Amber's side. The dark skinned girl's head whipped around to face him, and with the wind still whirling and raging around her, she thrust her staff upwards. It caught Mercury's double-leg kick and absorbed the blow, and she shoved forward, sending him flying off of her as if he'd been smacked by a wrecking ball. Without even looking, she sensed Emerald charging her from behind, and swung the staff around again, sending her away with another blast of wind, as Mercury landed on his feet, and blasted away with twin explosions.

Amber again spun around, this time thrusting the red crystal forward, and when it glowed to life, flames burst out of the staff and assaulted Mercury. The assassin's son curled up into a ball, hiding behind his cybernetic legs as he catapulted forward. He burst through the cone of fire and landed a powerful kick on Amber's chest, sending her stumbling backwards, for Emerald to bury her into the ground. The two retreated to recover, and Amber staggered to her feet, her entire body trembling, though in fear or anger, Aldric couldn't tell.

Suddenly he felt a wave of energy he'd never sensed before, and Amber thrust her hands to her hips, her teeth bared and a fiery aura surrounding both of her eyes, each taking the shape reminiscent of a butterfly. As Amber slowly began to levitate, Aldric witnessed Mercury and Emerald exchange glances, before they nodded. Emerald raised her revolver, but was pointing it at the trees.

His heart sank into his stomach when the bullet buried itself into the trees next to them, Mercury and Emerald retreated, and Cinder called out, _"go!"_

If _ever,_ in his _entire_ life, there was a time to not hold back, that time was right now. With the sound of dirt being blasted into the air, Aldric circled around the tree and hurled himself at the battlefield. Roaring loud enough to get Amber's attention on him and away from Emerald and Mercury, Aldric flew through the air so fast that he left contrails in his wake. He thrust his hand forward, and it was enveloped in a bright red white and blue disc. Amber sensed his approach and turned towards him, thrusting her hand forward; he felt powerful gusts of wind beating at him, trying to slow him down, but the brunt of it all was taken by the shield, and he, in response, sped up.

He tackled her in mid-air, ramming the broad side of the shield into her chest and sending them both careening back down to the grass. She landed with a grunt, but found herself pinned by his shield, as he straddled her stomach and raised his fist; and as he clenched it, he used his semblance to slide the sheet of paper with Qrow's message up and into his palm. Amber didn't notice, because the attack that followed was powerful enough to blast a boulder-sized crater into the ground below her head, and he saw her dark brown eyes, both enveloped in the fiery orange aura of the Fall Maiden, glaze over temporarily. Seeing his chance, Aldric siezed it and struck her again, before using his semblance to slide the small sheet of paper down her shirt. On the third meteoric strike, she suddenly regained her bearings, and her fiery brown eyes instantly locked onto his gunmetal gray orbs.

 _Oh shit._ He grunted, knowing something big was about to hit him.

A moment later, through his radar pulse he sensed the clouds darkening and forming into tight masses above him, and when he sensed her fist clench, he used his semblance to wrench around his shield. The lightning bolt slammed into it with the sound of an electric guitar strumming its strings, sparks flew in all directions and he grunted with the effort as the lightning was rebounded. Amber took her chance and buried her fist into Aldric's chest. His barriers and armor blunted most of her attack but he was still sent flying back, and as she got to her feet like a vampire, he backflipped and dug his feet into the dirt, skidding to a halt.

 _Okay... That's one down. That's the easy part... Now how in the flaming fuck do I take out her eyes?_ He gasped, as Amber raised her hand toward him threateningly. He frowned, tilted his head to the side, and after a moment's pause, he, in response, spun around and threw his shield at her.

By the look on her face, she hadn't expected the attack, but she reacted quick enough, throwing her fist forward and slamming it into the edge of the shield. Her strength was enough to overcome even Aldric's natural strength and the extra force of his semblance, enough so that the shield bounced off of her knuckles, and flew straight back at Aldric with the same speed and force, as she lowered her stance to a defensive one. Aldric didn't even slow down as he charged Amber, instead he grunted and hopped into the air, round-housing the shield and sending it back at her. She lost their deadly game of ping-pong, unable to react fast enough to his counter and stumbling back when the shield slammed into her chest.

Aldric threw his right hand forward in a powerful superman punch, using his semblance to slide his shield back onto his arm, it clicking into place and then following his directions as he swung forward. His fist smashed into Amber's face, she grunted on impact and snapped downwards, sending her right into Aldric's left uppercut. She stumbled back, but blocked Aldric's next right cross, before she hopped up and kicked him in the chest. Aldric, however, deflected the attack with his semblance, causing her to fall to her knees, where her nose quickly met Aldric's knee. She recoiled from the attack, and used a powerful blast of wind to send Aldric skidding back again.

Fighting her like this, Aldric was starting to understand what Cinder here, and Qrow in canon, was saying about Amber being inexperienced. Anyone else he'd fought, by now they would have countered him four times and cracked a rib. She was a novice compared to them - likely having _no_ combat experience beyond minor training in fighting and the usage of her powers. Now it made sense how the group had dominated her so easily in the show: She just wasn't used to fighting. This didn't, however, mean she _couldn't_ fight, as evidenced when she got back to her feet.

Aldric felt the ground explode below his feet, and he was sent flying backwards - Amber was there, and she buried her heel into his back, slamming him into the ground. He, however, used his semblance to slide across the dirt and out from under her foot. He rolled onto his back and brought his shield around, blocking the next dropkick with the sound of metal striking metal. He grunted and used his semblance to shove upwards, stumbling Amber back and giving him enough time to spin to his feet.

Amber brought her hand up to block Aldric's shield bash, but Aldric let the shield vanish in a flash of multicolored embers. Not prepared for this, Amber couldn't act fast enough to block Aldric's follow up attacks, bashing her in the face with his fist. She blocked his follow up left cross, but found herself sent flying regardless as Aldric used his semblance to increase the force of the strike. Before she could recover, Aldric thrust his hand forward, and caught the Fall Maiden with his semblance, halting her in mid-air. He then wrenched his hand back and she came flying right back to him.

He caught her chest with his foot and noted the lack of cracking ribs. Amber chose this time to recover and locked her arms around Aldric's leg. Immediately he felt it heat up as her eyes flashed with a fiery aura, and instantly the warmth turned to blinding pain. Aldric cried out and tossed Amber from his leg, but she was back in front of him an instant later, her fist surging towards his chin. He dodged the attack with his semblance and backhanded her arm away, countering with a right cross, and spinning into an elbow. She caught his elbow and halted his circular momentum, but she needed both hands to do it. Aldric thought he would be able to reach around with his fist and hit her regardless, but instantly he felt electricity arcing through his body.

Fire, he could handle, but electricity, that was the dangerous, screw-with-your-heartbeat stuff, and with a grunt, Aldric blasted away, creating distance between the two, as his arm shook and twitched from the jolts running through it. His heart racing and his breath rapid, he clenched his fist tight and sprinted forward. Amber met his advance, he ducked under a sloppy swing and elbowed her in the stomach; she used her abilities to fight the recoil of his augmented strike but he still heard the muffled creaks of her ribs bending under his strength. He surged back upwards and uppercutted her jaw.

She recovered quickly, grabbing his wrist and wrenching it to the side. Aldric tried to catch her with his other hand, but she caught it too, and as he saw her eyes glow with energy, he knew what she was going to try. So, to avoid getting another painful electric shock, he threw his head forward. His forehead buried into her nose and he felt a crunch, she stumbled back, and he saw her clench her fist as she wiped her nose with the back of her arm.

His eyes widened and he thrust his shield up to his left as he sensed leaves and grass being torn from the ground in the clearing. They all froze solid and were instantly launched at him, but his shield ensured he took no damage. She, however, used this as a chance to charge him, throwing her foot forward in a front kick. Aldric thrust his free hand outwards, and his semblance caught her leg, it hovering just in front of his hand. She saw the fierce look in his gunmetal gray eyes, and her scowl faltered as she noticed her leaves were no longer flying at him, but were instead floating in mid air, twitching, as her abilities struggled against his.

What happened next, however, Aldric didn't expect. Before he could decide on his next move, her scowl returned and her aura grew in intensity, and a moment later the air between her foot and his hand exploded, sending them both flying backwards. However, he was caught by Mercury, and didn't fly nearly as far as she.

"Good job, big guy." He grunted, helping Aldric back to his feet. "You can stand up to a Maiden without any training."

"Shut the fuck up." Aldric sniped, as he noticed Emerald circling around the Maiden. "How do you want to play this?" He grunted, as the Maiden got to her feet, and his shield formed again around his hand.

"Em's going to flood her with false visions. You take her from the front, we'll get her sides." And as he spoke, Amber's head snapped around and she began responding to phantom attacks, bobbing and weaving, dodging punches and responding in kind. "We need to break her aura."

Aldric nodded, "hit her hard, hit her fast." He turned to the assassin's son. "You ready?"

He nodded, "come on!" And the two launched forward.

Aldric had to arc around a fireball launched out of Amber's palm, and when she saw that it apparently didn't strike a single one of her phantoms, she seemed to be aware on some level of what was happening, and with a cry of anger, swung her hand in a wide circle, sending a storm of harsh wind and fire arcing around her. Emerald had to drop the illusion to get away, and this gave Amber time enough to notice Aldric charging her from the front. With a harsh growl she blasted him with another fireball; he felt the heat beat at his body but he'd long since learned how to cool himself off, and the air went from scalding to chilly in a manner of seconds.

He rammed the broad side of the shield into Amber's crossed arms, and again it dissipated, where he smashed his fist into her head with a straight punch. She stumbled backwards, only for Mercury to reach her, drop to his hand and swing his legs around in a wide, circular arc. He kicked the back of Amber's knees and leapt to his feet as she fell. Aldric elbowed Amber, sending her listing to the side, where the other side of her head was roundhoused by Mercury. She stumbled back forward towards Aldric, who grabbed both sides of her head and smashed it into his knee. She tried to blast him again with fire as she listed back, but he crouched behind his shield and absorbed the blast, just as Mercury kicked her back and sent her face-first to the now scalding hot disk of solid light.

She called out in pain, Aldric heard her skin sizzle, but sensed her counter attack coming down from the sky. He looked up to Mercury, who frowned at the serious look on his face. "Move!" He shouted, before he launched himself backwards.

Mercury didn't hesitate to obey, and hardly a second later Emerald was surrounded by multiple bolts of lightning, the ground exploding from the impact as she fell forward to her hands and knees. As Aldric and the assassin's son recovered, Emerald came charging in, her sickles extended. Aldric watched as Emerald's blades violently rebounded off of Amber's shields, Amber rolled out of the way after the first attempted stab and used her powers to vault herself back into the air, but Emerald predicted this, and threw one of her weapons outwards. It extended far on its chain and hooked around Amber's leg, she was summarily yanked back down to the ground and slammed into it as if she were the weighted end of a ball and chain.

Aldric charged forward now, but Amber's aura only grew even more fiery, the air around them growing in temperature and rain beginning to fall. This rain, however, it wasn't soft warm droplets, but rather harsh flying shards of water, each impact felt like getting pelted with an ice cold pebble, Aldric felt bruises welling up and only seconds had passed. Amber's next attempt was to use the rainstorm to enhance her lightning attack, but Aldric predicted who her first target would be, and threw his shield with all his might.

It hurtled through the air, going from a horizontal spin to a vertical one, and taking a lightning blast full force, absorbing the attack that would have hit Emerald. The shield bounced back over to her as Aldric continued sprinting forward through the rain. She caught it deftly and whirled around, sending it right back to the fighter as he reached the Fall Maiden. Aldric caught the shield and leapt into the air, bringing it down hard as Amber got to her feet; instead of beating her right back down, however, she thrust her hand up and caught it bare-handed, stopping him in his tracks.

She then thrust her hand forward again and Aldric was blasted away by a powerful gust of wind. He felt sharp stabs of pain lance through his body as the harsh rain beat at his now open wounds. As he flew back through the air, Mercury sprinted in behind her, but she whirled around with an unnatural speed, Aldric's shield affixed to her arm. She used it to block Mercury's next kick, his metal foot striking it with the sound of a mallet hitting an anvil. Before she could follow it up, Mercury kicked off of it with two dual explosions, launching himself back. She watched him a moment before she felt Emerald yank at the chain still fastened around her feet.

She hit the ground with a huff, and saw Aldric flying right back towards her. She, however, brought up his shield to block his attack, but just like Yang Xiao Long before her, using his own weapons against him backfired instantly, as when his hand made contact with the solid light, it instantly vanished in a shower of fiery embers, and he kept forward. He smashed his fist into her stomach, burying the two of them into the ground and forming a crater, which quickly began to take on the water of the harsh and violent rainstorm raging around them. She tried grabbing at his hands and wrenching them around, but Aldric used his semblance to rip them out of her grip, and then he ground-pounded her face again and again, water spraying out with each attack.

It surprised him how durable she was, considering that, by this point in the show, she should have been down for the count. Regardless of his thoughts, she recovered and caught his hands again, but this time yanked backwards, burying her elbows into the ground and yanking Aldric forwards. She rammed his head onto hers, sending stars into Aldric's eyes and causing him to list to the side.

Aldric didn't even have time to curse before he was blasted away with a loud electric zap. He was buried into the side of their crater, he felt the side of his face burning and multiple jagged rocks poke, jab, and tear into his arms and legs. When he was able to open his eyes, he saw Amber's hand hoisted in front of her, pointing right at him, with a white-hot ball of fire swirling in it.

 _Oh shit._ He scowled, thrusting a hand up and forming his shield. The fireball slammed into it a second later and he was sent flying, blasting up and out of the ground and spinning through the air. He felt ribs crack when he hit the ground, and sensed Mercury and Emerald rounding on Amber, both of them shooting at her with their respective weapons.

Amber's aura was still strong enough to deflect these projectiles without her even flinching. She slowly climbed into the air, hands held out to her sides in a messianic pose, as fire, electricity, the rain itself and powerful gusts of wind began swirling around her. Emerald and Mercury, both with their arms held up guarding their faces, exchanged worried glances as the Fall Maiden's power only grew.

 _Alright... Maaaaaybe..._ Aldric grunted, getting back to his feet, his entire body in pain. _Maybe the reason they kicked her ass so fast is because they kept the momentum up. Weren't actually trying to **fight** her... Lest this shit happens._ He wondered if there wasn't some kind of Avatar State kind of a thing going on right now, that the reason she was growing in power was because she was tapping into the memories of previous Fall Maidens. It'd explain the hell out of how Cinder mastered the powers so fast in canon.

 _So... Problem._ He gasped, breathing heavily as he looked up at the Maiden, who was blasting at Emerald and Mercury with her powers, the two dodging for all their life as they waited for either an opening, or for Aldric to come up with a plan. _She can just spam the shit out of her powers, and that doesn't affect her shields. Her shields are also wicked stupid fucking powerful. Solution?_ He watched her continue zapping the ground, Emerald and Mercury continued leaping away. _Well... If this is Avatar... How'd they kill Aang?_ He looked up at the sky, at the multitude of lightning bolts the Maiden was forming, watching them briefly arc in and out of the clouds, like fish hopping above the surface of the water before diving back down. _Solution?_ He used his radar sense, feeling for the lightning as it flowed through the clouds and crashed down to the ground, trying to burn what all of those electrons zapping around felt like. _Solution._ He frowned, and his shield vanished from around his hand.

The question now, was was he Azula, or Cole MacGrath? Regardless of the answer, both Emerald and Mercury were having to retreat further and further away - he and they could sense their aura growing dangerously close to zero. This was his fight, now. "Maximum..." He growled, slowly raising both of his hands, reaching out with his semblance, feeling for Amber's powerful, energetic lightning strikes, sensing every budding bolt in the clouds above them as if they were running across his fingers, and he himself were in the storm.

Amber seemed to realize something else was in her storm, she somehow seemed to sense Aldric's presence and his feeling around, briefly pressing against the lightning bolts she created. Her bright, fiery eyes turned to him as she whirled around, and then shot up as she saw him grabbing at the lightning with his semblance and guiding it towards her, its previously golden hue turning a bright energetic blue, as his influence won out over hers. It began to build and grow like a fire, more and more bolts created by her storm, the electrons grabbed by his semblance, stolen from her control, and then sent towards his growing lightning storm right above her head. Her eyes dropped back down to him, wide with fear as she saw his own eyes, but instead of two gunmetal gray eyes, she saw two deep, dark onyx orbs staring back at her.

 _"EFFORT!"_ He roared out, dropping both of his arms to his hips, and baring both of his teeth.

Time seemed to stand still for a moment, the rain seemed to stop and the wind ceased its howling. After this moment, everything came snapping back to reality and the multiple bolts of lightning, made by the Fall Maiden and stolen by the man from another world, came crashing right back down on top of her. She threw both of her hands up and tried to abate the attack, but Emerald and Mercury laid on the heat, forcing her to divide her attention one too many ways to effectively halt Aldric's attack.

With loud zaps and thunderclaps, the lightning bolts slammed into Amber's barriers and beat at them with reckless abandon. Aldric roared out with effort as Amber screamed in fear, being pushed back towards the ground as the lightning bolts tore at the swirling vortex of a barrier she'd summoned around herself. More lightning bolts slammed into her barriers and sent her plummeting to the ground, and after a few seconds, Aldric sensed that the barriers she'd created shattered, and she soon was hit with the full force of the very storm she'd summoned as a weapon against them.

He couldn't help a wide, savage grin growing across his face as he won out over a _god,_ but this grin was wiped away when the flow of lightning ceased, having been cut off by the Fall Maiden's command. As the onyx color faded away like oil being drained away, he cast his eyes up to the dark sky above, and then back down to Amber, as she hauled herself to her feet. Aldric saw she wasn't done fighting him, he could see it in her eyes. She thrust a hand forward and out blasted a fireball, Aldric ducked down and summoned his shield, taking the hit and stumbling back as he sensed Mercury and Emerald regrouping, their aura so low that they could only watch.

 _And here I thought **I** was the fucking weak one..._ Aldric growled, as he peeked over the edge of the shield.

He saw Amber raising one hand behind her head, and the other in front of her, and then saw lightning once again gathering in the clouds. He frowned, bit back a curse and again ducked behind the shield as he realized what she was doing. A second later the lightning surged downwards, arcing from her upper hand, down her body, and to the outstretched limb. Aldric couldn't trust himself to replicate his last party trick, not without the others distracting her, and instead had to trust his shield.

Turnabout was fair play, he noted ironically, before he was blasted full force by a constant stream of lightning, but his shield did its job, absorbing most of the force and allowing him to struggle against the raging lightning, advancing on the Fall Maiden, whose scowl faltered as she saw him moving forward, taking many multiple times what he had given her, without even flinching.

So she added wind to her attack, and this managed to stall Aldric's advance, his hair and his baggy pants billowing against the raging winds. It was as if he had his hands against the hood of a car, and the driver was flooring it, and he was trying to push against its forward acceleration. His every movement was resisted against with an equal and nearly greater intensity, as if the very earth itself didn't want him to breathe, let alone take another arduous step forward. His muscles burned and his lungs screamed for as much oxygen as he could give them, everything he had - all of his power and all of his strength - was being put to him bodily struggling against the might of what was, by rights, a goddess.

And he, a mere, mortal man, was _winning._ Every step he took was only more proof of this.

He felt dust and dirt adding to the assault on his shield, no doubt picked up by Amber's raging winds. Some of this dirt made it around his shield and hit his arms, moving so fast that they tore small cuts in his skin, but any blood that welled up was instantly sent flying away by the raging winds. Despite this onslaught, however, he still had enough strength in his body to exceed her will and force his way forward, one step at a time, both hands braced against his shield and holding it up in front of him.

He sensed Amber's scowl slowly fall to a look of shock, and on the outskirts of the battle, sensed Mercury turning to Emerald, exchanging words with her that, due to the distance and the sheer noise of what the Fall Maiden was throwing at him, he couldn't have even tried to hear. He continued to struggle against this onslaught, until Amber, in response to his ceaseless advance, added _fire_ to her attacks. The full might of her attacks halted his advance as he was mere feet away from her, slamming into his shield and being reflected outwards in a brilliant, fiery display, almost appearing as a star radiating light. His shield still protected him from the physical force of everything beating on it, but he didn't have enough strength in his legs to keep struggling forward, and it took all he had to stay rooted in the ground, such that he didn't start sliding backwards.

But what he found important in all this, the most important fact, was that _she_ wasn't moving either. They were in a stalemate. They were in a stalemate, and he wasn't even using his semblance. He was _just_ Captain America-ing this. It made him smile. A moment after he cracked a grin, he found himself laughing, the barking, hoarse sounds of his voice picked up on the howling wind and made its way over to Amber's ears, and he sensed her determined expression falter as his laughter grew maniacal, and lifted his wide, wild eyes to meet the slowly growing expression of terror on the Fall Maiden's.

 _"I'm not even left handed!"_ He roared, before he shoved forward with his semblance.

With a mighty push from his semblance, he crossed the final few feet between him and the maiden, and his shield touched her outstretched hand. With the sound of a loud and deafening bell toll, the two detonated. The resultant explosion was massive, the trees at the distant edges of the clearing were flattened to the ground. The shockwave, as it surged outwards, picked up all of the rain droplets, creating a rapidly expanding dome of water, until it hit the clouds above. The clouds then parted under the biblical strength of the expanding shockwave, and soon following that the storm she'd summoned died. When the shockwave lost its strength, all of the water in the sky fell in one huge splash, soaking everything that wasn't already, and washing away loads of dirt and debris, kicked loose by the explosion.

As the dust cleared and the water settled, leaving cool air in its wake, both Aldric and the Maiden were revealed still standing. They each stood less than a foot from eachother, the latter's aura flickered violently before it fizzled out, and both of the former's arms hung limply. Both of them breathed heavily, and stared at eachother, Aldric with determination, Amber with fear tinged with anger. She swallowed thickly through her dry throat, but they both could hardly move. At least, until Aldric sensed Cinder approaching, sprinting towards them. Amber sensed it too, and she gathered her strength to continue fighting, but Aldric wouldn't have it. It was now or never.

Aldric lunged forward with a mighty cry, throwing a wide right, which Amber palmed away and countered with a punch to his chest. As Cinder picked up speed and grew closer, Aldric threw his head forward and rammed it into Amber's, stumbling her back. Now with space between them, Aldric reared his fist and three long blades of solid light sprouted out of his fist. He roared and charged forward, but Amber met his fist with her palm - the Maiden using her powers to catch Aldric's fist on a barrier that was separate entirely to her flickering aura. Aldric was stopped cold in his advance, a light gust of wind blasting forward like a slipstream. Aldric clenched his free hand for a follow up attack, but as he swung it around, he sensed something.

Right there, on the edge of his radar, sprinting in as fast as a speeding freight train, was a new, startlingly familiar face. It wasn't Cinder, and it wasn't Mercury or Emerald, but someone perhaps more terrifying than all three, by the simple virtue of the fact that he, unlike they, was fresh faced and full of aura.

Worse, was that Qrow Branwen came in so startlingly fast that Aldric hardly had the time to react to him. Worse than _that,_ was that the luck that had saved his life so often in the past, chose now to run out. What happened next, he saw in slow motion. Aldric raised his arm, a shield forming around it, to defend against Qrow's sudden appearance and likely opening attack, but this distraction gave Amber the chance she needed to make an attack of her own. She splayed the fingers of her free hand outwards, and small, thin streaks of electricity arced around them. With Aldric's right hand still held in her unyielding grip, and his left raising his shield to defend against Qrow, that meant he was completely open to attack, and she took advantage of this.

In a split second, she violently latched her hand onto his face, and all of the electricity she'd gathered onto it immediately jumped to him. Though it was dulled from the blow to the head, he still felt all of the lightning jumping to his soaked skin - and being directed straight for his eyes. Aldric screamed in pain as his body convulsed and he felt his eyes burn.

Then Qrow entered the equation. Qrow reached him before he could have his shield fully braced, and with Amber wrecking any remote reflection of concentration he had, Qrow had a golden opportunity to take him out. Qrow had his scythe hooked around Aldric's shield in an instant. He jerked forward, ripping Aldric from his feet, and his head from Amber's hands, as the scythe collapsed and flattened into a sword shape. The world seemed to grow completely still as it darkened, and Aldric was unable to do anything but wait for Qrow to slam his palm into Aldric's chest and arrest his momentum. As Aldric's arm swung out, Qrow swung upwards, and for all of Aldric's defenses, Qrow's sheer speed and the damage done by Amber overtook them. Aldric couldn't block what came next, he couldn't deflect it, and he couldn't avoid it.

When he hit the ground, he hit it in two pieces, his left arm several feet away, and the stump still attached to his body instantly spewing blood. Aldric felt numb as he rolled to his less injured side, the air caught in his chest and his face and eyes burning from Amber's attack. There were harsh, jagged, red burns around his eyes, both of which appeared to have sudden and harsh cataracts. The gray, cloudy film appeared to merge his irides and pupils into one mass; he couldn't see out of them at all.

Blinded and disarmed, Aldric was so out of it that he even let his radar pulse fall to pieces, and as a result he didn't even sense Qrow bringing up the blade, intent upon driving it through his back. Before he could, however, Cinder arrived, quickly followed by Mercury and Emerald. The latter two blasted the Huntsman away with a dual attack, whilst the former caught the Maiden with an arrow to the shoulder, forcing her to retreat, leaving Aldric by himself.

 _Oooh... Bleeding too much!_ Aldric coughed, his left arm - or lack thereof - and his charred eyes causing such a pain that it took all of his strength not to break down and scream. _Eyes...Can't see! Fuck! Fuck fuck! Need - see!_ He clenched his jaw and scowled deeply, his entire world as dark as a starless night sky. _Radar! Radar pulse! Focus!_

He growled through clenched teeth, spittle flying out as he gasped and wheezed in pain. It took longer than he would have liked, but his struggle bore fruit when he finally felt his aura again, buried underneath the mountains of pain welling up in his arm and his eyes, and a moment later, his radar pulse returned, granting him some functional form of vision. He couldn't see color and, because of all of the pain he was feeling, he couldn't see the finer details of the world either, it all looking like smooth clay sculptures, or cel-shaded CGI. He couldn't bring up the energy to care, however, as at least now he wasn't fully blind.

 _Arm bleeding... Stop need to bleeding... Heat - eyes - cauterize!_ He swallowed through a dry and hoarse throat, and leaned on his good elbow, pressing his single remaining hand and planted on the ground. He commanded the Power Glove to replicate until he had a disc-shaped object in the dirt, which he picked up and pressed to his bloody stump, it flaring up in a sharp, stinging pain as he pressed the goop into it. _Light... Sun, hot, fuck fuck fuck!_

As a battle raged around him, he shut his destroyed eyes tight, though it hardly made a difference in the amount of light that got in, and let out a long, pained groan. "Oh... God..." This was going to fucking hurt.

Three deep breaths were the only delay he gave himself before he used his semblance to crank up the heat, almost exactly as he'd learned he could do with silverware on the Aviator. In seconds the nanites in his meaty, bloody stump went from a dull gray to a bright, white hot, and his stump began smoldering and hissing loudly, as he charred and cauterized it; it immediately began swelling. He screamed out in pain as, on the edge of his dulled, pained, and blinded senses, he sensed Qrow trying like mad to get back to Amber, but Mercury and Emerald were both attacking him with all of their remaining might, the former keeping him on the defensive and the latter flooding his senses with phantoms. Aldric's voice shook and quivered with pain as he cauterized his wound - even Cubone's vicious, scarring attacks on his chest had paled in comparison to this burning pain.

 _"GAAAAAH FUUUUUUUUCK!"_ He screamed.

 _New solution - new answer - uh problem time now!_ He gasped. _Oh... I'm... God Jesus Shit Fuck... I'm blind... I'm blind, fuck!_ He raised his head, hair plastered to his sweat-slick forehead, pointedly _not_ focusing his radar on his stump, thinking about anything _but_ whether or not his aura could heal his eyes, and absolutely refusing to think on the fact that his hand got _stuck_ to the burned flesh and he had to tear it off with a light shluck. _Qrow's cold - now, god, fuck... now. Not good, not_ -. Some part of him was certain that his lack of coherent thought was a very bad sign, but he was too busy trying to do _anything_ that would even remotely resemble coming up with a battle plan for how royally fucked this situation had gotten. He had lost his eyes _and_ an arm, and it was at this point only through sheer force of will that he hadn't lost consciousness.

 _Emerald she smart, masking our she god uh- faces! To him, masking, ow. Not problem, no. Problem..._ He grunted, breathing heavily through tightly clenched teeth as he hauled himself to his feet. The pain of effort made his radar pulse turn fuzzy, everything going from clay sculptures to badly cel-shaded CGI. It took all of his strength to get back to his feet, and even then he listed from side to side, and nearly stumbled back to his knees. He had to stand there for several seconds, just breathing, before he could get some kind of focus back in his radar pulse and see things somewhat clearly again.

 _Qrow hold no - not hold rear - back! Not holding back! God this is fucking cold - painful! Hurts! Cold? What the fuck?_ He shook his head, trying to clear it of the haze of pain. _Cinder... Cinder'_ s _trying to kill Amber. Actively, oh... God damn it, should have coming seen... Think, think think think. Complex, get_ _back. Need mind. Body shot. Shot? Working? Not? Fuck! Gonna die!_ He felt a great pain shoot into his eyes, forcing him to fall to his knees and bury his head in his hand with a loud bark of pain. A few seconds passed, and as he caught his breath, he felt the pain slowly flood out of his body, allowing him to let out all of the air in his lungs in one great gasp, and his brain to no longer be hazed by pain.

 _Adrenaline must be kicking in... Thank god. How - how do I single handedly beat back Qrow, gouge Amber's eyes out, and give Cinder enough time to do that transfer thing?_ A pause, his entire body shook and convulsed from pain, as he shakily swiped his hand through his sweaty hair and got it out of his face. _Or... Do I even **want** to let her do it, now that Qrow's here, and such a set back could easily be set up, and not get tied to me?_ Without thinking, he reached up and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

 _Eyes... Shit._ But even as he thought this, he felt the pain slowly fade away from behind his eyes. His hand came away wet and covered in a thick, warm, and viscuous liquid. _Not good. I'm fucking blind! Fuck!_ He coughed again, though now, as his body dumped all of its available adrenaline into his blood, the pain began to slowly melt away. Still present, but not nearly as crippling as it had been moments ago.

 _Alright..._ He grunted, clenching his remaining fist tightly as he straightened his back, sweat pouring off of his body and blood slowly seeping out of his cauterized wounds. _Let's prioritize..._ He thought, feeling his brain come back under his control.

Priority one: Keeping up his act. He had to keep the Legion thinking he was on their side, so that meant attacking Amber. Emerald and Mercury were taking hits, but they were each giving just as good as they got, and Mercury was here in his element: There was no rule against killing Qrow, and as such the assassin's son could do what he did best, and _be an assassin._ That led to priority two: Keep Qrow alive. Whether or not Amber survived, if Qrow died, he would have no standing with the League, whatsoever, and his goals would be all the harder to carry out. Priority three was of a similar vein: Ensuring Amber didn't die. This was a victory he was, given the current circumstances, willing to not gain, but if at all possible, he didn't want to let Cinder become a goddess. He was honestly afraid of what that would do. What all this meant, was that he had to join the fight again, and his plan thusly became simple: Blind Amber, convince Emerald to go to Plan B, keep Qrow at bay - probably with the rest of the Legion's help - until he could hopefully sever the connection as he did in the show.

Problem: He wasn't dumb. He knew he was _far_ beyond actually going in and fighting now. Any other injury, and he may have been willing to try and go in, but down an _arm?_ He wasn't Piccolo, he couldn't regrow his arm, and he wasn't Raiden, he couldn't fight on _without_ said arm. Worse was that his arm wasn't all he'd lost - both of his eyes were burned out and he could see absolutely nothing. His world was visions from the radar pulse, sound, and touch, now, and he couldn't focus enough to figure out if his eyes were really destroyed, or just really badly damaged. So, in short, going in hot and trying to fight either of those two hand to hand wasn't just a piss poor idea, it was a _suicidal_ one. Fortunately though, while not this exact situation, he had planned for something generally resembling him either being unable or unwilling to get in close. This, however, arose a second problem: He was in so much pain that his control would be shot, he couldn't do anything fancy.

 _But where quality suffers..._ Thought Aldric, his senses focusing on, and his head turning in the direction of, his severed arm, upon which the red white and blue disc still stood affixed. _Quantity can make up._

How would he blind Amber, and get Qrow to decide to beat feet instead of standing and fighting?

He'd just have to throw _everything_ at them.

With a pained grunt, and another sharp lance of pain jumping through his bloody, burned stump, Aldric thrust his hand forward and, when he felt his semblance drag against his severed arm, clenched his fist, and then yanked backwards. As his severed arm flew back at him as if it had been catapulted, Qrow continued trying like mad to get through Emerald and Mercury; but while they were taking hits, including Mercury sporting a terrible gash on the right side of his chest that bled through his armor, they were still keeping back the Huntsman, while Cinder engaged Amber. Aldric could sense that Amber was faltering more and more with every strike she took, she too was sporting injuries, and if the look on her face was any indication, was becoming more and more aware of her mortality when compared against Cinder's less taxed stamina and aura. Even though the hazy radar pulse, Aldric could see that she wore a look of terror as she leapt out of the way of an explosive fire bolt, an arrow lodged in her hip and one of her shoulders, both leaking blood around the shaft.

Aldric didn't have much time. Cinder wore a look of pride and a wide smirk, she was going to go for the kill any second now, and the moment that happened, Qrow was dead. So when Aldric's severed arm reached him, his shield dissipated and he used his semblance to pull the Power Glove off of the severed extremity. He collected it into a viscous orb that hovered over his still functioning hand. With a single thought, he made the command for the nanites to begin self replicating, and immediately the orb floating over his palm began pulsating, growing slowly - no doubt eating the small particulates of dust and debris in the air being thrown around by the battle.

He would only get one shot. He was so injured that this was all he could do, all he could try. After this, he couldn't fight anymore. If he missed, Cinder would become a goddess. He had to pull out all the stops - all of his strength and power. It could knock him out cold, but he just needed it to work, not work well. Aldric closed his burned eyes, squaring his shoulders and bracing his feet out to the sides, as he took in a long, deep breath to steady his rapidly beating heart. He let the breath out, and felt the world slow down, his adrenaline spiking and turning his reflexes into overdrive. Another breath in, and he became deaf to the explosions and gunshots around him. Though he was still blind, his eyes snapped open, and the gray, cloudy film that covered them melting away, appearing as if having been injected with black oil. Two wide, raging onyx orbs locked onto Qrow first, before snapping to Amber and Cinder, the latter of whom he sensed was on the retreat, dodging a volley of lightning from the wounded and ailing Maiden.

 _One shot._ His red, sweaty face settled into a fierce frown.

With a loud battle cry, Aldric launched himself forward. The ground exploded beneath him and the air was filled with a thunderclap as he broke the sound barrier. He crossed the battlefield in an instant, soaring over Mercury and reaching Qrow. The Huntsman, befitting of his natural speed, was able to see him coming, but he misunderstood Aldric's intention, thinking him to be on the attack, and not trying to set up the battle to end as fast as possible. Thus, when he threw up his scythe in a defensive manner, Aldric merely cracked a grin, and thrust his arm forward. The Power Glove popped like a balloon and quickly enveloped the scythe's blade in the pulsating mass of self replicating nanites, instantly becoming deformed as they began consuming it.

Aldric continued on straight past Qrow, completely failing his initial idea of turning directions on a dime and burning for Amber and Cinder. Instead he slammed into the ground, tearing a large divot out of the dirt road, some of the debris making it in between his armor plates and opening up all manner of wounds on his chest. He bounced once, but used his semblance to recover, skidding to a halt by driving his hand into the ground. He spun around to face Amber, as Qrow was engaged by Emerald and Mercury as one, and with his weapon rapidly losing its primary function, he was instantly on the defensive, cursing loudly.

With another scowl, Aldric blasted forward again, this time with his hand reared, three long, gray blades of hardlight stretching out from in between his knuckles. As he flew towards her, Cinder sensed his approach and dodged out of the way, but her eyes grew wide when she saw what she thought was a rabid look in Aldric's bared, bloody teeth, his discolored, grievously burned eyes, and the metallic sheen of the solid light blades on his one functioning limb. She instantly concluded that Aldric wasn't in his right mind, and knew that if she didn't act, he may be the one to kill Amber, thus ruining her plans. So in a battle of her speed versus his semblance, she thrust her hand forward, a small ball of fire forming in it, as he reached Amber and swung his arm around in a wide arc.

The world seemed to slow down as the fireball left her hands, and Aldric's claws grew closer to Amber's face. All at once, the bolt of fire hit Aldric's right side, he was knocked off course, and Amber leaned backwards in an attempt to dodge his attack. The result of this was a combination of bad luck and horrible timing: instead of burying into Amber's eye sockets and stopping before her brain, the claws were dragged across her face, from side to side.

In slow motion, Aldric watched with his radar pulse as he carved three long, bloody gashes from one side of her face, to her first eye, over her nose, and to the other side, before they reached the second eye. In a display he already knew he would never forget, he saw both of her eyes split open, and begin freely leaking blood and vitreous humor. He completed the swing with a wide, spraying arc of blood, and Amber stumbled back, the scream that came out of her throat was unlike any he'd ever heard, an equal mixture of abject terror, incomparable pain, and the fear of imminent death, as she pressed her hands against her freely bleeding face, trying desperately to staunch the flow, as if that would magically repair her eyes.

The entire battle seemed to screech to a halt at the sound of Amber's shrieks of incomparable terror. Aldric hit the ground with a pained grunt and felt his senses again grow so fuzzy that all he could 'see' was fuzzy masses, like clay blobs being looked at through a low-quality camera. He gasped in pain as he felt his stump flare up, he was barely able to keep from losing consciousness, desperately rolling around on the ground to put out the fires Cinder had shot him with. He sensed Qrow's head instantly revolve around to face Amber even as his scythe disintegrated in his hands. His eyes opened wide when he saw her stumbling to the ground, desperately pressing against her freely, copiously bleeding face. Even Mercury and Emerald paused briefly to take in the image, before they exchanged glances, and pushed back against Qrow, forcing him back, dodging the gunfire from the only still functioning part of his weapon.

Cinder, however, was only barely able to contain her unbound fury, as her bright orange eyes went wide, instantly locking onto the screaming Fall Maiden. She didn't call out in a big 'no!', but with her body language, she may as well have. She sprinted over to the maiden as Aldric labored to his hand and knees, listing from side to side, his entire body feeling like it was an enormous, throbbing bruise.

 _What was the next part of my... Master plan, again?_ He asked himself, breathing so fast that his head began to feel fuzzy. _"Oh..."_ He grunted, feeling out with his radar pulse, trying to clear it up so things were less grainy. Cinder was above Amber, the two of them mere inches from the side of the massive crater that had been formed earlier in the fight, the bug already squirming in the Maiden-to-be's hand, Amber in too much pain, and without functioning eyes, to even notice. Qrow was - _Oh shit._

He'd fucked up.

Aldric had _fucked up._

Qrow was alive, he had at least that much, but there was a sickle in between his shoulder blades, so while he yet lived, the same couldn't be completely said for the other two. Mercury had absorbed a monstrous gunshot to his legs to open up Emerald to shatter Qrow's aura. Now the assassin's son was on the ground, one leg blown apart and heavily bleeding from the knee down, the other sending out sparks of electricity every few moments. He was trying to get to his feet, crawling towards what looked like Emerald's other pistol, which sat feet from its owner.

Who lay on the ground in front of the kneeling Huntsman, her eyes glossed over, a trickle of blood leaking out of her mouth, her body completely limp, and bleeding copiously from a fist-sized hole in her chest.

Unfortunately, while Qrow now effectively had won his battle, the knife in his back wasn't his only injury, and all added together made him briefly fall to a knee, gasping for breath. As the huntsman took a second too long to recover from his injury, Aldric could sense more and more energy draining out of Amber and being poured into Cinder; and as Aldric felt his heart sinking to his chest, and his head growing even lighter from the pain and the bloodloss, he could only beg of himself: What could he do _now?_

Then, in a blink-and-you-miss it moment, the craterside collapsed, and Cinder slid downwards, her victorious smirk turning to an expression of shock as her feet were torn from underneath her by a rockslide. The oily black mass that connected her to the maiden stretched taut like rubber, and Amber herself was dragged by the head to the side of the crater, screaming allthewhile, as now the pain on her face was joined by rough treatment of her neck.

Aldric vomited when, through the radar pulse, he saw her actually _open_ her destroyed eyes as she was dragged across the ground. Her eyeballs were partially sunken and pale, the color having been drained from them just as the blood had been. They still freely leaked blood, jelly and tears, and gave her a nearly ghastly appearance. She, appropriately, looked as if her eyes had been gouged out, and now her face was completely covered in blood from the eyebrows down. Seeing this, and after voiding his stomach, Aldric collapsed from a combination of pain, exhaustion, and blood loss. He could feel that he was rapidly losing the battle to stay conscious. He sensed Qrow recovering, his eyes snapping over to Amber and the black mass connecting her to Cinder, before shooting down to all that remained of his scythe: The haft.

With a scowl, Qrow darted forward, tossing the haft up into the air and gripping it like a spear, before he heaved it forward. The front edge of the haft, squirming with Aldric's nanites, hit the connective tissue between Cinder and Amber, landing inches away from the ghastly face of the natural Fall Maiden. As Cinder climbed back over the craterside, the nanites, alongside the jagged edge of the haft, ate through the tissue and severed the connection. Qrow then scooped Amber up off of the ground, grunting as he stretched his injured back muscles, but nevertheless continuing on, not even breaking stride or recovering his destroyed weapon as he charged away.

Cinder scrambled to her feet and, with a livid expression, fired after him, one of her eyes aglow with the fiery aura of her newfound powers. She launched fire bolts and several arrows after the Huntsman, even detonating the ground beneath his feet, trying less to kill him than she was trying to finish off Amber through blast damage, but the Huntsman dodged what he could, and took the brunt of what he couldn't, before he vanished into the woods to the south. None of the people present in the Legion of Doom even remotely capable of chasing after him.

The battle now over, Aldric felt everything drain out of his body. All of the energy and tension, all of the adrenaline, even the painful pressure in his eyes flooded out of him, and he collapsed into an unconscious heap.


	17. Recovery

Chapter 16

* * *

Smoke. Or so it was. Or was it? What was smoke? Or was there such a need for it?

Need, that triggered something, a strange feeling inside. A need, but for what? So many questions, so few answers.

He was surrounded by smoke, it smelled awful and acrid, but there was something else in the smoke, an irony smell.

Opening his eyes - when had he closed them? - he saw that the smoke surrounding him was a deep red in color. It was lit up from below and within, casting everything in powerful shadows and making him blind to anything within a few inches of his face. Strange, where was he?

There was a sound filling the air. A squelching, tearing sound, followed by some sort of thick liquid splattering against the ground, and then the acrid, irony smell grew more powerful. Lacking any other option, he followed these sounds, reaching blindly in front of him and making wide, sweeping motions with his legs, to ensure he didn't step on or over something. This turned out to be the right option, as his foot hit something to his right. He dropped to his hands and knees, but found himself kneeling in something wet, thick, and warm.

Blinking, he lifted his hand, and saw it covered in a thick layer of blood, as if it had been painted onto him with oil. When he lowered his hand, he found his eyes greeted by the ghastly appearance of a woman with dark skin, her face carved open like a Halloween pumpkin, three long gashes stretching from one side of her face to the other, and covering it in a thin sheen of blood. Her eyes were deflated, looking as if they'd been popped. Her jaw was slack, lending to her ghastly appearance, and she listed from side to side, head lolling about limply.

He took a single step back - when had he gotten to his feet? - but found himself halted by something else. This was also warm, but not in the came way as the blood covering his hands. He whirled around and saw, looming above him, a rotund man with a thick, bushy beard, and dark hair that absorbed what little light was around them. The rotund man looked down on him with a disappointed expression marring his wrinkled face, before he shook his head and turned his back on him.

He blinked twice, before he recognized the man - reaching forward, desperate to follow him, before he realized that the arm he reached forward with was bleeding freely. His eyes snapped down to it, seeing it missing from below the elbow and spewing out blood like a slasher flick. He would have screamed in fright, but then the woman grabbed him and spun him around to face her.

She mouthed something, but he was in such pain that he couldn't see it clearly. The smoke grew thicker and thicker, and she tried again to communicate with him, but as the smoke condensed around them, the bright red lights grew brighter, and the smoke thicker, and before he -

* * *

Aldric snapped back into consciousness with a rough shout, his eyes refusing open, bound shut by tightly wound bandages and gauze. Everything in the large, hotel-suite like room he found himself in, jumped and shook a few inches as he lashed out with his semblance. He sensed a stout man a few inches away from him, who skidded back a foot from the force of Aldric's unintentional display. The fighter's head snapped around, his brain not having started all the way and not yet understanding of why he couldn't see.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, "whoa, boy." Said a voice with an elderly tremor. "Calm down, you're safe now. You're in the Garden."

Aldric did his best to still himself, but his eyes not opening and a burning, stinging sensation in his left arm ensured he wouldn't grow completely calm. "What happened to me? I can't see."

"You were in one hell of a fight, kid." Said the man, as the memories slowly began to flow back. "Be ready, because what happened to you isn't pretty. Your arm was cut off at the shoulder, and your cauterizing of it, plus the time it took you to get to me, I couldn't try to reattach it." He explained, as Aldric tried feeling for his aura, to pull up his radar pulse. "As to your eyes, they got burned out. The physical damage was focused primarily on the eyes themselves, so while there won't be any noticeable facial scarring... The fact of the matter is we had to amputate. By the time you got here they were already badly infected."

Aldric stilled, his expression turning to one of shock. "You cut out my _eyes?"_ He deadpanned, as his radar pulse kicked in, and gave him a view of the room, in much more minute detail than he had been able to get in the midst of all of the pain and agony during the fight.

The old man was to his left, swapping out the bandages on Aldric's arm. Aldric couldn't see in color with the pulse - though he intended to correct this if he could - but he could see that the small mass of bandages to the doctor's right was discolored and darkened, likely by Aldric's blood. The wrinkled man nodded, "you put that much blood and dirt in already burned tissue and you're asking for a bad infection, which you _got_." He explained. "It was either cut them out and have a higher chance of survival, or leave them in and risk you dying... And your friends dropped quite a few coins to ensure that didn't happen."

 _Friends... Right. Emerald's dead, isn't she? They wouldn't want to lose another if they could help it... But how the hell do they expect me to do anything, blinded and with one arm?_ Aldric grunted, slowly collapsing back into the pillows propping him up.

"How long have I been out?" He asked, barely above a whisper; he felt out with his radar pulse, trying to find out where he was in the Garden. He could tell he was underground, and when he sensed upwards, he figured out pretty quickly he deeper than he'd been before, in what he assumed to be the suites, instead of the armory or the restaurant. _How many coins is Mercury dropping for all of this, I wonder?_

"Well..." The doctor voiced, as he finished unwrapping Aldric's arm. A quick peak showed him that most of the burned tissue had been scraped away during his most recent comatic nap, and what remained had been stitched together. It swelled up an ugly purple and red, and blood was seeping out from in between the sutures. "Your partners said you'd suffered this injury about twelve hours before you got here. It's been twenty four since then... So..." He shrugged, nodding his head to the side. "Day and a half."

 _I guess aura doesn't let arms grow back._ Aldric frowned, "surprised that hasn't healed up." He said. "Usually, it's a day or two and I'm good."

The doctor shook his wrinkled, gray head, as he wrapped the stump in new, fresh bandages. "Wounds this serious, takes longer to heal. Even with aura. And I didn't do you any favors, having to remove the burned tissue. Truly you've only been _really_ healing for about six hours, now. The rest of you isn't as bad, but you've been a little sluggish." He harrumphed. "I'd hate to see the other guy."

Aldric guessed that was a fair enough point, as he searched the Garden for the Legion. "I'm surprised I'm not in so much pain."

"You're high." The doctor deadpanned. "I've got you on the good stuff."

 _I bet I'll be dipping into that Oxy by the end of the week._ Aldric thought. "Thank you." He grunted, pressing his good hand to his head and pinching the bridge of his nose.

But the doctor shrugged. "It's my job. You give me coin, I give you what I've got." He said. "I've seen worse."

Aldric smirked, "worse than no arm and no eyes?"

"At least it was a clean cut." The man countered. "I've seen people get mauled by Grimm. Much worse." He nodded, squinting at the tightly wound bandages. "Much worse." He tied them off. "But they were fine, and so will you."

As he spoke, Aldric located Mercury. He was ambulatory on a pair of crutches, exiting the armory, a bag slung over his shoulder, two new cybernetic legs inside of it, thumping against his back with every step he took. A look of moderate pain graced his face.

 _Lieutenant Dan's got new legs..._ Aldric turned his focus to his own stump. "What's the skinny on me getting a robot arm?"

"Eh?" The Doctor gave him the most befuddled look.

Aldric shook his head, "cybernetic replacement. How does that work?"

"Ah." He nodded, "yeah. They forked over the coin for that, but you needed to be conscious for it, so we could get you fitted and calibrated." He nodded to the side, leaning back in his chair. "Obviously, you're not a Huntsman, so we can't go for your medical records there to speed up the process. It'll take a day or two to get everything we need, plus maybe a third to get your arm built. Maybe longer if you request anything non-standard... But that's just based off of experience." He said, placing his tools on a small metal tray to his right. "I'm a doctor, not an engineer.

"Your eyes, though, that'll be the long haul. Lost limbs are common place, it doesn't take long to do the neuro-calibrations. An hour at most, and you're done. But with your eyes, it's a lot more sensitive electronics, and you need a pretty invasive surgery to get them implanted correctly. You're looking at a few months at least, before you get a new pair shipped in."

 _A few fucking months._ Thought Aldric, breathlessly. _Jesus._

He nodded. "I'll keep that in mind." _Thirty six-odd hours... I've lost a day and a half. If Qrow's even gotten the message, I've only six more days to meet him. Three days to get an arm built, that's two remaining... Fuck._ Now he had a choice to make: Try to make the meetings each night without the arm, and have more chances to find Qrow, or play it safe, get the arm and get as close to full strength as he could, considering his newly acquired blindness, but only have two chances to meet up with Qrow. _"Fuck..."_ He groaned, sliding his hand through his hair, which was bound by the bandages wrapped around his head, almost like a bandanna. "Can I -"

"I wouldn't recommend it." The Doctor said, predicting Aldric's question. "But less than a tenth of you even follow Doctor's orders." He planted two pill bottles on his night stand. "I know you don't read braile, so I improvised a bit with the labels. Give me your hand." Aldric did so, deciding it would be easier to humor the man than to try and explain his radar pulse. The man placed his hand on the bottle's cap, and Aldric felt a raised section in the shape of a cross."These here, got a plus sign on the cap. These are antibiotics." He explained, "take two a day. These..." He lifted Aldric's hand and placed it on the second bottle. "Are pain killers. Minus sign. No more than three a day." He gave Aldric his hand back. "If you can manage it, stay here and see me before you go to bed each night. Now that you're awake and your aura's flowing properly, you should heal up a bit faster, but I'd rather keep an eye on it just in case."

 _I'll ignore the fact that I'm talking to a criminal assassin doctor, and instead just nod yes._ Aldric nodded, sensing Mercury approaching his floor, and the doctor gathering up his equipment. _I'm also going to have to see how far down I can focus this radar pulse._ He thought, as he sat up, the blankets pooling around his waste, revealing his chest, otherwise bare save for the thick bandages and gauze that were wrapped around it. _Right now, I can't see color, and I can't see printed text... But seeing **in general** is just our eyes taking in photons, and our brains making sense of the information. Color, looking at a sheet of paper, it's all just light bouncing around... So, given my track record, I should be able... At some point... To focus it down enough that I can sense how the photons are radiating, and see the color in the air, the text on paper... Shit to_ do.

The doctor warned him not to stress the stitches as he left. Aldric could understand his warning, he could feel the tender flesh of his stump stretching against the thick stitches keeping it from breaking open and spewing blood like he were in some slasher flick. His entire body was sore, appropriately feeling as if he'd been put through the meat grinder. Thanks to his radar pulse burning a real-time 3D image of the entire room into his brain, he didn't even need to look around for his clothes. He already sensed where they were in relation to him, 'seeing' that a replacement shirt had been provided, and was laying neatly atop his folded longcoat. He wondered who among the Legion had been thoughtful enough to grab it, especially considering that only Cinder was in any right state after the fight.

He got to his feet and slowly, painfully sidled over to the chair. He bent down, stressing his sore, bruised body as he did so, and grabbed the shirt with his good hand, before sliding it on. But as he reached down for his coat, he paused, furrowing his brow underneath the thick bandages covering the upper half of his face.

 _I wonder..._ He thought, focusing his senses on the freshly bandaged stump. _Fuck it, what do I have to lose?_ He stood back up straight, and felt out with his semblance. The coat quickly entered his senses as his radar pulse washed over it. _Visualizing is half the battle..._ He thought, seeing in his mind's eye, his arm, as if it had never been cut off in the first place. _I wonder if my semblance is helping with the phantom pains, or it's too early for that._ He thought, as he stooped over, visualizing the phantom arm reaching for his coat and grasping it by the collar.

To his amazement, the coat responded. When he picked it up with his 'hand', it moved as he directed it to. Even the sleeve of his shirt filled out as if an arm were in it. He smirked, reaching forward with his good hand and sliding the coat on. The left arm hung limply as he stopped focusing his semblance, and the weight of the coat felt off without an arm to fill it. It felt as if he had a small bag hanging off of his shoulder, too light to be a nuisance, but heavy enough to be noticeable.

When he looked down to the chair his clothes had been on, he saw, stashed behind it, his armor was there, too. He skipped everything but the boots, and made sure the small backup vial of his Power Glove was still in its pocket, before he turned to the door. He made it to the door to his room just as Mercury was passing by. The assassin's son looked surprised to see him awake.

Aldric nodded to the bag hanging from his shoulders. "You want help with that?" He asked. Mercury cast a brief glance to Aldric's loosely swinging left sleeve, but shrugged, and slid the bag off of his back. Aldric caught it, surprised at how light it was, considering the heavy-duty machinery inside. "So how is she?" He asked.

"Cinder's pissed." He said, as Aldric followed alongside him.

"At?"

"You." He gave Aldric a warning glance. "You clawed the Maiden's eyes out. She didn't feel confident in trying the fast way in getting her powers, and that meant she only got half, before that Huntsman did whatever it was he did." He intoned.

"I..." Aldric faltered, before he shook his head and shrugged, expression neutral. "The Maiden burned out my eyes, that scythe guy had just cut my arm off, and I'd burned the stump to keep it from bleeding too much. I wasn't exactly lucid."

"That and Emerald biting the bullet are pretty much why you woke up in the Garden and not on that dirt road." Mercury revealed, as the two limped and walked over the carpeted floors, down the corridor. "She's _pissed,_ make no mistake about it... But I'll be damned if you aren't her weakness."

Aldric frowned, giving Mercury a quick glance. "Oh?"

The assassin's son looked ahead, nodding. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed. She's not in love with you, by any means, but you're like..." He frowned, "a pet. I'd say."

"Oh, okay. I'm a dog." Aldric deadpanned. "That's not... Emasculating at all." His shoulders slumped. "So I have the choice between a terrifying assassin who tried to kill me... Or a newly minted demi-goddess who tried to kill me by proxy... And who thinks I tried to rob her of her powers." A beat, "by that math, if I get married in this world it will be to the woman who tries to cut my dick off." He deadpanned.

Mercury laughed at this. "It was quiet without you, Aldric." He said, "but, yeah. She lets you slide with a lot more than she let me or Em do. You're a smart guy, you've noticed that, yeah?"

Aldric nodded. "Full disclosure, I thought it was because of my freaky Earth aura surplus powers." He admitted.

Mercury gave a sidewards nod, "probably at first. But then you started thinking in front of her. Got her interested." He nodded to a door coming up. "This is mine." Aldric and Mercury unlocked the door and slid inside the assassin's son's suite. "Just drop 'em on the bed."

"So how many coins did this cost you?" Aldric asked, as he dropped the sack on the king-sized mattress, and found himself a seat, as Mercury took up station at a desk.

Mercury chuckled, "not nearly enough to be worrying. Dad got _glass,_ Aldric. We're fine."

"Glass?"

"A better way to ensure no one has to haul around hundreds of tons of metal. One thousand platinum to a gold. One thousand gold to a glass. They don't have anything bigger because few people besides my father ever got glass alone, let alone a thousand."

"Dad was a regular John Wick, wasn't he?" What Aldric felt was more important, though, was that there were apparently more just like Mercury's father, all apparently just as good. 'Glass Gardeners', as it were.

"I assume that was a good assassin where you're from, and yes." Mercury nodded, twisting his single functional leg out of its socket, and dropping the mangled thing to the floor, before he reached over behind him and grabbed at the bag. "There was a reason Cinder looked for him... And an even bigger reason she took _me."_ He said, a prideful smirk on his face.

Aldric hummed, "so where is she, anyways?"

"Cinder?" Mercury asked, the pride turning to humor. "Wasn't hit too hard during the fight. Not like you and I, and definitely not like Emerald. I dropped a few names for her, she's on the main level setting up a meeting with Torchwick. We're going to lay low here until we're all healed up and ready to head back to hit up Adam Taurus again. From there..." He frowned, "probably going to get to work tracking down and finishing off the Maiden. After that, it's need to know."

Aldric nodded, "I remember seeing Emerald down and out with the radar pulse." He said, "where did she end up?"

"A bonfire." Said the assassin's son. "Cinder burned the body."

"Oh." Aldric deadpanned. "Wonderful." So that was what he had to look forward to. "Who will I piss off now?"

Mercury shrugged, "I'm sure you'll find someone. Torchwick's girl would probably let you."

"Oh god..." If Aldric's eyes worked - or were even in his skull - he would have rolled them. "Don't remind me about that, please. That joke I made earlier, about a woman cutting my dick off? I wouldn't put it past her... At all." He and Mercury shared a chuckle.

Aldric leaned back, letting out a long yawn. "Well... If there's nothing more, I think I'm going to retreat back to my room." He said, getting to his feet. "Need to figure out how to fine tune my radar."

"Good luck, Aldric."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I am an idiot._

 _I am a goddamn idiot._

 _In the show, the 'battle' lasted about five minutes, and then Qrow showed up. Here, Cinder switched tactics from ambush to attrition, and my incredibly intelligent ass didn't even consider what that would mean for Qrow's arrival. Us magically changing up the game plan wouldn't mean he'd show up later, why would it?_

 _For my lapse in judgement, I got my fucking arm cut off... And now there are pits where my eyes should be.  
_

 _I'm not kidding - I'm like... Big Boss, right now, just minus the shrapnel in my skull.  
So, Bucky Barnes, I guess.  
Anyways. Arm: Gone. Eyes: Gouged out. Irony: Noted. _

_Qrow cut the arm off on arrival, and Amber electrocuted the holy living shit out of my face; how I didn't scar is beyond me.  
I got hit with that bad luck shit **baaaaad**._

 _And then literally everything I did to try and fix the situation made it worse. I had to put him on the defensive, so I used the Power Glove to eat his scythe and give Mercury and Emerald a tactical advantage... But forgot that he's a fucking badass Huntsman who was fighting two exhausted teenagers._

 _Emerald's dead now._

 _Then I initially intended to just poke Amber's eyes out, but Cinder freaked out and shot me, so now it looks like I went Freddy Krueger on her - half of her face is gone and her eyes looked like they got sawed in half. I think I had nightmares about it._

 _Then we hit more bad luck.  
Well, depending on your point of view, at least: All of the damage from the battle meant the ground was unstable, and Qrow being there for so long meant it was only a matter of time before stuff went south. The ground collapsed underneath her, gave Qrow time enough to sever her connection with Amber, and get the eff out of dodge. _

_Bad luck for the **Legion**... Fortuitous turn of events for the League. Win some lose some._

 _But Cinder's pissed, and apparently considered leaving me there because of it, but decided against it. I guess I'm still worth something, but I'm pretty sure I'll bleed out the ears once she gets back.  
_

 _Now we're back in the Garden, a doctor gave me some hardcore drugs for the pain, stitched my stump up, and cut my fucking eyes out 'so they wouldn't get infected'. Couldn't reattach the arm, though. When it got cut off, I torched the stump to cauterize it and stop the bleeding, and apparently the Legion of Doom didn't store the severed limb well. So I'll have to pull a Winter Soldier and swap it out with a cybernetic replacement.  
And here I was trying to avoid too much magnetic shit in my arsenal. _

_Or, wait, graphene isn't magnetic. CNT's even less so.  
I'll have to look into that. I think Remnant's advanced enough to have those... But I doubt it'll be cheap. Probably have to drop more than a few coins for it.  
_

 _Oh, and apparently Mercury has even more coins than I thought. There's a whole hierarchy thing going on, platinum, gold, and glass. One glass is a million platinums (Jesus!), and Mercury implied he has **a lot** of glass (Christ!).  
So, remember earlier, I mentioned I wanted to try and swipe some of Mercury's coins? I think that simultaneously became simpler, and harder. I'll have to look into that more._

 _As a side note: I **can** use my semblance as a replacement for the arm - it's wicked simple, harkening back to just visualizing it - but it takes a little concentration to do, and since I'm preparing my Edward Elric impression... Why bother? Maybe it'll be good for a party trick, but... I dunno what use potentially having more than one limbs could have, especially since it's infinitely easier to skip a TK limb and just go for direct manipulation.  
Side note to the side note: How many more cyborgs do I know? I've name dropped three and I'm not sure who's the most appropriate for the situation._

 _Of a similar vein, my semblance can help me somewhat get around my lack of eyes, too.  
Thank the radar pulse, for that. 360 degree, tactile, 3D view, of everything around me for an average of ten or so meters? I'm pretty much some kind of unholy mixture of Neji Hyuuga and Daredevil, at this point._

 _I had some trouble figuring out how to tune it so I could see things in color, though. Originally I saw everything in this... Sepia-like tone, it was all a uniform color. I didn't even see shadows or differences in light, and I couldn't try to read things or look at TV screens - I'd just see blank slates on both of them. But now that I don't have any fucking eyes, that won't fly anymore._

 _Fortunately, it only took a few hours to figure this one out. The long and short of it is that, while nowhere near mastered, I've been able to 'feel' atoms and such for a while now - it's how I was able to heat up the power glove and cauterize my arm, after all. Going on my whole theories about 'anything with mass', I know photons have mass. They're weird in that they both do and do not, but they **do** have mass, just a really... Really small amount of it. And since color is basically just photons radiating at different intensities... Strictly speaking, if I plug those two into all of the tactile stuff with my radar pulse, I should be able to see in color again. _

_The result?_

 _I can **definitely** see in color, that much is true. I can read words on a book and make sense of images on a television/computer screen (wouldn't be writing this if I couldn't!)... But I can also see in **more** color than I used to be able to.  
I can see infrared and ultraviolet light too._

 _That actually freaked me the fuck out, when I started seeing the laser shooting out of the TV remote, and all of the wacky technicolor stuff floating around in the air. I thought the doctor's pain meds had kicked in again. Looked like I was on acid, or in the Doctor Strange movie. I cannot explain how it looks any better, though. It's like trying to describe color without any reference points._

 _It took me the most time out of all to figure out how to focus my newfound sight to just the visible spectrum, in regards to human eyes, and such. Any lapse in focus, though - acid trip. Maybe this will prove useful, one day - I can see lasers and shit, now - but at the moment, it just fries my brain and freaks me out._

 _Point is: I have no eyes, but I can see - arguably better than I have **ever** seen before. Describing going from my eyes to solely relying on the radar pulse... I'd say it's like living your entire life looking through a little coffee stirrer straw, and then being able to take that straw away. _

_Side note: I'm going to have to put some serious thought and consideration in figuring out how to use the radar pulse as a listening device, of sorts. With the shit I've made it do so far, sensing the vibrations in the air and translating it into sound I can understand isn't too far off.  
Side note to the side note: It still hasn't escaped me how I'm doing godlike shit with my powers, despite having had them less than half a year. I haven't forgotten my old ideas, and now with how much I'm going to have to rely upon them to function, I'm all the more scared and worried about my 'burn out' theory._

 _But, I'm off track._

 _Cinder wasn't hit nearly as bad as Mercury and I - Mercury got his legs fucking blown off! - and all of us weren't hit nearly as hard as Emerald._

 _'Cause she's dead._

 _I do not know what to think about this. It's been long enough a day as it is._

 _But Cinder's out setting up another meet with Torchwick. After that, and after we recover, we're going for Adam Taurus. After that? Fuck if I know, that's approaching canon time, and the Legion's activities up until the Vytal tournament were kind of vague. Will we be replenishing our numbers, maybe? Who would replace Emerald? I have no clue.  
But, between then and now, I hope to meet Qrow. _

_Problem: What with my string of colossal fuck ups... I'm worried about my chances in such a meetup._

 _Seriously: I clawed Amber's eyes out and was instrumental in almost killing Qrow - the dude got a knife to the back because I disarmed him!  
I basically kicked the Hulk in the groin, and am now expecting him to **not** be mad.  
That's a recipe for success, definitely._

 _The good news, at least, is that even if I meet Qrow without the new arm, he'll still have a hard time recognizing me. Mercury assured me that Emerald disguised our appearances with her semblance, and with my semblance arm trick and my coat to disguise the empty air, he won't be able to peg me as the guy whose arm he cut off. Add on that ballistic mask I got from the Garden awhile back (was that really just a few days ago? Holy shit, it feels like a year.), and there won't be any way they could recognize me. I'll need to get creative to mask the bandages on my eyes, though...  
_

 _Regardless - they **will** start looking for folks with cybernetic replacements, now... Hopefully getting a robo-arm here at the Garden won't put me on some kind of registry.  
If it does, I'll call myself Adam Jensen.  
I didn't ask for this, but I'm not going to say no. _

_Okay, okay, I'm done. Clearly I've disarmed you with the cyborg jokes.  
That was the last one. I'm afraid making another will cost me an arm and a leg._

 _Coping mechanisms aside... What comes next?  
I guess it's food. Not much to really do... I'll see if I can't find a way to sneak out tonight, but I doubt that'd be a good idea, still in recovery like I am. My stump is basically one big purple bruise - it hurts to look at it, let alone poke it through the bandages.  
_

 _In other news: Now just watch. I'm back in the Garden, and very weak. I give it... An hour.  
Neo will *sense* my weakness._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

Aldric passed a lot of time in his new room. Much of it was spent lounging around and fine tuning the new uses for his radar pulse, while the remainder was spent tinkering with his Power Glove and getting used to using his semblance as a replacement for his lost arm, the television on in the background. It was random news, but it filled the air with a comforting white noise. His scroll was connected to the Power Glove and glowing with a low intensity, showing the increasingly familiar settings screen for the nanites. Aldric didn't even really have any particular goal in mind, he was just messing with the settings, seeing what did what.

 _"In other news, the White Fang has taken credit for the assault on Forever Fall cargo train, days ago..."_

 _Oh, that's coming full circle, now, isn't it?_ Aldric thought, trying to find a way to tune up the sharpness of any edges the nanites made. _So... Am I going to want to ask for anything, with this arm?_ He wondered.

The way he looked at it, graphene or carbon nanotubes were a must. If he got those, the arm would functionally be indestructible. A part of him wondered if he couldn't use it to up the ante, perhaps get some enhanced strength, but two things kept him from making any final decisions on that. The first was the easiest - if he did that, he'd have to reinforce his _entire skeleton_ around the strength the arm could put out; at that point he may as well swap out all of his body parts and get sunglasses welded to his face. The second reason was less clear, but equally as valid: His semblance. With it, the need for physical strength, while not negated, was largely lowered in intensity. His mantis punch worked, and with his semblance he'd shown an ability to steal _electrons_ out of the air and cauterize heavily bleeding wounds. Bolstering his own strength was not as equal a challenge. But, having some sort of enhanced strength wasn't a bad idea, either. If ever he found himself in a situation where he couldn't use his semblance, for whatever reason, having a wrecking ball for a fist could prove very useful. So, deciding to leave enhanced strength up to the arm builder's discretion, Aldric moved on to considering something else: Weapons.

Obviously, this being Remnant, he'd want _some_ sort of gun. His pistol/knife was definitely fun and all, but having another one, less easily stolen, would only be a good thing. He'd have to do some window shopping whenever he spoke to the engineer, see what could be fit in. Other than a gun, Aldric felt some sort of melee implement would definitely be of service, and considering he already had two different bladed implements, in the Power Glove and the pistol, something else may be of use. Maybe a taser? Something he could make weak enough to stun people, or strong enough to be lethal and put them on their ass.

 _More things to - oh shit._ Aldric's neutral expression turned to a light frown, as, through his radar pulse, he sensed Cinder approaching his door. _Well, might as well get this over with._ Before she could even knock, Aldric, with a wave of his hand, undid the latch and let it swing open.

Cinder didn't even seem surprised, and instead, without breaking stride, entered. Aldric could tell she was pissed before she even said anything. She had an expression of fire, and he could see some dull embers floating around her eye, the air radiating around her fists from the heat she was generating, and the lines of dust in her clothes glowing dully.

 _Oh shit indeed._ Aldric looked up, turning his bandaged face to her. "Now, before you kill me... As I understand it there are rules against that, here." He deadpanned.

She scowled at him, "do you honestly think that would stop me, even as I am now?"

 _Nice word choice._ 'Even as' she is now. She was _pissed._ "Quantity is a quality all of its own." Aldric responded, slowly leaning back away from the glove. "Is there any way I get out of this without getting my crippled, blind ass kicked?" He asked, as she stalked over to the chair they had dropped his clothes on.

"You had orders, Aldric." She growled, sitting down with as much grace as her anger would allow.

Aldric blinked, regarding her dully. "Kill the Fall Maiden?" He said in a questioning manner.

"Let _me_ kill her." She shot back. "Worse, not only did you disobey my orders, you _blinded_ her."

"No..." Aldric leaned back forward, cupping his chin with his single functioning hand. "You told me that if she died, her powers were transferred to the person last in her thoughts. How fast I was moving, she wouldn't even have had time to think about me - you still would have been at the forefront of her mind, what with all the damage you were doing to her. Mercury and Emerald were appetizers - you and I were the main course, and all I did was soften her up for you. You're the only one that actively wounded her in any fashion, she was _terrified_ of you." Aldric reasoned. "And like I said. Fast as I was moving, if I'd destroyed her brain - and my claws would have hit her, right here -" He tapped on his nose. "- where the central nervous system is. So even if she saw me, she would have been dead before she could blink. I was moving too fast and she would have died too fast, you would have still been last in her thoughts." He was forcing his heart and his breathing to keep still, but it was difficult under Cinder's fiery gaze.

"So you tell me. What did I do wrong?"

"You _blinded_ her." She repeated.

Aldric felt attack would be the best defense at the moment, it would at least make him seem less guilty. He also sensed, as he prepared his response. "Well _you_ shot me. Kind of introduced a wild element to things." Aldric countered. "I thought the point of keeping me on was trusting that I knew what I was doing. Let me tell you something, first you ask a question. Then you conduct research and construct a hypothesis. Then you test it, and change or prove your hypothesis accordingly. After that, you analyze your data and you form a conclusion. That's the scientific method, hot stuff, and that's how I've _survived_ these last four-odd months.

"Now, you told us that these Maidens operated on magic. That Amber specifically was weak and inexperienced. That when they died, their powers would pass on to the last woman of proper age in their thoughts, and since your plan was to kill her, the logical conclusion was that you were of proper age. If they died and a man was in their thoughts, the powers would spin out at random. That is _what you told me._ So I applied the method, and my conclusion was thusly that if you killed her, or I moved in fast or from behind and killed her, either way, _you_ would get her abilities." A pause, "then, when I executed this plan, you freaked out, shot me, and the result was her eyes getting gouged out.

"Clearly, there's something to that." Aldric said, "and if I had to guess, you saw me going for her eyes and thought that the result would be her being blinded." Not wrongly, he didn't add. "And since you're freaking out and pissed off, I guess you feared that her eyes being damaged would cause you to be the furthest from her thoughts. Or perhaps it would change the rules. I don't know, and _that's_ the problem." He said, "every time I try to put some kind of trust in you, you... Say... Make me fight a horny assassin in a warehouse... Or... Take me out to a bar to fight a huntress." He gave her a flat look, noting that her scowl seemed stiff now. "In this case, you lied by omission." He raised his hand when he saw her about to interrupt him. "Don't argue with it, hot stuff. You didn't give me false truths, you withheld all of the facts. For chrissakes, you didn't even tell me that Plan B was time intensive. You lied through omission.

"And because I tried to trust you in this - that because all of our lives would be in danger here, you would be forthright with what you knew - I operated under the assumption that everything you gave us was everything we needed. I did so under the _impression_ that you - after your speech in the forest - would trust _me_ to make these kinds of conclusions. To operate independently. But because I was operating under bad and incomplete information, the conclusions I came to were thusly, and completely, incorrect. Leading to... Among other things..." He nodded to his stump, and then gestured to the gauze on his eyes. "That huntsman quickly disarming me, and you..." A pause, "if 'even as I am now' is any indication, only getting a small piece of the pie, in regards to the powers of the Maiden.

"So... To summarize." He leaned back, his expression returning to its earlier neutrality. "This is _kind_ of your fault."

The life returned to Cinder's scowl, and she bared her teeth in a show of emotion Aldric had never gotten out of her before. "You _dare..."_ A pause, and she closed her eyes and took in a deep, steadying breath, before letting out in a long sigh. "You are in as much fault as I am, Aldric." She finally said. "I could handle Amber as weakened as she was by your battle. You should have focused on the Huntsman."

Aldric nodded to the side. "I _did._ I disarmed the guy and trusted the assassin and the thief to be able to take on a disarmed Huntsman." He shot back. "You can't even pin Emerald dying on me." He added, "and keeping in mind that you said Amber's powers were separate from dust, different from a semblance. My conclusion was that she wouldn't be weakened by the loss of her aura, only made vulnerable." A pause, "kind of like me, I guess."

Cinder blinked, her expression melting into one of intrigue. "How so?"

Aldric shrugged, "my semblance is distinct, in that even if I have no aura to protect me, I still can use it. As a matter of fact it gets more powerful the less aura I have, to the point that I use my semblance for defense more often than I do my aura. I saw the Maiden doing something similar, during her fight with Mercury and Emerald, and her and I's engagement." He explained, "she blocked and deflected more things with her powers than she did her aura. Compare the hit I gave her to crack her aura, to when I went Cole MacGrath on her and called down _lightning_ _._ She used her powers to defend against the latter, and couldn't block the former, leading her aura to take the comparatively weaker hit."

Cinder's gaze dropped for a moment, as she thought, before she shook her head and looked back up to Aldric. "That doesn't matter. What does is that you nearly jeopardized the entire mission. Had the Huntsman -"

"Again I point out that the dude had _no weapon,_ and those two couldn't land a killing blow on him. I prioritized, and decided the _goddess_ was a bigger threat than the Huntsman. Especially if, when I killed her, we'd instantly get a goddess on _our_ side to finish him off." Aldric argued. "I know it sounds like I'm throwing around blame, but..." He shook his head, dropping this line more for the benefit of the two listening in on the conversation than anything else. "The point is we all dropped the ball on this one. And besides - final nail in the coffin. My orders - you know, those things you practically shot me over questioning? - were to fight _her,_ not some dickhead with a scythe." Aldric let out a long sigh. "You want me for my power, you're keeping me for my mind. I understand I fucked up, but I'm not the only one, by any means. We need to avoid this in the future. I understand compartmentalizing, in case we get caught... But keep me in the loop, yeah? This is now my best example on what happens when I operate on bad information. Shit goes _sideways."_

Cinder was silent for several long minutes at this, before she finally sighed through her nose, Aldric noticing a visible effort to calm herself down and soften her expression. "Fine." She whispered. "Fine." She repeated in a stronger tone. "I... Apologize." Aldric noticed an audible edge to her voice as she let those words grind out of her throat. "For thinking too little of you... Even when I myself have admitted that your greatest asset, equaled only by your boundless aura... Is your mind." She nodded, "I will... Begrudgingly admit this."

Aldric was waiting for the 'but' before he felt too proud of himself.

 _"But."_ She growled, her voice taking on an icy edge.

 _There we go._

"You are on thin ice." She said. "Using my words against me as you have done. I see the point you make, but that you made it and your actions before it... Validated or not, it doesn't matter. I am not happy." She warned. "I must change my plans, now. I have to go at the destruction of Beacon in a much different way than I had originally intended. That I have not gotten the remainder of her powers means that Ozpin's people have stabilized Amber, and I must now track her down.

"You demand trust, Aldric." She said, "and while, with your clear willingness to shed blood proves to me you are worth it... Allow me to make myself clear." She said, lowering her gaze and glaring at him from underneath her eyebrows. "If you demand something, you must give it in turn."

 _I notice how she hasn't mentioned Emerald's death more than once or twice, by now. Was that a part of the plan? Was she prepared for that? Fuck, hot stuff. That's cold._ Aldric nodded, "quid pro quo."

"Precisely." She raised her gaze again. "My trust is not something easily gained, Aldric. Very few truly have it. And no matter how much validity you have presented me... Your actions _have_ shaken it. I would have hoped you to be less rash..." She sighed. "But." She said, "in the face of what you say... As well as considering the shock you must have been in, after sustaining such an injury... I am willing to excuse them."

Aldric nodded. "Thank you."

"Don't make me regret this, Aldric." Cinder warned. "This trust. It must run both ways."

"I would expect nothing less, hot stuff." He let out a long breath. "Fuck if you're not intimidating, though. I swear, you could convince someone the sky is green just by glaring at them."

She let that one slide, "you've given me a great deal to think on." She said, getting to her feet. "I expect you to speak to the prosthetist in the morning. Torchwick will return in two days, after which we will leave for the Aviator, and Adam Taurus."

"So that much hasn't changed?" Aldric asked, as Cinder left.

"Same plan, Aldric. Different method of execution." She said, before she paused at his door, frowning. Aldric tilted his head to the side, wondering what else was on her mind, when she turned to face him. "Aldric."

"Hm?"

"Don't. _Ever._ Do that again." She warned him. "It is because my plans were not ruined in their _entirety_ that you are still alive. Remember that."

 _What the fuck did we just have that conversation for, if you're going to turn right around and say **that**? Am I high? Wait, I am! The doctor said I am! Jesus Christ, around and around we go! Fuck me, I think I'm going to pop an Oxy when we get back to the Aviator._ Aldric nodded, "I make no excuses." He said, running his hand through his unkempt hair. "I've said what I needed to say. This entire thing was a bad case of poor communication." A pause, before he sighed. "For what it's worth... I _am_ sorry." More sorry that he'd lost his arm and his eyes than anything else, really.

Cinder didn't respond, merely lowering her gaze in thought, and then opening the door, promptly leaving his room. He sensed her walk to her room, directly across from his. He leaned back in his bed, letting out a long breath of air. "One fuckin' thing after another."


	18. The Long Halloween

_AN_

 _I'll be quite honest: Originally this one monstrous chapter was two others, but then I thought of the **perfect** chapter title to describe the events that go down, so I took the beginning segment of the next chapter and smashed it onto the end of this one to see how it went._

 _The result was one **hell** of a long chapter (just a few hundred words shy of the longest I've ever done), but I like how it turned out regardless. Much like the Maiden fight before it, the entire story has been building up to what'll be happening here, and I like how I pulled it off._

 _So, have fun, this is technically one and a half chapters._

* * *

Chapter 17

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Just got back from the prosthetist. It was a delightfully normal encounter - I got to shoot the shit with an engineer, and the resultant three hours taught me more about Remnant's technological standing than weeks on their internet.  
I also freaked him the fuck out when I started using my radar pulse to see things, even though - by rights - I am visibly blind._

 _I think I'll use the power glove and start walking around with a cane, blind man style. Start making the illusion that I **am** blind, put people less on guard when they're around me._

 _Anyways, I spent that three hours working out what all I wanted out of my new robo-arm, and I swear to god, if I hadn't already picked Nathan Drake as my code name for this meeting with Qrow, I would have chosen 'Venom Snake' instead. This arm is basically going to be his - visually, at least - and it's gorgeous._

 _The guy's just as excited about the arm as I am, he hasn't met anyone who could keep up with him like I did. Most folks just say 'gimme something shiny!', and he has to figure it out from there, but I had an idea of what I wanted and we hashed out the rest._

 _To skip over a very long, jargony conversation, it **looks** like Venom Snake's arm, but it may very well function as the Winter Soldier's, with some Adam Jensen hidden weaponized goodies to boot. I got it made out of carbon nanotubes (Remnant has those! But god help you if you want to know why they don't use them.), so not only will it be far less magnetic than anything else would have been, but it will be functionally indestructible to boot. I also managed to learn that my worries about enhanced strength were unfounded - I can get **wickedly** enhanced strength out of this thing, and at no detriment to my body. It has something to do with dust and aura (as does everything on this planet), and that was all the explanation I got out of him.  
_

 _I can shoot the shit 'till the cows come home about Remnant's science, but the moment dust enters the picture, people turn into Todd Howard. 'It just works'._

 _So, greatly decreased magnetism, and enhanced strength. So what about weapons?  
Well... That's where I struck out._

 _While it's not impossible to hook up ranged weapons to robo-arms, the long and short of it is that it's damn difficult, and then I'd have an eighty thousand pound weight swinging from my shoulder._

 _But, my consolation prize was... Well... Groovy._

 _I forget if I mentioned it here in the journal, but a long while ago, around the same time I started experimenting with the power glove's versatility, I wondered if it wouldn't be possible to make some kind of chainsaw-like implement for it. I ended up shelving the idea both because I felt I didn't have the time to figure out mono-molecular/atomic cutting edges, and also because I couldn't even begin to figure out how to make anything but a disc-shaped blade.  
_

 _Well, guess what the prosthetist said he could totally wire into my arm?  
We determined we could skip the teeth of the saw with small portions of the Power Glove, and that plus using the same materials the arm itself will be made out of, means that we can exponentially cut down on the weight. It'll be stored in the forearm, and while it won't replace my power glove at all, it'll definitely be a good backup in case I lose it and can't get at my backup canister. _

_Ashy Slashy._

 _I'm not totally giving up on some kind of ranged implement, though - during our little conversation I learned that Remnant has energy weapons, too, and that gave me an idea on how to expand my arsenal, but it'll be some time before I have the time or resources to even start on it._

 _Saying that, I feel like Neo near the end of the first Matrix - when he walked in **strapped** with, like, two dozen weapons hanging from his chest, arms, and even stuffed in his coat._ _  
_

 _I mean, for chrissakes - the Power Glove has nigh limitless applications for simple weapons, ala the T-1000 from Terminator 2.  
I've got the pistol/knife I hardly use.  
I've got my semblance that basically turns me into some kind of Goku-lite, what with the melee combat, among god knows what else I can do with it.  
And now I've got a Winter Soldier arm, with super strength and a motherfucking hardlight chainsaw that doubles as a paddle, if I'm not wanting to maim people._

 _I don't even have anything witty, to say about that.  
Just... Damn._

 _Hardly six months ago I'd never held anything heavier than a BB gun, and now I've got (and am getting) weapons enough to outfit a small army._

 _That's all, for now. It's time for food, and after that, I'm going to try and slip out of the Garden tonight and meet up with Qrow._

 _Here's hoping._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

Aldric's dreams were haunted by the sights and sounds of him gouging the former Fall Maiden's eyes out, and her screaming in that unholy pain. He woke up the next morning in a cold sweat, and didn't speak much on the return journey to the Aviator. It took them another day to get back to Vale, and the night following the fight hadn't been any different, still restless and still filled with the visions of blood on the Power Glove, and sunken, deflated eyes. He woke up feeling more exhausted than when he'd gone to sleep.

Now he found himself in the dining room, idly picking at a sandwich he'd picked up for lunch, thinking.

 _So... It's been a couple days. I'm not at one hundred percent, but my window for meeting Qrow is shrinking. I'm going to have to go out tonight._ Thought Aldric, as he dug at the food, focusing his senses on a television showing the news. _I can probably simulate an arm if I just duct tape the gauntlet to my coat's sleeve, and then use my semblance to do the rest of the work. Long as I don't over extend it, I should be fine._

Aldric sensed someone approaching his door, and knew already who it could be, even without the omnipresence afforded by the radar pulse. Mercury was up in the restaurant enjoying more extravagant food, and Emerald - well, Emerald wasn't around anymore. The only remaining candidate had the door opened for her before she even knocked; and when she entered, she slid into a chair across from Aldric's bed, and gave him a blank look.

Aldric reciprocated, a sandwich inches from his face. "What did I do?" He asked, in a comical tone.

Cinder shook her head, "nothing wrong, this time." She said, and Aldric took that as clearance to take another chomp out of the sandwich. "I was merely hoping you could explain something to me."

"Shoot." He said, through his full mouth.

"When you fought Amber... Are you aware that you came out of that battle with fewer injuries than any of your previous ones?" Cinder asked.

Aldric was silent, his expression blank and unchanging, as he slowly turned his 'gaze' down to his bandaged stump. Moving his head about was mostly for others' benefits than it was for his. He turned back to face Cinder. "I see what you mean." He deadpanned, in the most droll tone he could muster.

Cinder showed restraint enough to only shake her head, "before that, I mean."

"So... You're saying I didn't take any hits... Until I did." Aldric parroted back to her. "That... Describes every encounter I've had in this world, hot stuff." He drawled, "now, it may be the pain meds making me loopy, but I swear you're not making any sense right now." He said, "unless getting my arm torn off and my eyes gouged out don't count as injuries to you... In which case, _holy shit,_ you're -"

"Aldric." Cinder grunted, shutting him up. "Perhaps I started this incorrectly. My point there was that before, and even after, those two injuries, you accrued little, if any, else." Aldric still felt that that point made less sense than she thought it did, but kept silent as she continued. "But let me try again. Yesterday you mentioned something to me that prompted a great deal of thought." She said, "would you explain to me how you tore Amber's lightning out of the sky?"

Aldric frowned, lowering his gaze. He didn't want to let her in on the whole 'manipulating mass' trick if he didn't have to, so he looked back up after a moment and shrugged. "I dunno." He grunted, with a shrug. "I just... You know my radar pulse? I could feel the lightning in the clouds, so I thought... 'Can I grab that?'... And _did."_ It wasn't a total lie. "Was I not supposed to?" If they weren't bound by bandages, he would have furrowed his brows.

Cinder shook her head, "Aldric, a Maiden's powers - _my_ powers, now - rely on something wholly separated from dust. They are functionally magic, they do not obey laws as we understand them... And yet you forced them to do so, such that you could wrest control away from her and then use it against her. That should have been impossible." Cinder pointed out, flexing her hand and her fingers, her golden aura arcing between the digits and glowing bright.

Aldric, however, shook his head. "I disagree, there." He could tell her this much, at least. Right? "Remember how she pulled an apple outta nowhere? What you say, you imply that the apple should have been something separated from our universe. When she gave it away, whoever she wanted to give it to wouldn't have been able to touch or eat it." He nodded to Cinder, and finished his sandwich. "If you believe what you say." He stressed. "But, what is magic but science we don't understand? I think Maiden powers don't _disobey_ the laws of physics, they work strictly within them... But operate on another, completely different, set of laws, that _seem_ like they're disobeying ours.

"So." He changed his position on his bed, letting his legs hang off the edge, and sliding the plate to his good side with his semblance; it briefly ocurred to him that his mother would probably murder him if she saw him eating on an expensive mattress, but he pushed those thoughts out of his mind, as he often did when they orbited around those subjects. "This lets her do strange stuff, like conjuring lightning storms, pulling apples out of nowhere, or making force fields. But all of those things still _exist_ in this universe... So _I_ think, she may have pulled them from somewhere else, but by bringing them here, she had to make them obey our laws... The only caveat being that they bended to her will. So..." He nodded to the side. "She conjurs lightning, I could sense it, I used my semblance to rip it out of the sky and blast her with it." A beat, as Aldric's face fell. "I don't think that made any sense. Did that make any sense at all? Let's try it this way -

"She can make something out of nothing, yes. That something bends to her will as a maiden. But it still exists as a physical object in this universe, which means someone else with the requisite skill or power, can manipulate it." He paused, before nodding his head. "She pulls an apple out of another universe, gives it to another person, that person can eat it. I could have beaten her with that apple if I'd wanted, but I felt lightning was a better option. That better? Sounded like it."

Cinder nodded, "If I may point something out?"

 _I'm not_ lying... Aldric nodded, "go ahead."

"I noticed something, when you grabbed ahold of her lightning. You changed, just a bit." This got Aldric to tilt his bandaged head, and Cinder grew a thin smile. "I think there may be more to you than we initially realized... That perhaps your body -"

 _"Stop_ right there!" Aldric leaned back, pointing right at Cinder with his good hand, a crazed expression on the less bandaged portion of his face. "Don't you fucking do it, hot stuff!" He begged. "Please don't tell me I've done some kind of... Unconscious magic Bee-Ess that locked away most of my power! I don't think I'll survive whatever you come up with -" He started laughing, and even Cinder covered her face with her hand, to hide her smirk. "- to figure out how to access it!" He leaned back forward and indicated his stump, "for chrissakes, I'm hardly at full strength as it is! More of Cinder-brand trading would probably finish the job!"

Cinder lowered her hand, wiping away the first genuine smile he'd seen grace her face in a while, though Aldric could still see its remnants in the way the muscles on her face twitched; an advantage of his radar pulse? He could arguably see far better than he ever could have before, case in point: The micro-expressions and subtle movements in a person's face. He wasn't nearly good enough to be able to read them all and apply meaning to them, but that he could see them meant all he had to do was learn what they meant.

"Unfortunately, you seem to have hit the nail on the head." She intoned, airily. "Just as the human body unconsciously limits how much muscle power it can call upon at any given time... So too, do I think you may have placed a lock on your _own_ abilities, and you entered the aura-equivalent of fight or flight, for just a few seconds, during your battle against Amber. This allowed you to access this power, and exert your will over hers."

Well that flew in the face of _everything_ he'd come up with, so far. "So... Wait, are you saying that I'm magic, myself? Or that I'm not metaphorically left handed, and what we've seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg?" Thinking about it, that made a little sense.

Maybe this could explain how he'd torn the building down on Neo? He'd entered a brief fight or flight, tapped _everything_ inside of him, and torn the building down. It made him wonder if there hadn't been a point in his fight against Yang where he'd done something similar, but then he realized that, in the entire fight against Yang, while he'd been hurt like hell, he hadn't felt as if his life were truly in danger. He hadn't considered Yang would kill him, and as such, he never entered that fight or flight. Then move on to Amber, whose fight he'd been dreading since day damn one, and it only helped this theory. He was scared for his life and had been throwing everything he had into the fight since it started, it would only make sense that he would enter fight or flight again, and that gave him the power - or was it control? Or both? - to sense the electrons above him, take ahold of them, steal them from Amber, and bring them down right on top of her.

Funnily enough, as excited as the potential applications of a veritable Super Saiyan transformation made him, it also plugged into his earlier thoughts about exponential growth, and again made him wonder if all of this wasn't inherently unhealthy to him. He still didn't know if everything he was pulling on wasn't actively killing him, as if he were using his very soul as gasoline to fuel the car that was his semblance. This 'Fight or Flight' Cinder was theorizing, it only lent credence to this idea, while admittedly, potentially, precluding him from his earlier ideas that he may drop dead in the middle of a fight. If he was locking away the majority of his strength, then using just what was available to him meant that there was still a huge surplus waiting on him, and he wouldn't be in danger of running out.

It may also give more weight as to why he was able to use his semblance as much as he did, in the way that he did, without ever running out of strength. There was just _so much_ aura to draw off of, he never ran out. This worked the other way, too - if he didn't use his semblance, his aura shields picked up strength, and would protect him from goddamn everything because he had what equated to a functionally endless supply locked away inside him.

What did that make him, Gohan?

Cinder seemed to have reached similar conclusions, saying, "perhaps it is both. Perhaps that which our leader sensed wasn't overwhelming power, but a world of people who, at their basest, were similar to our Maidens at their strongest. Perhaps in unconsciously sealing away your abilities, we interpreted what remained as your semblance, and nothing more."

 _This chick thinks I'm Doctor Strange!_ Aldric frowned, "you've mentioned that, a couple times. Your 'leader'. Who is he? Or... She?" He asked.

But Cinder shook her head, "we are off topic, and that is something I cannot reveal to you quite yet." She said, waving the question away. "Return to your abilities. What is your theory? What do you think?" She asked, as the ship shuddered, finally coming to a full halt against the landing docks.

Aldric shrugged, "well... I'm tempted to say 'I don't _think_ I'm magic'... But if all of that's locked away? I can't get at it? Then how would I know?" He questioned. "Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle. " He made to raise both hands, but frowned and instead held up the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, as lances of phantom pains shot through his nonexistent left arm. He pushed his momentary lapse in memory away, and continued speaking, staring into the space between his fingers.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say Earth is a planet full of people with magic like Maidens..." Though that would actually fit far more than he was comfortable with, considering how separate his semblance and aura seemed to be. Was the reason he had to sacrifice defense for offense, and vice versa, simply because he hadn't mastered his powers? "But maybe we're somewhere between human and Maiden. Demigods." He shrugged, and let his hands drop.

There was another option he didn't voice, so as to make Cinder think her 'fight or flight' theory held more weight than the other one, and it harkened back to what he'd argued earlier. Amber had managed to make something from nothing - create an apple out of thin air, summon a lightning storm out of a clear sky, freeze leaves, start fires, the whole nine yards. But what if that wasn't her pulling energies and objects from nowhere, but was instead her telekinetically rearranging the atomic structure of _literally_ everything around her? Theoretically, if she could do that, it would make her more than capable of creating an apple out of nothing, or bonding hydrogen molecules to oxygen molecules to create stormclouds, and then use the leftover electrons and ambient charges made by the friction of the clouds to create lightning. The fire and ice were also simple to explain: She'd just sped up, and slowed down, the atoms respectively.

This didn't even eliminate the 'magic' option, either, as it could very well be that the 'magic' of the Maidens wasn't that they did, what they did, but _how._ Instead of doing what Aldric had started down the road to doing, and individually feeling out and rearranging each and every single subatomic particle until they got their apple, they could just think 'apple', and their powers would do the rest. While the good news was that Aldric wouldn't have to worry about multiversal Doctor Strange-style magic, this also meant that the Maidens were Green Lanterns without the rings. Whatever they thought, whatever they wanted, they _got,_ they needed only visualize it - and that thought alone slowed Aldric's heartbeat down, as he realized how much it applied to him, when he'd been trying to figure out how to use his semblance. Thinking about it too much had gotten him nowhere, but every time he was able to visualize what it was he wanted, his semblance figured out the rest.

Could he really be a - what was the male version of Maiden? There was Patron to Matron, Patriarch and Matriarch, Bachelor and Bachelorette... Would it be Master? Master and Maiden? That wasn't arrogant at all, but he couldn't think of anything else. No, actually, wait, he _could_ think of something better, the question was whether or not he wanted to walk around calling himself a 'Saiyan', even though that applied more handily than he'd originally thought. Regardless, he'd make a choice on this later. But could he really be a Master? Could every terran on Earth be a _god_ to people on Remnant?

Thinking about it, there was some weight to this theory.

Like he'd thought earlier, Aldric's powers had shown themselves to be growing exponentially, just as Cinder was with her new abilities. What's more, his abilities seemed to be completely distinct from his aura. No matter how hard of a hit he took, and no matter how long he fought, he could always pull more aura out of his ass to fuel his semblance, almost as if his semblance and aura were two different things entirely. That using his full power knocked out his shields was the biggest monkey wrench in this theory, but, thinking on it further, he realized that whenever Amber had defended against his and the Legion's attacks, she'd been putting conscious thought and effort into creating her barrier, much like how he had to to create his barriers. But unlike him, she didn't put _everything_ into her offense, instead opting to leave some energy for her aura shields, exactly as he'd learned he could do, but had decided not to so he could milk all of the power he could out of his semblance. So there seemed to be some sort of tangential similarity between Aldric's powers and those of a Maiden, and if he spent more time around Cinder as she experimented with her new powers, he may be able to draw more conclusions. _Best_ case scenario, if he could get Qrow on his side, he may eventually, down the line, be able to pick Ozpin's brain about this and see what he thought.

However, if he and Cinder were right, and if that were the case, then that meant that Cinder was closer to the mark than she realized, and it also spawned a sobering thought. What if Salem _knew_ in the first place? Ignoring whether or not she'd learned about RWBY as a show, through her observations of Earth, what if she'd come to the conclusion that terrans had within them the power of Maidens, only naturally? That was why she wanted Aldric, or as many terrans as she could get her hands on: They were an entire _species_ of Masters and Maidens, but without Ozpin and the Justice League's monitoring and protection. That was equivalent to someone from Earth hoarding a nuke in their backyard, not good.

He gave Cinder a look, noting that she'd been quiet the entire time he'd been thinking. "You _really_ think I could be a..." He paused, for effect. "Uh... what would the male version of a Maiden be?" He asked, frowning.

"Master?" She briefly shrugged.

"Well, you said it, not me." Aldric chuckled "You really think _all_ of my people may very well be _gods_ to yours?" Yeah, he _had_ to get in contact with the League. If the Legion of Doom managed to figure out how to pull more terrans over to this side, the Justice League was screwed. Hell, it was more than possible that Salem may try to use Aldric as a battery, or a conduit of sorts, to do _just that._

Cinder, at this, shrugged again. "Clearly, neither I nor many of my people think as yours do. I only think on what I see, and I saw a man standing up to a goddess. Had I not stopped you, you very well could have killed her."

 _Does that make me David, as in, David and Goliath? Or Kratos?_ Aldric let out a long sigh. "It seems that the more I learn, the less I know. Your world is fucking crazy." He rumbled, briefly leaning back, and letting his head loll about. "I wasn't kidding, though. I love you three... Or... Well... Two to death, but I _do not want_ to to be put through the ringer again." He laughed, breathily, running a bare hand through his thick hair.

Fortunately, Cinder agreed with him. "I am thinking of ways we may be able to help you unlock your power. Even if you are not this 'Master' you and I have coined... There is still a great deal of power you've yet to tap into, and there must be ways for you to access it."

 _So... In short... I really **am** Saitama, I just haven't started the workout, yet._ Aldric shuddered, "that doesn't put me at ease." He whined, "so when do we meet with Torchwick? He's supposed to be coming here, right?" He wondered if them talking and dealing with Torchwick would be breaking the Garden's rules.

"Tomorrow night." Said Cinder, as she checked her own scroll. "If my understanding is correct, Adam Taurus' next train robbery was the day after our battle. We meet with Torchwick tomorrow and obtain the dust and funds... You get your new arm. Then we pack up and go back to Taurus before he abandons his camp."

Aldric hummed, shaking his head and leaning back forward. "Alright... I'll think on what we talked about, here." He'd have to start wearing brown pants more often. "Probably going to head out for a run tonight. Got me feeling kinda..." He jerked his head to the side. "Amped up. Might not be back 'till after dark."

"Stay safe, Aldric." She intoned, getting to her feet and passing him by for her own room.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I... I can't even. My life is starting to become more complicated than a comic book superhero's._

 _Apparently **I'm** little 'g' god._

 _Cinder seems to think that my little stunt with the lightning bolts the other day is indicative of me being the male equivalent to a Maiden, and that **everyone** from Earth has this kind of power. _

_There's a 'ten percent of your brain' Lucy-or-something joke in there, somewhere, but this has got me so fucking stressed out I can't even work up the energy to type it out. I'll go into it later.  
_

 _Regardless, I wrote this little bit here before I grabbed my shit. I'm going to go out for a run, I'm going to leave my scroll here in case Cinder decides to uses it to listen in on me. Gonna stay out 'till dark, pray I meet up with Qrow. I'll think/write more on this when I get back._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

Taking this chance to _literally_ run from his problems had given Aldric more than enough time and space to clear his head, and drown whatever thoughts remained with Johnny Cash. His head felt like it did whenever he studied hours on end for a physics test - overheated and unable to think any more. What with him adapting to his injuries, making game plans for when he met up with Qrow, and now the bomb Cinder had dropped on him mere hours ago, it had him stressed out like nobody's business. The biggest thing he was scared about was trying to decide whether or not Salem _knew._ If she did, then her endgame would no doubt include drafting more terrans. If she didn't she would soon enough, and the point was moot; and since Aldric had no idea how to go home, that meant he couldn't try and start some kind of human-nuclear arms race and recruit more terrans to his cause.

Though, this did make him wonder a moment if this all wasn't to suggest that terrans and humans didn't have some kind of common ancestor. Maybe the wizard who granted the original four Maidens their powers had been a terran who'd gotten stuck here? That'd certainly answer a _lot_ of Aldric's questions, at least. That one little tidbit would explain functionally everything about why Aldric's powers seemed so similar to a Maiden's. It also made him wonder if that meant, when he died, if he wouldn't start his own equivalent to the Maiden's succession cycle? That his powers would shunt into some random dude, and so would be birthed the Masters, the equal and opposite to the Maidens? Maybe his earlier Avatar jokes hadn't been too far from the mark.

Aldric shook his head, as he sat on the edge of an overpass, cars whipping past his back, his legs dangling over the edge and kicking back and forth. He felt like Deadpool, sitting like this, though he wasn't planning the violent death of an entire armed convoy, he was just waiting for the sun to set. With his eyes out of commission, he actually couldn't watch it anymore - his radar pulse couldn't stretch ninety two million miles. But, he was at least able to see the light the sun cast on the world around him and track it as it lowered its intensity, signalling the passage of time and the setting of the sun. He also had a watch and could see its display, and it had a big picture of a sun on the horizon, and it was setting in real time; but that explanation wasn't nearly as fun.

Night would be coming soon, and after that, his first chance to meet with Qrow, and get his in with the League. Considering the time that had passed between the fight and now, that he doubted Qrow would have stopped for _anything_ beyond basic first aid, and that Qrow on his own, even with Amber in his arms, could probably cover more ground than the Legion, he was pretty sure he'd gotten to Vale before now. He may be in Ozpin's office _right now_ arguing the merits of heeding Aldric's message versus attacking him and getting a prisoner, not an ally.

 _Fortunately, if that's the case..._ Thought Aldric, as the sky turned a bright red shade, with the sun dipping down over the distant horizon. _Qrow's ass can't fly. And even if they brought all of the League with them, none of them can, either. I can get the eff out of dodge, lose their trail... Maybe hide out in the Garden? Shit, that wouldn't be a bad idea. I'd probably never be allowed back in, but at least they'd save my ass._ He huffed, running his good hand through his hair. _That happens, though, I don't know what I'll do after._ He sensed a car slowing down and pulling over to the side of the overpass.

Frowning, Aldric turned his head, 'looking' at the car over the side of his shoulder; he sensed a driver stepping out, a concerned look on his face, as he slowly approached the crash survivor. "Uh... Hey there!" The man called out, over the sounds of the other cars driving by.

It dawned on Aldric that, what with him sitting on the edge of a busy highway, with a several dozen foot drop below him, and with him staring wistfully off into the distance, he looked like he was contemplating suicide. "Hey." If that was why the man had pulled over, Aldric wouldn't be afraid to admit the gesture would warm his heart. "You break down?" Aldric didn't know the first thing about Remnant cars, but if the man said yes he'd be more than willing to kill some time trying to help him out.

"Uh... No, I just..." The man had a loud, booming voice, his sleeves were rolled up revealing hairy, lumberjack-like arms. "Saw you sitting there."

 _Aw... That's actually kind of nice._ Just as he'd said, he felt a small tingle in his chest as his lips drew upwards. "I'm just sittin', dude. No worries." He used his semblance to lift his left gauntlet, it secured to the sleeve of his arm with a healthy amount of tape, and making a thumbs up.

The man approached cautiously, "what's on your mind?" He asked, lowering his voice as he grew closer.

"Ah, just dealing with some shit." Aldric said, noncommittally, as he turned his head back forward. "I'm not - I'm not going to jump." He added, with a brief sidewards nod. "I was out jogging, needed to sit down, got to thinking." A fall like this wouldn't kill him, either. He'd been thrown further by Cubone, and had survived, and that had been without aura. "I'm fine." He grunted. "Can't see worth a fuck, but I'm fine." He eagerly anticipated the day he could remove the bandages covering his eyes, he could hardly even wait to see the expressions on the face of the first person he'd poke his empty eye sockets in front of.

"I wouldn't call a kid jogging along a freeway 'fine', little man." Said the baritone man, as he sat down next to Aldric. "That looks serious." He nodded to Aldric's head, "uh, the... Bandages. I just nodded." He said, a sheepish, regretful frown on his face.

At this, Aldric snorted. "You got aura, friend? That shit lets me outrun _cars,_ you have no idea how fun that is." It made him feel like Captain America; Neo did admittedly have a point when she'd said one had to enjoy the little things. "And the eyes aren't an issue. Aura again, though I still wouldn't recommend it. Hurt like hell." And he was probably in a small minority when it came to circumventing these injuries; smaller still if Cinder and his theories about Masters were any indication.

He sensed the man give him a once-over at this comment. "You're a huntsman? Or a student?"

Aldric was tempted to drop the 'student in the class of life' line, but instead shook his head. "Halfway between, I'd guess." Aldric wondered if this wouldn't be another Rosa situation. At least here he had an easy out - he could just slide off the edge, scare the shit out of the guy, and then salute as he flew away. "Complicated." He added, with a nod.

"Ah, I understand that." The man itched at his bushy brown beard. "Get the feeling 'complicated' rhymes with 'can't talk about it', am I close?"

"Closer than you'd think." Aldric grunted, wondering if he'd finally met a man as genre savvy as him.

"Well... If you're not thinking of killing yourself, and you're not going to talk about it, at least let me drop a nugget of wisdom, then I'll get out of your hair." The man rumbled. "Yeah?"

"I'm killing time, man. You are _only_ helping me." Aldric returned, giving the man a brief glance. He had a healthy tan and long, thick, wavy brown hair, but his eyes were wrinkled upward in a smile, and they shone with the light of the setting sun, looking far more jovial than the rest of him.

 _Huh... I get a **mirror** , I'll be able to see the sun and the stars again. Interesting..._ Aldric thought, as the man cleared his throat.

"See, I've got grandkids." He raised his hands, "I know, I know. I hardly look old enough. But my daughter, the guy she'd had 'em with was a huntsman, and she was all worried about aura sapping and whether or not she'd be able to carry them to term. She told me, 'the world seems so big, dad. There's too much to deal with.'. So you know what I told her?"

It occurred to Aldric that the man might have stopped by _literally_ because he saw an opportunity to tell a story. It was cynical of Aldric to think, but it still popped into his mind. "What'd you say?" He asked, deciding to call the man Iroh until he learned better.

Iroh's smile only grew, as he splayed out his hands, "you just gotta make it smaller." He brought them closer together. "The problems seem so big because you're looking at the big picture. But if you take it apart, boil it down, you'll see that it's really just a lot of small problems adding up to something big. So you just gotta make it smaller, solve one problem, move onto the next, and before you know it you're done." He dropped his hands to his meaty thighs. "Told her that, and, it took her a while, yeah." He nodded in a conciliatory fashion. "But she took the advice eventually. Looked up some stuff online about how civilians can carry huntsman babies even if they don't have aura, went to a couple clinics and classes, and now I've got two beautiful twin grandkids, and my daughter's still alive to tear her hair out over them."

 _You know what? There is a God, and he has a sense of humor._ How else would someone just show up, at random, with something he needed to hear, on some level? _He's throwing me a bone from another universe._ "Make it smaller, huh?"

"Make it smaller. Don't stress about the big stuff, enjoy the little things, all that stuff." Iroh clapped his hand on Aldric's back, "take it from an old man." He said, sagely.

 _Well you're going to regret saying that._ Aldric smirked, "okay." And he pushed off the edge.

Iroh didn't even move, he was in such deep shock that Aldric had _done_ it. What got Aldric smiling was how he slowly, robotically, followed Aldric as he floated outwards, as if he were treading water. His coat hung down like a cape, and his legs were still crossed as if he were still sitting. Once he snapped out of it, Iroh actually laughed before Aldric did, and Aldric soon joined him, floating back over to the ledge and taking his seat back.

"Ha!" The man barked, "haha! Ho, ho man, that was good, kid." He wiped tears from his eyes. "Enjoy the little things... You showed me." He let out a long sigh, "whew! Haha!"

Aldric shrugged, "you walked right into it, sir." He grinned, as the sun finished setting and the red sky bled to black.

"I'm going to have to remember that." Said Iroh, as he got to his feet and held out his hand. Aldric accepted it and got to his feet, before he shook the bearded man's hand. "You take care kid..." The man shook his head and made back for his car.

Once he'd driven away, Aldric stowed his hands, both the real one and the facsimile made by his semblance, in his pockets and again stepped over the edge. He took in the feeling of the wind in his hair before he slowed himself down and landed gingerly on a rooftop. He was cast in harsh, bright green light by a great neon sign looming above him, the sign spelling out _Mogar's Grillin Bar_ in huge, bold lettering. Aldric reached into the pocket of his coat for his ballistic face mask, sensing someone closing in on the rooftop. As the individual grew closer, Aldric gave a slight jerk of his head, impressed at how quickly the guy had come, and slipped on the mask. Next, he strapped on a pair of thick goggles, and to finish the image, he pulled out a plain shemagh and wrapped it around his head, masking his hair and also the exposed portions of his bandages. Hardly a second later, the figure he'd sensed charging the building leapt up onto the roof, but he overshot it, leaping high into the air, his sword raised -

 _"Oh shit."_ Aldric said, adopting a rumbly, raspy tone, before he whipped around. He swung his arm up and, in the interests of not giving this man as many ways of identifying him later as possible, a shield did sprout from his Power Glove, but it was less of a red white and blue disk than it was a heater shield, and because this was a new shape, it took on the standard, muted, glowing blue wireframe that all new, unedited shapes took on.

Qrow came swinging down, his blade slammed onto Aldric's shield with a loud clang of metal striking glass, and he saw the Huntsman lean into the attack as his feet hit the ground, trying to put his weight into it but not totally grasping how Aldric's shields deflected pretty much everything that could be thrown at them. Aldric saw the man was scowling something fierce, and on second look, he actually looked _sober._

 _Oh... I'm in trouble._ But Aldric decided he'd wait this one out, see if Qrow was actively trying to kill him, or just saying 'hi'. _Where the hell did he get a new weapon so fast?!_

So he threw his palm forward, Qrow saw it happen and lunged backwards, but was still sent skidding back, hit in the gut by Aldric's semblance. Qrow's sword scraped off of Aldric's heater shield with a shower of sparks, and when Qrow got his footing again, he lunged back forward. Aldric was able to dodge his next two swings with his semblance and he responded by burying his fist into Qrow's stomach in an underhand punch. With his semblance augmenting the force of the strike, Qrow skidded back again, but before he could charge again, Aldric held his hand up.

"Wait." He grunted, doing his best Christian Bale's Batman impression. He would have liked to try something that wouldn't tear apart his throat, but he didn't trust himself enough to try and use his semblance to change the pitch of his voice. "If we're _really_ doing this, I'd like to know ahead of time. Else we can skip it and get to why we're here." He lowered his hand, and stowed it in his jacket, and lowered his gaze a fraction. "You _know_ I'm good already, and I know who you are, so I don't need to prove you." Though if they would have to fight, Aldric may have to try a different form of his discus shield, such that he could adopt his usual fighting style, without the identifying red white and blue. An aspis might work, but that would be _huge,_ and given what he knew about Qrow's semblance, that was a risk he didn't want to take.

Qrow scowled at him, but Aldric could see sense dawning in his eyes. Though, while his words had indeed reached the Huntsman, it also seemed Qrow, at least on some level, subscribed to the whole 'the best way to communicate is by fighting' shtick, and he charged forward again. Aldric tore his hands out of his coat and crouched low, a massive aspis appearing on his arm, it blocking each of Qrow's three horizontal swings with the sound of metal striking glass. Aldric shoved forward with the aspis, it hitting Qrow on the chest, but this time he had his feet dug firmly in the ground and he didn't stumble back. Aldric saw his blade crack open with a hiss, and then as it extended and took on its scythe form, it curved around his shield. Aldric, however, had seen this trick before - used by the same family, no less - and before Qrow could rip the shield from his grasp, he let it fall.

Qrow was prepared for this though, and the moment he felt give he swung down with the scythe. Aldric had to use his semblance to leap out of the way before it could tear into his coat, but Aldric shuttle-ran, switching directions on a dime and blasting right back towards the Huntsman, his coat billowing with the motions. Qrow grunted as Aldric buried his shoulder into the haft of the man's scythe. As Aldric reared his good hand, Qrow pivoted onto his backfoot and made Aldric overextend his next strike, using that as leverage to swing Aldric over his shoulders and slam him onto the roof. Aldric sensed Qrow raising his scythe and quickly spawned another aspis, which took the next strike just as it had before. The recoil managed to stumble Qrow, and Aldric was on his feet in an instant, spinning around in a wide circle and hurtling the almost man-sized shield at the Huntsman.

Qrow saw the shield coming, but he wasn't far enough away to have the time he'd need to dodge it. It slammed into his chest and he grunted on impact, and as it bounced back to Aldric, he was charging back towards Qrow. Aldric leapt into the air and thrust his good fist forward, the shield slid back into place on his arm and it vanished in a dull blue shower of light embers, to be replaced by three long blades protruding from Aldric's knuckles. Qrow growled and thrust his haft up, using it as a staff to block Aldric's next strike. He then wrenched it around, twisting Aldric's hand at a painful angle, and he used Aldric's pain as a chance to attack, kicking him in the chest. Aldric's barriers and armor blunted most of the force, but he was still sent back a few feet - just far enough for Qrow to swing his scythe with all of his strength.

 _Oooooh shit!_ Aldric used his semblance to dodge this swing, and it was so close that he felt it dragging through his _hair._

However, he had a problem - he'd been so rough with his semblance that he felt his entire spine flare up in pain at having been bent so bad. He wasn't able to recover from this fast enough to stay on his feet, and he fell to his back. He sensed Qrow dart over and loom above him, swinging the scythe down. With a grunt of effort, Aldric rolled to the side, the scythe coming down so close to his ear that he could hear the metal ringing from the impact. Qrow used this chance to land a heavy punch to the side of Aldric's head, and it flashed through his barriers with enough force to bounce Aldric's head off of the ground.

Aldric sensed what happened next just a moment before it happened, and with a metallic squeak, the hatch to the roof opened and one of the employees, likely a manager, stepped up onto the rooftop with a, "what the _hell -"_ But saw a Huntsman and a heavily masked man fighting to the death, both of them snapping their eyes right over to him.

 _"Get out of here!"_ Both Aldric and Qrow barked in unison, causing the man to shout in fear and retreat back down inside the bar and grill, as the fighters met eyes again.

Qrow growled and grabbed Aldric by his cuirass, hauling him into the air as his scythe collapsed back into a sword, and with a single jerk, the blade collapsed at a right angle, revealing twin rifle barrels, which he dug into Aldric's side. Aldric, however, wasn't letting this go lying down, and with a grunt, he used his semblance to snap his sidearm to his hand and he dug it into Qrow's, instantly setting the terms for their standoff. They stayed there for several seconds, Qrow scowling at him with such a livid fury that a lesser man may have wet his pants at the sight. Aldric met his gaze, his mask, goggles, and shemagh masking his neutral frown.

"Alright." Qrow finally said, in his characteristic rasp. "You're good." He dropped Aldric to his feet. "But you've got a lot to learn."

Aldric landed with a huff, "I don't disagree." He admitted, in a deeper, gravelly voice, it muffled by his mask and the scarf.

"That doesn't change what you _did."_ The Huntsman growled, as he hung his blade from his back, and Aldric stowed his pistol in its holster. "Twenty words. You explain to me why you gouged some poor girl's eyes out in twenty words. I don't like what I hear, I stop holding back." The man's expression was halfway between a livid scowl, and a guarded frown, as his right hand rested firmly against the handle of his blade. His usually white coat was a bright, vibrant, neon green as it reflected the lighting fixture the two stood behind. The shadows cast by his body were particularly powerful due to their proximity to a strong light source, casting his details in perfect clarity, and ensuring Aldric was almost completely shrouded in shadow.

Aldric was tempted to be snide, but as much as he was riding high off of his not dying again in the face of a goddess, he also knew Qrow could back up what he said, and considering how he still lacked a few important limbs, and hadn't once had Qrow on the defensive during their little spat, he wasn't quite keen on his chances. "Lady in Red wanted to kill her." Aldric said, using his semblance to pull his coat back over to him, seeing that it, too, seemed more of a deep, dark green than its usual black. "Ensure she was the last in her thoughts." What was that, fifteen? "I had to buy time." _Twenty, bitch, your move._ He slid his hands back into his coat, letting the adrenaline drain out of his system.

The Huntsman frowned, "time for what?"

"I gambled real hard." Aldric said, in his gravelly rasp. "I was operating under the assumption that your faction was either aware of her identity, or watching her, in some fashion. Lady In Red's original plan was to overwhelm her and steal her powers, but she feared that she would be able to resist her and perhaps even halt her efforts. Then she found me, figured I could turn the tide, and the plan changed from ambushing her to _fighting_ her. She thought that if we fought her wholesale, we'd weaken her resistances. Then she'd come in for the last part of the fight, make sure she was the last woman she ever saw, and was the last _person_ she ever saw before she died. Lady In Red intended to deliver the killing stroke. Line of succession would then fall to her, she'd become the maiden.

"I bought as much time as I could, hoping I was right and she was being watched." Aldric continued rasping. "I was. But when we depleted her aura, and you showed up and were being held off while she was focused upon by a fresher fighter, I knew I had to do _something_ , to buy as much time as I could. So I acted, I destroyed her eyes such that Lady In Red would _have_ to try plan B. This worked, and you managed to halt the process and extract the Maiden."

Qrow shook his head, "no." He growled, "don't give me that. You had _my_ name written on that bloodsoaked letter. How did you know _I_ would be there?"

"Process of elimination." Aldric responded, locking his masked eyes to Qrow's scowling expression. "We have something of a headcount. Names. Ozpin and the headmasters wouldn't leave their academies. The teachers in the know wouldn't leave and draw suspicion. But a professor at Signal, still accepting missions and moonlighting as a Huntsman? That would definitely fit the bill of someone capable of watching over the Fall Maiden." Then Aldric shrugged, "and even if I was wrong, your name was on the list. Whoever picked her up would pass it on."

"That's one hell of a gamble, kid." Qrow grunted.

"So is trying to act a spy right under Lady In Red and the White Witch." Aldric countered.

Qrow's frown deepened, "who's Lady In Red?" He demanded.

But Aldric shook his head, "I give you her name, you find and kill her, fingers start getting pointed. No one easier to point to than the new guys. I get made, you lose your inside man." He responded. "I can give you all I can, but not everything."

Qrow huffed, starting to pace back and forth. "So let me get this straight. You want to betray them, but you aren't willing to go so far as to risk your neck to do it." His frown deepened, "you're making it real hard for me to trust you, here. Almost sounds like you want to convince me to let you in on our little 'circle' as you called it, just so you can screw us over." He turned to Aldric, frowning. "You realize what I'm getting at. You want me to vouch for you, you gotta give me something beyond what's already happened. Give me something to work with."

Aldric kept his body language stilled and guarded, the body language equivalent of a neutral, unchanging frown. He could either tell the man about him, and pique Ozpin's curiosity when he no-doubt reported it, or tell him about the short-term endgame, and get Qrow's trust. Both had their benefits, and both their drawbacks. If he told him about Earth, he risked pissing Qrow off because he wasn't giving him something relevant. If he told him about Cinder's endgame, he risked losing his position in the Legion when Ozpin inevitably outmaneuvered them. He did not know about how Salem operated, and there wasn't much he had from the show that could tell him how she thought, so he had to assume she was Sherlock Holmes meets L levels of genre-savvy intelligent.

He decided he'd test the waters, and if Qrow wasn't interested, he'd fall back. "What do you know of ancient dust?"

And just like that, Qrow stopped his pacing, immediately rounding on Aldric, eyes wide and lips pursed in a tight, shocked frown. "Go on."

"It's something of an in-depth story." Aldric rasped, as he turned to look over his shoulder, and then approached an air conditioning unit, growing closer to the huge neon sign above them, the shadows it cast upon him turning even harsher, blending together until he was practically a black mass reflecting green light. "Multiverse theory." He began.

Qrow nodded, "heard of it." He followed Aldric, and rammed his blade into the roof with a light metal-on-stone scraping noise. Its haft then extended outwards and snapped over sideways, providing him a flat surface to sit on. "What's that got to do with ancient dust?"

"They plug into eachother." Aldric rasped, "the White Witch used ancient dust to crack open a portal to another world." Aldric said, bluntly, noting how Qrow's posture went from hunched over to straight in seconds.

"You're implying you're from this world." He concluded.

Aldric nodded, "I know you've never heard the name Nathan Drake. It's not colorful, is it?" Qrow gave him a sidewards, conciliatory nod. "Where I come from, there is no dust. But there is aura." Again he attracted Qrow's attention, and he nodded, spinning his hand in a circle, prompting him to continue. "So without dust, the aura of my people just _builds,_ and _builds,_ and _builds._ The longer we live, the more we get. The more we get, the more we generate. Think of a bucket of water. Once it's full, it overflows. With my people, once it's full, the bucket gets bigger, and we keep filling it."

"How many of your people does Salem have?"

Aldric shook his head. "Only me." He said, "I was the only one who survived."

Qrow blinked, "the machine at Beacon Cliffs. The books we found. The bodies in the grave. That was you? Your people?"

Good, he wouldn't have to provide proof. Aldric nodded, "survived nearly a week on my own. Grimm caught onto the negativity generated by my surviving and all of the people dying. Had to fight a beowolf without aura, and a Nevermore joined in for a while before I blew up a dust lab. Killed the beowolf, got the nevermore to get the eff out of dodge. Lady In Red figured if I could survive that without the super aura, then _with_ it I'd be unstoppable." He gave a sidewards nod. "Proved her right when I fought Amber and didn't die." He'd skip mentioning his arm and eyes; if Emerald had masked their identities, he wouldn't make it easier for Qrow to peg him.

"But you're the only survivor." Qrow stressed, making a chopping motion with his hand.

Aldric nodded, "there were some bodies I never found, but Lady In Red focused on me. Without outside help any other survivors would have attracted Grimm. Keep in mind I almost died fighting a beowolf, and I had the supplies from my crash. They would have had less than that. Chance? Yes. Likely? No." He explained.

Qrow let out a shaky breath, "okay." He looked up, "so your people. Strong enough to fight Maidens. Salem only has you. Can she get more?"

Aldric shook his head, "I've been led to believe that, for now, I'm it." He rasped, "something about a peculiarity of the ritual they used to take me. I'm still working it out. But that may change if and when I meet up with the White Witch."

"You haven't seen her yet?"

Aldric shook his head, "we haven't left Vale, yet. It's all been picking up resources and tracking down the Maiden, so far." He rasped, feeling his throat going raw from the torture. Soon he wouldn't have to be acting.

"And what comes after that? Can you tell me?"

Aldric crossed his arms, leaning back, and letting his semblance act as a barrier against which he sat. It looked unnatural, the way he was leaning back and not falling over, and Aldric hoped that was the effect it was having on Qrow. "I haven't been let in on it." He rasped, "but I've pieced something together. I believe they want a paradigm shift on an untold scale. They intend to systematically destroy the pillars of society as we know it. Starting from the biggest, and working their way down. The Huntsman academies... The councils of three. The capital cities. The endgame catches me up. I do not now if this is for domination purposes, or destruction purposes."

Qrow no doubt tightened his frown because he was thinking on things told to him by Ozpin, soon reaching the conclusion that Salem wanted the Relics of the Deity Brothers. The test here would be whether or not he gave that up, or kept it to himself. "And how do they intend to do that?"

 _Damn._ Though Aldric didn't fault him for keeping it. Strictly speaking, the only reason Aldric knew was because of the show; Cinder herself hadn't even mentioned anything even remotely approaching Remnant religion. "Don't know. We only just got part of the powers of the Maiden, after all, and whatever our plans may have been, not having all of our ducks in a row will have changed things."

"How did she take Amber's powers?" Qrow demanded. "Or is that something else you don't know?"

"How long ago did the Oz-man tell you about the crash in the forest?" Aldric countered. "I've been here only a little while longer. What I've given you so far is almost _everything_ I've managed to piece together from what little they _have_ told me." He said, "think of it this way." He fought the urge to clear his throat, knowing that would be a weakness he couldn't display. "I helped cripple one of the four women you and your circle are sworn to protect and set up a parley with you. The moment you arrived, fifteen minutes ago, you tried to kill me. From the beginning of this conversation until now, with everything I've told you, would you say _you_ trust me?"

Qrow nodded, "fair enough."

"I've been right alongside them, bleeding, sweating, and training the entire time, and they only trust me _now_."He rasped. " _Now,_ that I've risked my life alongside them to get at Amber. _Before_ now? Not so much." He thought a moment, before deciding it prudent to test the boundaries a bit. "Don't chide me, Branwen. I've nearly died fighting before now, but this is the greatest risk my life has been in the entire time I've been in your world." His gravelly voice grew deeper as he continued.

"Then give me that, at least. Why would you betray the people who ostensibly saved your life after you went tumbling into another world? If you're willing to do that, then why should I trust you?" Qrow challenged.

Aldric chuckled. "Put yourself in my shoes, Branwen." He requested. "I fell into this world. My airship crashed and everyone including my father either died or could be presumed dead. These huge giant bear demons then started hunting me and every day of my life I had to fight just to go to sleep. I nearly die to kill them, then these three assholes show up, and _tell me_ they're why I fell out of the sky.

"They're why I almost died. They're why my father is as good as dead, and they're why I can most likely never... Ever go home. And they came right out and told me." He squared his gaze on the Huntsman. "What would _you_ do?" He deadpanned. "Work with them? Do what they want?" He paused, this was getting personal, that was what Qrow wanted, he couldn't give him anything more than what he was willing to lose. "No." He shook his head, and leaned back forward, "no."

He wasn't lying, either, much as he say he may have been made loyal to their faction, they still killed a lot of innocent people and his father. Even if he hadn't the show to color his opinions, even if he'd been convinced of their cause and had been made loyal, that didn't change what they'd done. They'd killed his dad, told him he was a Super Saiyan, and proved it by _giving_ him those powers, even going so far as to later claim he may very well be a god. For all his talk in his journal about 'they probably would have me loyal by now', loyalty only went so far in the face of good ol' fashioned, pre-meditated revenge _,_ and they'd given him the tools for said revenge. Without the show, it simply would have taken longer for him to figure out the how of it. He would have found some way, regardless, but because he had the show, he knew so sooner how to royally fuck them over. It was, perhaps, his greatest secret, his one great truth, perhaps the one constant out of the innumerable ways his life could have played out.

He didn't even blame Cinder, really. With the show he knew, she'd never experimented with this. She was good, and crafty, but she wasn't that creative. It was Salem who'd done it, who'd figured it all out, and it was she who was the target of his ire. With the show, without the show, if he'd come here and his father had died, it still would have been Salem who did it. As a result, with the show, or without it, he _would_ have made every attempt to kill her. He would have used everything he had - his aura, his mind, the secrets he had from Earth - all of it would have been dedicated to killing Salem. He even knew how he would have tried it without aura, too. Hell, he was pretty tempted to try it even _with_ his aura, it would be one hell of a backup plan. All of his power, if he won, she died, and if he lost, she'd die anyways.

After all, nuclear physics hadn't even _existed_ in the few years before World War II scientists had invented it. But with Remnant's technology, arguably more advanced than Earth's in all the areas that counted, years could have been turned down to months, and it wouldn't have been long after that before he could _nuke_ Salem.

 _Nuke that bitch until she glows. Pretty good exchange for an airplane of people and my Dad, right?_ Aldric thought it was pretty ironic, really. The only person alive, aside from himself, who knew his one great truth was also probably the only person alive who had the greatest reason to doubt it.

Shit, maybe Neo wasn't as wrong for him as he'd thought.

Regardless of that, Qrow's frown actually softened, as he considered Aldric's words. "Well..." He grunted, "if you're telling me the truth... Then I am sorry for your loss. I guess that'd be a good enough reason to risk your life like this, wouldn't it, Mister Drake?"

Aldric smiled, underneath his mask. "They think I'm some... Callous child." He rasped. "They think I'm cold, that I didn't care about the lives on that plane..." He sighed. "Ship." He corrected, more for Qrow's sake than his. "Because _I_ survived, and they gave me toys that, here, are commonplace, but there, are godlike. But - and I think you may understand this as well as I - if you take enough from a man, he's more than willing to let parts of his soul rot in order to get his." Now for the killer, "I'll have to live with what I did to Amber for the rest of my life. I'll have to live with what I _will_ do, alongside them, for just as long. But I'm willing to take that evil onto myself. Whether or not I'll win, whether or not I'll even get close, I'm willing to do this. To _try._.. With or without you." He paused for effect. "So, Qrow. This is your choice.

"What will you choose?"

Qrow was silent for several moments, no doubt weighing the validity of Aldric's words, before the corner of his mouth ticked upward, and he reached into the pocket of his coat. Aldric didn't even need the radar pulse to know what it was, considering Qrow's love for the drink, he'd probably have been _waiting_ for a chance to go for his hip flask.

His words, however, threw him off. "Well, Oz? Waddaya think?"

 _Uh... What?_

Aldric's radar pulse was consummate, in the way it worked. He called it 'radar pulse' for the ease of which that would explain the concept, but that was a very simple way of explaining it, it was a lot more complicated than that. With his semblance, he could sense _everything_ around him - it was as if every surface around him, and even the air itself, for at least ten meters, and usually more if he focused it, had a nerve ending, and he could feel it. It painted a three-dimensional image of the entire surrounding environment directly onto his brain, giving him a complete three hundred and sixty degree, full-penetration x-ray vision of everything around him. He could see, _literally,_ everything, as long as it was in range.

There was no fooling it, even Emerald's illusions couldn't fool the radar pulse, and if she hadn't bitten the dust, it would have been how he would have been sure they hadn't followed him, or spiked his coat with a listening device. It was one of the major reasons he felt he'd been able to steal lightning from Amber, and was also what he felt was the main contributor to his rapid growth in skill. He saw everything, and it was all burned onto his mind, creating a sort of eidetic memory he could view from all angles, at any time, he never forgot it. With it, he could see every single foe charging him and could use his semblance to redirect their attacks and dodge those he couldn't, it was how he'd been able to perfect his dodging and his barriers. With enough focus, he could even feel the individual atoms in the air for what they were, and not simply for what they made. There _was_ no fooling it, period. Nothing had done it in the entire time he'd had it.

Until today, when he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. A hand attached to a body that, hardly a second ago, hadn't been there. Not that he'd missed it, but the space this body occupied had been completely empty until just then. The person standing there, his hand on Aldric's shoulder, hadn't _existed_ in that space. It took all of Aldric's concentration not to start, and he slowly turned his gaze to the pale skinned hand, itself turned a bright, vibrant green by the neon lights they stood behind. Had he had eyes, he would have found himself staring into eyes of Beacon's own headmaster. The messy white-haired man grinned at him, his brown eyes looking at him from over the ridge of his glasses. Just as Aldric was, so too was half of the headmaster cast in powerful, hard-lined shadows by Mogar's bright neon lights. That he was here, and had gotten through his radar pulse, Aldric knew he'd been outplayed from the very beginning. This hadn't been Qrow testing him.

This had been _Ozpin_ testing him.

Aldric would give credit where it was do, and he reflected this with a brief, impressed sidewards nod of the head. Ozpin and Qrow had been at the game _far_ longer than him, to think he could have just waltzed right in and played at their level, it was like giving a ten year old a billion dollars and not expecting them to burn _all_ of it on candy and toys. They were on a whole different level than him, and it had been perhaps the epitome of arrogance to think he could have even tried to play at their level, and Ozpin being here was them _telling_ him this. They seemed to respect his attempt - that had probably been the point of Qrow fighting him, come to think of it - but they were basically saying, 'Okay, good job kiddie, now let the adults play'.

"I think..." Said the calm, neutral tone of the Huntsman Headmaster. "That he still has secrets he's yet to let us in on. This 'Lady In Red's' identity notwithstanding." He patted Aldric's shoulder, "but for now, I think we can trust him."

 _Hooooooly shit, that was close._ Aldric repressed a shuddering sigh. "I lost control of this the second I planted that note on Amber, didn't I?" He asked, keeping up his gravelly voice. At this point he wouldn't put it past these two to already know who he was, what his name was, and what he looked like, but he had to keep up appearances, just in case they were bluffing.

The headmaster pushed his round sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. "You give yourself too little credit, young man." Said Ozpin, rounding on Aldric and coming to stand next to the still sedentary Qrow. "While you may think of yourself of a skill and level far below myself and my colleagues, it takes no small amount of gumption to do what it is you've done. No small amount of mental fortitude to keep your stories straight and win the trust of Lady In Red, whilst simultaneously keeping from her your true intentions, even the feelings you harbor for their part in your father's death and your predicament." He paused, "truly, had you not mentioned it, even we may have reached a conclusion similar to them." He said, with a nod. "Callous... Not many children your age use words like that."

Qrow surfaced from his flask, "he's tryin' to say ' _good job',_ kid." He slurred, wiping some stray alcohol from his hairy chin. "Even I'll give some credit where it's due. It takes balls, doin' what you are. And a certain kind of smarts, and you've got both of those in spades." Another swig, "all your people like that?"

Aldric shrugged, "consider your question. That would be if a Huntsman came to my world, and I asked him if all of _his_ people had powers." He said, his raspy tone cutting through the cold night air between them.

He noted a grin stretch across Ozpin's face. "Quite." He said, with a nod. His posture remained straight, but with a slight relaxed bend to his spine, and his hands held behind his back. It looked kind of strange, not seeing him with a coffee cup in hand. "You've quite a mind on you, Mister Drake. Hearing you speak to Qrow, here, I begin to understand how you were able to pull these things off. At the risk of repeating myself, it takes no small mind to be able to do what you do. Were this any other situation I may have invited you to my academy..." He lifted his gaze, looking over Aldric's masked head, towards Beacon Tower, in the distance.

 _Don't tempt me, man. You know how much I'd like about a year's worth of not thinking?_ Aldric nodded, "I appreciate it." He rasped. "I guess I can consider this your choice?" He prodded, getting the conversation back on track.

Ozpin hummed, "you would be correct." He said, with a nod. "How would you intend to get back in contact with us, in the future?" He asked. "Would a scroll be too mundane?"

"My group consists of a master thief, a master assassin, and a demi-goddess, Oz-man." Aldric deadpanned, his throat starting to become sore. "I plug your number into my scroll, they'll find it. I keep a second scroll lying around, they'll find it. I have to operate under the assumption that they're _always_ looking." He elaborated. "I'm working on something, a reliable means of contact that they can't crack into, but until then, I'm going to have to go the long way. Public libraries, disposable burner scrolls, things of that nature." There was a reason he was trying to bridge Remnant and Earth tech, after all, and an Earth-English keyboard was only one of them. "Obviously, that means it may be long delays in between you hearing from me.

"And to add on to that, I can't give you everything." He said, "as much as I may want to, a victory in the short term may lead to a defeat in the long term." He rasped, with an apologetic nod.

Qrow chuckled, leaning over and giving Ozpin a light backhanded slap on the side. "Hear that? Now complain about me not saying much over scrolls again, I dare you." He grinned.

Ozpin didn't respond to the Huntsman, instead nodding. "There is a wisdom in that. A wisdom I understand more than you may think." He said, with a nod in Qrow's direction. "As well, I would think our time here grows short, no?" Aldric nodded, "is there anything else you can give us tonight? Something that won't cast suspicion onto you, but will allow us perhaps to preserve lives? Time to prepare?" He elaborated, nodding with each point.

Aldric was silent a moment, "we're a quality over quantity style organization. There aren't many of us directly involved with the White Witch. I haven't seen her yet, myself. We've spent this time before our attack on Amber gathering agents with resources. _They_ gather numbers, delegating our small, short-term goals, while we work on the bigger picture. So you find thugs, go ahead and assume they don't know anything. It's leaders and lieutenants who would have a chance at knowing more. People like Roman Torchwick, and Adam Taurus." It was a hell of a risk giving them names like this, but so was playing the role of double agent in the Legion of fucking Doom. He got to his feet. "But even they only have pieces of the puzzle, they don't know the whole picture."

The Huntsman and the Headmaster exchanged a glance, the former halfway through taking a swig from his flask. "Food for thought." Intoned Ozpin, as he turned back to the crash survivor-turned spy. "But as you've pointed out, we cannot truly act upon your information until such a time as we ourselves can gather the proper evidence against these peoples. Even more importantly, in a fashion believable to our enemies without risking your cover, Mister Drake." He nodded. "You've given us a lot to think about, and for what it's worth, I thank you a great deal for these risks you are taking. We will use what you can give us with the utmost care."

Aldric stared down at the man's hand, wondering if he shouldn't tell them about Cinder's theories about the Masters. Fuck it, it may get him laughed at, but he had to lay his cards out on the table. "There's another." He rasped, turning to face the neon green sign, as it illuminated them all in powerful green light.

Ozpin blinked, "oh?"

"During out fight." He began, "she used her powers to create a lightning storm." He said, his gravelly voice filling the air, as Ozpin and Qrow briefly exchanged glances; details of the fight itself were, obviously, scarce, but aside from having her powers stolen, they hadn't thought there to be any truly relevant details. "I used mine to rip that lightning out of the air and throw it back at her." Aldric turned his gaze back to the two.

Qrow frowned, "okay." He shot back.

Ozpin, however, his eyes narrowed, his gaze briefly dropping in thought, before he raised it back up. "How could you do that with your semblance being telekinesis?"

Aldric decided to ignore how Ozpin noticed this, concluding that it was either because he spent so much time around a TK, or because he was just that good. Considering Qrow gave the headmaster an astonished look, Aldric leaned a bit more heavily towards the latter.

"Telekinesis is the manipulation of objects with the mind. Objects are things that have mass, and take up space. The electrons and other such charged particles that make up lightning fit that bill." Aldric responded.

Now Qrow was looking at him, "that'd take a _lot_ of power." He said, "even Goodwitch - she's good, but that far down? She nearly died trying to mess with molecules. Barely filled a glass of water."

 _I forget that they're_ both _teachers._ Thought Aldric, as he nodded. "Lady In Red has a theory. That my semblance isn't really one... But rather what remains of something much scarier being sealed away." He rasped. "Consider Amber, and others like her. They can create lightning storms, pull apples out of thin air, can freeze objects solid and melt them just as easily." He gave a wide shake of his head, "that's all accomplishable through telekinesis. But as you said, it would take a _lot_ of power, and even more control. But a Maiden? She would have both of those in spades... Their powers being akin to reality warping magic. Now humor me. What is magic, but science we can't explain? That we don't understand?"

Ozpin appeared ready to humor him, genuinely interested in where this thought train went, if the inquisitive shine in his eyes was anything to go by, but Qrow cut right to the chase. "Are you implying that you know how Maidens can do what they do?"

"No. I'm saying that I made a theory based off of available evidence." Aldric rasped, "and so did Lady In Red."

Now Ozpin's inquisitive grin turned into a frown, and while Aldric wasn't completely sure, he thought he saw a small tinge of fear. "Mister Drake, please be frank with me. Are you trying to tell us that Lady In Red believes _all_ of your people to be equivalent to Maidens in power?" He asked, directly.

 _Smart._ Aldric shook his head. "No." He rasped, causing Qrow to double take.

"But you said -"

"I'm saying she thinks we're an entire _species_ of Maidens, with the same capabilities, and she's using my feats as basis for this." Aldric continued, as if he hadn't been interrupted. "She coined the term 'Masters'." He deepened his voice with this last word, to hammer it on home. "I feel it important to stress that there is a secondary theory, perhaps just as likely." He added, "but the similarities between my feats and abilities, and those of Amber's and Lady In Red's with what fraction of the power she has are too many to be written off as simple coincidence." He didn't even wait, knowing they would ask for it. "She thinks that it could be just as likely that I seal away the majority of my power instinctively. That I was able to grab Amber's lightning because I tapped into this... She called it an aura equivalent to fight or flight. That when I entered this state, I gained access to _everything_ for just a few seconds.

"Initially I believed this fight or flight theory to be true, but as she continued talking and I continued thinking, I began to lean more to the Masters theory." He croaked. "I point to our defenses as the easiest parallel with the least assumptions required. Amber used her powers more often than she used her aura to defend herself, and when I overtook these powers, it took little effort to break her aura. This reflects almost perfectly my own abilities, which operate on the principal that, the more power I desire, the less aura I have to shield myself with, but I can just as easily use said power to defend as I can to attack." He finally had no other choice and had to clear his throat, cursing himself for it.

"When I fought her, I got the same feeling. That everything she had was being put to her offense, and that she was using said offense to defend herself. That her aura was merely there to catch what she could not." He finished.

Ozpin and Qrow were silent for several long moments, before Qrow ran his hand through his hair. "Fuck me." He growled. "This is really happening."

"This is indeed a troubling revelation." Said Ozpin, still frowning in thought. "I must admit I do not know if I am ready to believe it." He locked his brown eyes to Aldric's own masked ones. "And you say she believes this to be true?"

"Neither she nor I have any definitive proof of either being the case." Aldric assured. "I specifically kept some of my own conclusions to myself in the aim of leaning her towards fight or flight. But the fact of the matter is that at the moment, we don't know. It may very well be that because I am from a different universe... A different planet... And indeed a different species altogether, that my aura simply works in a manner different to humans and faunus on Remnant. However the similarities are present and are startling in number, and it would provide an even larger reason for the White Witch to want to crack into my world. As such..." He trailed off.

Ozpin picked up on his line of thought. "We have to assume the worst." He said, with a solemn nod. "I must admit, I knew to what you were implying the moment you began to lead into it. I did then and still do find the concept of a male Maiden..." He shrugged. "Well, the phrase itself should convey the ludicrous nature of the idea. I can understand why Lady In Red chose 'Master' instead. But considering the unprecedented nature of the situation in which we find ourselves..." He nodded to Aldric. "A man from another world stands before us. And our vault is filled with everything we could scavenge from your crash site." He summarized. "I am willing to believe this, until such a time as we know for sure one way or another. Can I trust you to keep us up to date with any news on this subject?"

Aldric nodded, "I've placed this must trust in you. Until such a time as I learn that it was misplaced, I will continue to do so."

Ozpin let out a steadying breath, and extended his hand. "I suppose that is all either of us can ask for, until we have fully earned the trust of the other." He said. "Thank you, once again." He said, much more emphatically.

Aldric shook the man's hand, as Qrow handed him a slip of paper. "That's our personal contact info. I'm sure you'll use fake emails and one-off scroll numbers, so sign your messages with this pseudonym you've given us, so we'll know it's you."

Aldric accepted the paper, stowing it in his coat and making a mental note to fold it up and put it with the RWBY SD Card. "One last thing, before I go." He said, looking from Qrow, to Ozpin. "How is she?" He rasped.

This made Ozpin's expression fall, as he sighed. "Amber?" He clarified, "not well. She remains unstable yet. She requires constant service by a team of skilled doctors to keep from deteriorating too quickly... You did quite a number on her, Mister Drake." He said, with a solemn nod. "But we've allies of our own from Atlas, making here posthaste with technology that may extend her life until we can come up with a plan." He nodded to him, "whatever we decide, we will let you know. So I would recommend waiting at least an hour or two before disposing of your... Shall we call them 'dead drops'?"

Aldric was pretty sure that didn't apply at all, but he nodded nonetheless. "Alright. One hour is what I feel confident in giving you." He said firmly, again swapping his gaze between the two. "Have your updates ready on a moment's notice, yeah?"

At this, Qrow laughed again, this one more sardonic than earlier. "Oh man... Goodwitch is gonna _hate_ you." He drawled, taking another swig from his flask.

Aldric ignored the jab, "if there's nothing else?"

Ozpin shook his head, "when I have had more time to think upon the subject, I shall send along my thoughts about the Masters." He said, before cracking a small grin. "On a lighter note... Am I to assume the mask and your convenient case of laryngitis were for all of our sake?"

It took a supreme effort of will not to laugh at that. "I don't exist in this world. Anonymity is as much a weapon as is anything else... And if you two saw or knew _anything_ about me, and we met on the battlefield, you may hesitate. God forbid I survive that fight, let alone win, Lady In Red is _good._ I operate under the assumption she's better than me, so she would notice it. That would spark suspicion, and from there everything falls apart." Aldric stowed his hands in his pockets. "Maybe one day we'll meet on equal terms... But until then? This is what we get."

Ozpin nodded, conceding his point. "Alright, Mister Drake. If that is how you want to play this, we'll follow your lead. Though, next time, I would suggest a voice modulator." He added, with a smirk, before it faded away and he returned to business. "The logical conclusion then would be to keep your very existence on the proverbial need to know?"

 _You people have voice modulators?! And I've been tearing apart my fucking throat? Okay, fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you too. I'm on Cinder's side, now._ "That would be best." He'd read far more than enough stories where a person who was guaranteed to be trustworthy turned out not to be. If a spy in Salem's faction was made common knowledge among the League, eventually _someone_ would leak it out, in some way, shape, or form. It wouldn't take long at all for all roads to lead to him, and then his life would be forfeit. "Anything else?"

Ozpin shook his head, "nothing but a good luck, Mister Drake. And stay safe. If ever you feel an... Exit strategy... Shall we say... To be appropriate, Beacon's doors will always be open to you."

Okay, now Aldric _had_ to lay on the snide. "The same academy that has a target on its back. That myself and my allies are actively planning on _destroying."_ He deadpanned.

Ozpin either didn't notice it, or, perhaps even better, matched it, as he smiled warmly and nodded. "The very same, yes."

Aldric liked this guy. "Okay, then."


	19. In Crazy

_AN_

 _Apologies for the delay, trying to break into Emergency Medical Services and my big important $100+ tests are coming up real fast, so you can safely assume where my priorities are._

* * *

Chapter 18

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Funny, thing: There's still a smaaaaaall part of me that is scared shitless Cinder **knows** what I'm doing, and is just letting me do it to see how I act in the wild. To see if I'll slip up and give her something from Earth that she can use. Like, maybe she's waiting for me to give the Justice League the secret to nuclear weapons, and then she'll gobble that shit up and - oh! Vale got obliterated with the push of a fucking button!_

 _I mean, I checked all of my bases. Dotted all of my 'I's, crossed my 'T's. I went over my jacket three times with a molecular-level radar pulse, no listening devices. Checked my aura, nothing weird. Left my scroll here in the Garden, no chance she could bug that. My earth tech is still on the aviator, so she can't have tampered with that. Constantly used the radar to check for pursuers, doubled back more than a few times just in case... I even followed the advice from that Spec Ops Survival Guide I mentioned I'd grabbed from the plane, a long time back. Remember that? Yeah, it still has some use. Glad I didn't burn it._

 _Hell, I'm also starting the arduous journey of learning how to write in code, such that even (god forbid) Cinder learns how to read Earth English, she won't be able to make sense of my journals. I'm turning into fucking Light Yagami, here, folks! (I'm not going to make a 'chip to eat' joke. That's too easy.) The point is, no matter how thoroughly I check everything to make sure there's no way Cinder's onto me... I'm still just the tiniest bit worried._

 _I mean, for chrissakes - she's a demigoddess, now. Half of the real deal, compared to my 'kindasortamaybewedunno'.  
Is it paranoia if they're really out to get you?_

 _Anyways, all that to say: I met up with the League today. It's me, Qrow, and Ozpin.  
Much as I'd like to call us the Illuminati, earlier I decided on the Watchmen, and that sounds cooler, so I'm keeping that. The League is Ozpin's faction, the Watchmen is the three of us._

 _It was kind of funny, actually - I was walking up all swaggerific, thinking I owned the place. Qrow promptly beat my ass into the ground, so badly that I had to pull a Commander Shepard and shove a gun in his gut to get him to stop. Then we shot the shit for a while, and then he dropped the bomb: Ozpin had been there the whole time, somehow even fooling my radar pulse._

 _I'd been played from the **start**. I thought I had everything in control, but I'm not even a student compared to those two masters._

 _But, it worked out in the end. Watchmen: Formed. Ozpin and Qrow are on my side, and now I'm not alone. They promised not to divulge even my pseudonym out amongst the rest of the League, so for now, it's just them knowing about the whole Green Hornet deal. I honestly think Ozpin already knows what I look like, maybe he can even read my mind, but I'm keeping up the whole 'Batman Anonymity Method Acting' thing going until I can't anymore. For my own sanity, at least.  
I mean, for chrissakes, the mask I got from my first visit to the Garden is pretty much one of those muzzles you see the psych patients wear, albeit less... Muzzling. Point is it masked the important half of my face, a pair of goggles hid my nonexistent eyes, and I wrapped my head up in a big ol' shemagh to hide my bandages. So as much as I'd like to assume Ozpin already knows (he fooled the radar, after all!), I'm going to operate as if he doesn't until I know otherwise.  
_

 _My throat feels like it's on fire, by the way. I need to get to work on using my semblance to screw with sound. Go from Bale's Batman to Batfleck._

 _Anyways, point is: I've got allies now. Hooray!_

 _Problem: I need an excuse that the Legion will buy for me spending a lot of Mercury's money on burner scrolls... And though I've already got an idea... I've got a horrible feeling in my groin that I may come to regret it.  
Neo may have her use yet._

 _But the problem with **that** , is I already fucked that potential avenue up by not thinking and giving her my primary number.  
(Oh my god I'm actually considering voluntarily dating Yuno Gasai. When did I lose control of my life?)_

 _Maybe instead I can start siphoning small amounts of money off with every purchase I make? Squirrel it away into bank account, and use that for my burner phones?_

 _That might work better._

 _Thinking on it, maybe I can merge the two. Convince Neo that, god forbid she gets caught and they go through her scroll, 'they' could find my number in there and use it to track me down. That puts Cinder's operations at risk, and that's bad juju. So instead, maybe we can start picking up burner phones, link them together with free messaging apps (like Kik from back home). That gives me a plausible reason for pissing away money on burner phones, and also a reason to squirrel away money to a personal bank account._

 _And to keep up good feelings between the two of us I can download the app on my primary scroll, shoot her a message if I ever think too much time has passed. I've learned that, while good, there is nothing on Remnant even approaching the levels of techno-sleuth the NSA reached back home. Tracking scroll numbers? Possible. Tracking IP Addresses? Less so. Figure that one out._

 _Problem: This means I have to **date Yuno Gasai.**_

 _Uuugh... What Would Nathan - actually, he'd probably make a 'don't stick your dick in crazy' joke, let's be honest here.  
Fuck me._

 _Who knows? Maaaaaaaaaybe she's actually nice when you get to know her? It's not an absolute impossibility that I'm blowing this all out of proportion... Right? Yeah? Maybe I'll come to enjoy it? In a... Sick... Twisted... Sadistic... Morbid curiosity kind of way, but still.  
Or, you know, eventually she'll figure out what I'm up to and cut my genitals off. _

_But let's not think about to that.  
(Ahem... note to self: Buy a cod piece.)  
(Ten cod pieces)  
(No, twenty.)  
(And wear them at the same time, whenever I'm in the same general... Planet, as her.)_

 _So that's that problem fixed._

 _We'll actually be meeting up with them soon, so I need to get to work on that pretty fast. (Gotta practice my Johnny Bravo.) And since the Legion seems to... Well, at least Cinder approves - I doubt Mercury gives two shits - I won't have to worry too much on that end. I did already kind of set this up, with that whole 'find a girl, settle down' comment I dropped on Cinder.  
Makes me wonder how Emerald would have reacted.  
_

 _After them, we fly back to Taurus... And after that? Fuck if I know, my knowledge is kind of useless until I hear about Torchwick fucking up a dust store robbery, and even then, I don't know very much about what the Legion does in the background of all the RWBY shenanigans. If I had to guess, maybe we'd be trying to find someone to replace Emerald, seeing as how we can't rely on her semblance to fuck shit up in the Vytal tournament anymore.  
_

 _What I'm hoping to do is make the whole communications issue a non-issue. Once we're done with Taurus I hope to have nothing but time (or at least a lot more of it), and I'm going to use that to bridge Earth and Remnant tech. The keyboard stuff I mentioned awhile back is only part of the dream - what I **really** want to do is set up some kind of application that reprograms my phone, that way I can use it to connect to the CCT Network, and make calls to Remnant devices. Then, I won't have to piss away money on burner phones, as I'll have a reliable, uncrackable method of communicating with the Watchmen._

 _I figured out how to use Remnant Tech to charge Earth devices, I can do this._

 _But before that, I'm going to sleep._

 _Oh, uh, shit. I forgot to mention: I told them the whole 'Masters' theory Cinder and I have running... Thaaaat I told the Watchmen about, because I think, of anyone, they may need that kind of information as much as I do.  
_ _Simply put: Cinder thinks I'm a god.  
_

 _No, that's not a joke! I didn't tell her about nuclear physics and now she worships me like a caveman would worship a fighter jet pilot, I mean she actually thinks I'm the male equivalent to Remnant's Maidens!  
Side note: As a fan of the show, that phrase actually pisses me off, because I know there's no such thing. They were pretty adamant about that.  
But as some random asshole trying to survive here? The prospect excites me.  
Also: I really need a better way to phrase that. Ozpin was right, it sounds ridiculous.  
_

 _Anyways, remember I said during our fight that I grabbed ahold of the lightning Amber made, and electrocuted the shit out of her with it? I already mentioned that Cinder is using that as her evidence. She thinks that, at the very least, I still have a **lot** of power I still haven't tapped into... A veritable aura 'fight or flight', if you will... But the operative word was 'very least'.  
_

 _As in, she thinks there's a better option.  
And apparently, that option is the Master theory, that the same 'magic' that fuels the Maidens, fuels me.  
She coined the term 'Master' to describe it... As in, the male version of Maiden. _

_Christ that sounds so stupid, saying it. And I thought the same thing, too. It sounded just as ridiculous hearing it from her mouth. But as we got to talking, I got to thinking, and realized that my powers (and the peculiarities of them) are pretty similar to what we've seen of the maidens, thus far.  
Now, to preface this... As time went on and I realized this theory held more weight, I did **try** to convince her that the fight or flight theory might be the better one, mostly by **not saying shit** and keeping most of my conclusions to myself... But Cinder's one crazy lady. She smells power, she doesn't listen to anything that says otherwise.  
_

 _So, I noticed that our methods of defending ourselves are almost identical. We don't rely on our aura as much as we do our powers. Then too are our abilities similar - this may seem far-fetched, but think about it._

 _What is freezing leaves but slowing atomic movement? What is creating fire but exciting atomic movement? What is creating a huge layer of clouds but fusing a bunch of hydrogen molecules with a bunch of oxygen molecules? And the lightning storm could easily be created with the leftover electrons from the atomic recombinations, in addition to the ambient energy created by the friction of all of that mass rubbing against eachother? And finally, what is pulling an apple out of thin air but atomic reconstruction on an infinitely complex scale?_

 _"Well, fine -" You say, "- it's just magic. That's their shtick. Magic."  
But what is **magic** but **science** we don't understand?!  
You show a smartphone to a British Empire-era guy, they'd think you're a fucking wizard!  
_

 _And what have I theorized I can use aura to do, with science? I've theorized I can freeze things to absolute zero... Ignite the air to create plasma - I've basically, in some way or another, and at some point or another, listed out everything above as being possible through **my** semblance._

 _Not enough?  
Okay, well get this:_

 _After I thought about how a lot of their powers could basically be tied into telekinesis, I considered, 'well, how could they do things on such a small scale, with such picture-perfect accuracy?', and then I realized - **thats** where the 'magic' plugs in. Without using it, they would have to do everything themselves, but with their Maiden 'magic', all they have to do is think 'apple' and then their powers do the rest, rearranging the atoms in the environment around them until they get an apple. As long as they can visualize it, Green Lantern style, they can have it. _

_Does that sound familiar?_

 _Because that's exactly how I've found **my** semblance to work. I want to pick up my phone? I have to visualize it getting picked up and floating over to me. I want to fly? I have to visualize how I want to do it - be it Iron Man style or Superman style, it has to be there in my mind. I want radar? I have to visualize the pulse, start feeling out, as if I could physically touch and feel every surface. _

_Oh, that's not enough either?_

 _Cinder's had **half** of the Maiden's powers and has been growing in strength at an incredible rate. Now does **that** sound familiar? Like a certain 'exponential growth' I've been whining and agonizing about for weeks now?_

 _And then there's that my powers seem to be largely distinct from my aura.  
Now that may sound asinine considering all of the shit I've been talking about powering up my semblance sapping my shields... But even if I leave a little bit for the shields, when Mercury would break them, I wouldn't just go back to being human, or suddenly grow weaker, I'd still have **obscene** amounts of power I could draw on, when it's supposed to be aura that fuels semblance - and if one runs out, the other either ceases to function, or grows much weaker._

 _Cinder, as an aside, thinks that my telekinesis is a result of me sealing away all of these powers. It's what's leftover. That we just misinterpreted it as a semblance.  
_

 _Now, the argument can be made, and I do acknowledge, that because I'm technically of another **species** than these people, my aura may just work differently.  
But that doesn't eliminate the fact that there are a lot of startling similarities to my abilities and those of the maidens, and because I do it too much, of course it got me thinking. _

_Could this maybe explain why Cinder didn't just try to sap my power when she woke it up? Or why she's so borderline desperate to keep my loyalty? She clearly has suspicions, but I can't help but wonder if she knew from the very beginning? And if that's the case, does **Salem** know? Is that why she decided to pull people from my world? To potentially have an army of Masters and Maidens at her beck and call? Or did she **not** know, and get really lucky?_

 _And as a side note, be it fight or flight or something more 'magical', could it be related to why my eyes hurt after I pulled Amber's lightning?  
At first I'd thought I'd just burned my eyes, but I've seen lightning before, sometimes even up close, and that's never happened before._

 _Now like I said, this could very well be the result of me being from another planet, another universe, and technically another species. But if it isn't? Oh, man.  
I'm basically Doctor Strange to these peoples' Avengers.  
_

 _Fuck me, I need sleep._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

The Garden had been mostly quiet and empty when he'd returned; and both Cinder and Mercury both looked fast asleep when he checked downstairs with his radar pulse. When he returned to his room and dropped all of his gear, he fell asleep within seconds of collapsing onto his bed. More dreams about Amber haunted him once he returned to the Garden, wrote his journal entry, and collapsed into bed. Worse was that, now with his meeting with the Watchmen, they had taken on darker undertones, what with Cinder stepping around Amber and declaring she knew all along what he was doing. Then she shot him in the stomach and dropped him in a ditch with Qrow and Ozpin's bodies.

He didn't get much sleep, obviously, and the first thing Aldric did when he woke up was use his radar pulse to make sure Qrow's slip of paper was still in the strongbox with the RWBY SD card. It was still there, folded up perfectly, stowed away with the Garden coins that Mercury had never asked for the return of. That put Aldric's mind at ease as he collapsed back into bed, a cold sweat covering his body.

 _"Hoooo... Gawd."_ He breathed.

 _I've got the Watchmen now, so that means I can leave major plans to them... But I still need to come up with something in case what they do doesn't work, and Beacon still falls._ He thought, resting his forearm on his head. _The real question here is do I bring those two in on the whole RWBY thing, or keep that to myself? That would solve a lot of problems, but then it would make just as many. And I have to make this choice soon, 'cause in a year or two, all of that knowledge will be firmly outdated. Ancient history. Could I **avoid** the destruction of Beacon?_ He wondered, groaning as he raised himself up to a sitting position. _What would happen if I do that? Christ, the show wasn't even approaching being done when I got plucked out of the sky._ He planted his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet.

 _Let's assume that Beacon and Vale don't fall. That, telling Ozpin about RWBY or not telling him, at least warning him that Beacon's a target will give him enough time to plan and prepare a defense that allows the academy to stand._ _Cinder's fallback would inevitably be 'Fall Maiden Or Bust', and that would result in Ozpin and Pyrrha dying, but Vale still standing._ He fell into a chair and slid on an undershirt, before pulling his power glove up and connecting it to the larger of his two scrolls, intent on making an 'incognito' version of the Cap Shield, such that he'd never have to worry about something like his fight with Qrow again. _So Ozpin and Pyrrha, dead, but Beacon still stands. Ozpin would do... Whatever the hell it is he did in Volume Four and hop into that kid, so he's down, but not out, and the League would experience a net gain in the form of not losing Beacon. Vale might be contested territory, but with Beacon providing a safe zone from which to coordinate their efforts, them and Atlas could push back pretty quickly, once they get their momentum._ He summoned the shield, this new one hardly a centimeter larger than the standard one, meaning it took up its neutral blue wireframe.

 _Assuming... Of course... That goddamn dragon doesn't wake up. That would put a damper on the whole thing... But if Pyrrha still dies, we can assume Ruby will show up, do her silver-eyes thing, and shut that thing up. Okay, so maybe Beacon falls regardless, but with the dragon sealed up again, they might still be able to use it as a staging grounds._ He found the color settings much quicker this time around, and got to work setting up the metal options he had going for the Cap Shield, minus the colors. _So... Beacon down, but not - fuck. That dragon throws things off... Okay, I told Ozpin here that they're targeting Beacon. He's a smart cookie, so he'd get worried about the dragon. If the dragon remains sealed, Beacon doesn't fall. If it gets unleashed, Beacon will fall. Okay, this I can work with._ Soon the shield started to take on a dark gray hue, looking more like coal than bright, shiny metal.

 _So, Beacon falls, Salem moves on like the show. Beacon stands... I'd be willing to put some faith in her focusing a lot of Grimm on that area to keep the pressure up, so she could_ still _move on like the show, and probably do a one-two punch at a later date, have two academies fall at the same time. Maybe assault a second academy and crack open the dragon, a lot of people would lose hope after that._ Aldric suppressed a sigh. _Should I **let** Beacon fall? Would that be better? God damn, what -_

A notification popped up on top of the tablet-sized scroll's display, it was a message. Aldric had no idea that this scroll could sync up with the phone-sized one and display its messages, he leaned back in his chair, blinking in surprise. Obviously, it wasn't a number he recognized, considering the only ones he had programmed in were the Legion's. Unfortunately, while he didn't recognize it, that didn't mean he couldn't predict who it was from, after all, there was only one other person in the world who had his number.

The words ' _Guess who?'_ were accompanied by a picture of the tri-haired mute herself.

Aldric honestly found himself surprised that it was a formal-looking picture, and that she hadn't tried screwing with his mind by sending him cleavage shots. He wouldn't have put it past her. This message did, however, remind him of the more existentially terrifying part of his plans with the Watchmen, and he dropped his head to the desk with a light thump, groaning as he realized he had to dedicate to this, if he wanted a believable excuse to be using Mercury's money to buy an obscene amount of burner phones. Even Walter White didn't have to deal with this - at least he had his own funds to spend in secret.

With a sigh, and a determined frown, Aldric picked his head up and clicked on the notification icon. Maybe that she sent a safe-for-work picture was indicative that he was blowing this all out of proportion and thinking too much. He certainly did enough of that.

 _You know..._ He responded. _This could be anyone. You just sent a picture of yourself to a random scroll. I could totally claim to be the guy you intended to send this to and you'd never know._ The snide. He couldn't resist. It called to him.

She, in response, fired back with: _Your shield looks better in black, you should keep it that way._

 _Uh, what?_

Frowning, Aldric felt further out with his radar pulse, and, sure enough, there was a certain short assassin in a jacket and a corset standing in front of his door, leaning on her umbrella, as she awaited Aldric's response. Further out than that, he could sense her employer seated in Cinder's room, two large briefcases on each side of his chair, as he conversed with the Lady In Red. Mercury, he could sense in his room, legs kicked up on a desk as he idly watched television.

 _How long did I sleep? Wow._

The Watchman rolled his eyes, and with a wave of his hand, used his semblance to swing the door open. Neo's pale, smiling face was revealed as he swiveled around in his chair to face her, bracing himself for what was to come. "So... Am I still asleep? Is this some kind of nightmare?" He deadpanned, a single raised eyebrow marking the only change in an otherwise neutral grin.

Neo huffed and rolled her eyes, typing something out on her scroll and tossing it to Aldric as she stepped inside.

"Oh, just... Make yourself at home." Aldric said, briefly following her and wondering if the sway in her hips was intentional, before he focused on the scroll.

 _A dream, more like. Now don't wake up._

Aldric suppressed a yawn, "a dream." He snorted, "I'll give you that." He said, tossing the phone back to the tri-hared mute as she sat down on his unkempt bed. "Don't want a chair, or somethin'?" He asked, his voice still lower and more rumbly than usual, still trying to wake up.

She didn't even make a written response, merely tilting her head to the side and arcing an eyebrow. This silent staring contest went on for a moment before Aldric realized her implication, and he chuckled again, leaning back in his chair. "Why bother when you're gonna get used to it?" He said in a questioning fashion.

This turned her smirk into a smile and she nodded, as if to say 'You're learning, now!'. After a moment, she frowned, and scooted up to the edge of his bed, leaning forward and holding out her hand; Aldric resisted jumping when she brushed her fingers up against the still tender flesh underneath the bandaged stump that was his arm, and though she didn't go so far as to touch them, he sensed her gaze briefly travel up to his bandaged eyes. If Aldric didn't know any better, or if he thought she was slightly less sociopathic, he'd think she actually looked concerned.

"How'd it happen?" He voiced, to which she nodded, and he shrugged. "We all got into one _hell_ of a fight. Let me tell you - despite losing the arm and the eyes, I gotta admit, it was fun as hell." And he wasn't lying either, the only thing he regretted was actually losing his parts. "Someone we weren't really ready for came in, and..." He made a chopping motion with his hand, pantomiming cutting his arm off at the shoulder.

Neo regarded him a moment, before making a brief gesture, pointing to her eyes and then to him.

Though he was tempted to play up the blind card, Aldric decided not to, not if he wanted his little plan to work. "Can I still see?" She nodded, "well I'm playing charades with you, aren't I?" She frowned, and flipped him off, before scooting back onto his bed and making a waving gesture with her hand, indicating he could continue his work on his shield.

Aldric was tempted to fight it, but then he thought about her. She wasn't a dumb woman, just an arguably sociopathic one. She was functionally mute, the only way she could talk to him was through her phone - and those messages would show up on the tablet on his desk. The only reason he had to not be working on the shield was to look at her as they talked, but two things working against him in that area were his lack of eyes, and that she all but knew about his radar pulse. She'd _been_ his opponent for his first fight, after all, and had claimed to have seen his fight against Yang Xiao Long. She may not know the peculiarities of his semblance, but he was willing to bet she knew he had a good enough sixth sense about him. She knew well enough that he could still see her even if he wasn't looking, so she was telling him to keep working such that their conversation didn't stall it.

Maybe she _did_ care.

 _Or maybe I really... Really am fucking thinking about this too much. Lady waved at the shield. Probably a multitasker. Look at that, we've got something in common. Move on._ Aldric nodded his head to the side, and turned back to his desk. "I assume you're here with Torchwick, over in the other room?" He asked, "surprised him talking with Cinder and Co isn't breaking any Garden rules." He deadpanned, as he focused on the tablet's screen, trying to see how dark he could get the shield.

He'd remember once reading about vantablack paint, which was supposed to absorb so much light that even crinkled tin foil would still look flat. It had something to do with human beings being completely physically unable to perceive light efficiently at that kind of a low level, and while he knew that this level was reached because of veritcally aligned carbon nanotubes, but was willing to bet that messing with the wavelength settings, he could achieve a similar enough effect. Exactly how it was able to do all of this? He had absolutely no idea - he'd always understood color to be light reflecting off of surfaces, and the color black being too little light reflecting off of something. So how solid light could somehow absorb itself to create a color approaching something like charcoal, let alone black, or vantablack, he probably would never know without being able to dip back to Earth. Nothing he had from the plane helped him out, in this respect.

A moment after his quip, a notification popped up. _So you_ can _see through walls! And if you don't have eyes, that means that's how you see everything, now! Does that mean you're looking in my shirt?_ She responded, cleverly avoiding his question.

Aldric noticing her grin even though he wasn't physically looking at her only really made her joke funnier, he had to bite back a grin. "I try not to think of that." He wasn't lying, either, it had taken him a while to figure out what kind of focus was enough such that he wasn't always getting a metaphorical eyeful of everyone around him. Typically what he did was a brief little glance to make sure there weren't any concealed weapons hiding on them - and the sheer number of hidden knives and small firearms the tri-haired mute had on her was astonishing. The micro-pistol and the boot knife she'd nearly killed him with were hardly even the tip of the iceberg.

She latched onto this like a vice grip. _So you are! Now you have me at a disadvantage, Mister Aldric. You're lucky we won't be staying long else I'd have to be getting even._ She smirked, before making an animated show of brushing her multicolored hair back behind her shoulders, pushing her chest out just far enough that it took prominence.

"You get off on teasing me, don't you?" Aldric asked, giving her a brief glance over his shoulder, and a smirk when she didn't even hide it, nodding yes. "So we just kind of skipped the whole 'awkwardly dating' phase, didn't we?" He turned back to his shield, as she crossed one leg over the other.

 _And every time we meet you see fit to remind me how perceptive you are._ She responded, _be careful how you say such things, Mister Aldric. It may sound as if you're complaining._ She looked back up to him, her thin smile still on her face as she observed Aldric's body language while he read her response.

Aldric merely gave a brief tilt of the head. "Eh, I'll give you that." Now how to word this? "Kind of stuff was... Complicated, shall we say, in that village I told you about." Those very same video games, comics, and movies that he attributed his still living to may have had a role to play in said complication. "Despite the fact that you being a very accomplished assassin honestly scares the holy shit out of me..." He nodded, "I will admit it is actually kind of refreshing, it being so simple." Like the guy on the highway had said: Just make it smaller.

A moment later: _Awww._ He sensed Neo getting to her feet and approaching him, and then he had to resist the urge to jump when he felt a pair of hands sliding first around his neck and then over his shoulders, as she leaned over him, resting her head against his. The smell of mints flooded his nostrils as he ceased his work on his shield.

 _Don't freak out. Don't freak out. Don't freak - AGODDAMNSUPERPOWEREDASSASSINISTRYINGTOGETINTOMYPANTSJESUSCHRISTWHENDIDILOSECONTROLOFMYLIFE?!_ Aldric pursed his lips in a light-hearted frown.

"You're over there telling me 'oh no, work on the shield', and _now_ here you are hangin' all over me." He hummed, "gonna be one hell of a relationship you and I have, you realize this." He pointed out.

There was a light huff, and one of her hands retreated, before it came back with her scroll, and Aldric watched as she typed the next message out. _Even ignoring that it will likely be more often we have entire countries between us than we don't, consider what this **is**. An assassin working under the most powerful criminal in Vale, and a terrorist trying to take over the world._ She patted his sole hand, _thought about that, by the way._ She let him read, before she got back to her feet and pulled out a spare chair.

He turned to face her as she unfolded it, and as she typed out her next message, Aldric could sense the dealings between Cinder and Torchwick going smoothly. He made a mental note to see if he couldn't tune his radar pulse a bit more, to see if he couldn't use it to hear as well as see, because he could see them talking just fine, but he was horrible at reading lips.

 _You're a smart guy, Mister Aldric. I don't have to tell you what I do for a living - I came pretty close to doing it to you._ Neo wrote, giving him a wink at the end, that he would have rolled his eyes at, had he had any. _And because I know you're smart, and I've gotten you roped up into this 'this' we've got going on here, I'm pretty sure you know what I'd do if I found out you were being unfaithful, yes?_ Her words said one thing, and her arced eyebrow and teasing smirk said another.

Aldric snorted, scooting back an inch and cupping his groin. "I've got an idea."

Her shoulders quivered in a silent giggle. _Just one second._ She gave him, before leaning back in the chair, legs crossed, and typing so fast that her fingers looked like a blur.

 _I wonder if she's about to go where I think she is..._ Aldric wondered, _Is she about to do my job for me? Give me some spiel about interacting with the police regularly, so it may be a good idea to set up a less traceable method of keeping in touch? Holy shit I could kiss her._ He watched her tap out her next message.

He was far closer than he'd initially thought, he realized, as she turned her scroll back to him. _Well, like I said. You're smart, and you know what I do, so I'll keep it simple. Since I'm Mister Torchwick's Gardener, that means I deal with the police more often than he does._ Aldric frowned, he _had_ been close. _I get caught to send messages. Typically my mere appearance in a precinct is enough to set many of the officers and detectives, both those of whom are on our payroll and not so, on edge. More often than not, any of the former who are thinking of 'cashing out', as it were, upon seeing me become too scared to act out, and any of the latter, upon seeing me, are once again reminded of how nigh-untouchable Mister Torchwick is._

 _ **He** gets caught when he has lapses in judgement. Compare his five run-ins with police over the last eight years versus my... Much higher number. But he is so thoroughly connected to Vale, even with contacts burgeoning elsewhere, to the point where he has influence in the Council of Three and all levels of state police, that it would take a Huntsman investigation to thoroughly ruin him. _ She had no idea how right she was. _And with all that we've been doing for you and yours recently, it may not be long until the Huntsman do decide to investigate us. The only people to whom dust is more important is the Schnee family._ _So if that happens and my scroll gets confiscated and searched, it could lead back to you and yours._

So, did he get a prize?

 _You know... That makes me wonder. I keep making these five-second goddamn predictions, and they keep coming true. Is that genre savviness, or actual foresight? Am I prophetic? Can I see... Like... The imminent future? Not days or weeks, not even an hour, but a few minutes? That'd explain a lot, actually, and if I'm supposed to be a 'Master', I guess it wouldn't be too out there, as a possibility. I'll have to look in on this._ He decided, with a light nod to himself.

"You're trying to suggest we get burner scrolls." Aldric deadpanned, leaning back in his chair. "Hoooly shit. What've I stepped into?" He asked, running his hand through his hair.

She smacked him on the knee. _Oh hush, you._ She wrote, with a teasing grin. _Yes and no. Going through a dozen different scroll numbers would be too much hassle. I like you, Aldric, but not that much... Not yet. ;)_ Aldric grinned. _But downloading a messaging app, trashing the phone afterwards? Much easier. Don't even have to activate the number.  
_

He agreed with this wholeheartedly - even more so that now he could pin the blame on her if the Legion ever got pissed - but he still had a role to play. "You spent an entire afternoon getting my number, now you're telling me you want to delete it. Why bother getting it in the first place?" He asked, with a humorous frown.

Her response made him laugh. _Next time I saw you I wanted to freak you out._

Thus, he realized, the shield comment. She'd planned this _days_ ago. He was willing to forgo asking if this meant Torchwick had set up the Garden meeting back then, or that she'd simply known an opportunity would present itself. After he finished clapping his hands, she had another line for him.

 _I'm glad that didn't go over your head._ She told him, _and besides. That little dinner date of ours was me ensuring you were worth getting to know. Taking down your number? That was defining terms._ She said, with a sly grin.

"I thought that was this whole thing right here." Aldric yawned, making a gesture to his room.

 _No, this right here was you catching on._ She countered. _I also haven't heard you say no._

"Because I know what'll happen!" Aldric shot right back, a manic expression on his face. "I say no, turn around for a second, you take that knife in your boot and shove it in my groin." He laughed, cupping the aforementioned part of his body.

Her smile turned wider at this, and she shrugged, tilting her head to the side as if to say he wasn't wrong. And as she typed up her next response, Aldric sensed Torchwick and Cinder getting to their feet, their conversation having reached its close.

"Well, before you get too into that." Aldric said, attracting her multicolored eyes. "Seems like Torchwick and Cinder are about done. So how about we do this - you send me this app you want to use, yeah? I'll set up the accounts and stuff I need to get done on my end, and we'll go from there."

Hardly a second later, _"oh Neo!"_ Came Torchwick's singsong voice.

He expected the light huff as she got to her feet, and he expected her to bend back over and give him a peck before she left. When he presented his cheek to her, however, he wasn't quite ready for her to grab at his face and right it back to her, whereupon the expected peck on the cheek turned to an unpredicted assault on his lips. Before he had time to properly react, or even consider reciprocating, Neo let go of him, ruffled his unkempt hair, about-faced and waltzed out of the room, a sway to her hips and a spring to her step.

Aldric waited a full ten seconds before he let out a deep sigh, and sank his head into his hand. One problem exchanged for another. Now he could excuse spending Mercury's money on burners, but he also had to deal with dating an assassin, whose threats against were said in such a way that Aldric couldn't tell if they were serious or not. He appreciated a snide sense of humor more than most would - he lived and breathed constant sarcasm - but in Neo he had met his match. His terrifying, lethal, romantic, match, who would probably try _everything_ she could to kill him if and when it came to light what all he was trying to do.

 _Well I guess I really am a spy, now._ Thought the Watchman, as he swiveled his chair back to his desk and slid in close. _Keeping secrets from everyone... Working for one faction for another faction... Now I'm - though I hesitate to use the word - seducing a woman because it makes my job easier. Who does that make me, then, Light Yagami, or Revolver Ocelot?_ He wondered, as he slid all of the settings-sliders down, and watched the shield go from charcoal to jet black.

That was all he was able to do, as he sensed, with Torchwick and Neo's departure, Cinder quickly making her way towards his part of the Garden. Aldric let out a low huff, turning his chair back to his still open door. Cinder appeared moments later, and though there were words she had to say, they died on her lips when she got a look at him.

She arced an eyebrow, "working your magic, Nebo?"

Aldric frowned, and after a moment's thought, realized what she was referring to and wiped his lips on the back of his hand, the leftover lipstick getting wiped away. "Don't worry hot stuff, I've still only eyes for Mercury. If there's _one_ man I'll let into my bed..." He said, with a thin smile.

Cinder shook her head, "we need to talk." She fell into Aldric's spare chair.

Aldric decided it may just be best if he killed any plans to work on the shield, today, and nodded, holding up a finger as he turned back to his desk. He exited the Power Glove's settings menus, and once he killed power to the scroll, he briefly smacked the shield, it fading away in a shower of black embers, good enough for now. He turned back to Cinder, and prompted her to speak with a nod, and a hand gesture.

"How do you feel about being a spy?"


	20. Enemy Mine

_AN:_

 _Last update until my first test, so I made sure to make it a good one._

* * *

Chapter 19

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _And every single interaction I have with her just reinforces the idea that despite it all, Cinder fucking_ _ **knows.**_

 _"How do you feel about being a spy?" - I ALMOST BLASTED HER OUT OF THE GODDAMN HOTEL!  
Though, funny: Still not a scary as the prospect of dating Neo._

 _But I'm getting ahead of myself._

 _To start, at least now I know how she figured out where Amber was, in-canon._

 _The simple part, first: Torchwick and Neo stopped by the hotel today. Neo ended up being the one who put up the idea of burner phones, so at least now I can pin the idea on her if the Legion gets pissed._

 _Also, I am now officially dating Yuno Gasai. Not only did I never think I would say that completely unironically, but - actually, I've said it so many times it's pretty much lost its meaning. The bitch is scary, I can't tell when she's joking or she's serious, I have to match wits with her and date an assassin, and I think the next time we see eachother she's going to take my virginity whether I want her to or not._

 _Moving on._

 _Torchwick was here to drop off a literal suitcase full of money, and another one full of dust crystals, and considering dust is worth its weight in gold... He basically dropped_ _ **two**_ _briefcases full of money; we're on our way now to go beat the shit out of the White Fang and force Taurus to work with us. I'm wondering if this will be like my bar fight, or closer to fighting an army of Neos. I'm really hoping for the former._

 _But that's not the important part. I'm not worried about that - I survived Neo, Yang, and god damn god, in that order. Then I sparred with Qrow and now I'm dating Neo. White Fang thugs don't scare me._

 _No, what scares me is when Cinder comes in and insinuates that she knows I'm here spying on her... By dropping the word 'you' and 'spy' the very second she comes in.  
I am not kidding when I say I nearly blasted that bitch out of the ship when she said that... But fortunately, I kept my cool._

 _Let's start from the top:_

 _While we were talking, Neo implied Torchwick has contacts_ _ **everywhere**_ _in Vale, and fingers in a lot of pies over in other countries, too. One of those pies is Atlas, and one of those contacts let him in on the fact that Ozpin ordered 'state of the art bla bla bla science jargon' - he ordered cryo stasis pods, is having them delivered to Beacon. Problem is, they don't say exactly where in Beacon._

 _Cinder hashed it out with Torchwick, Beacon's initiation exams and whatnot are here in a few months, and he's got enough favors to get birth certificates and grade reports forged... In my name._

 _Well, not_ _ **my**_ _name. It's too foreign._

 _Goodbye Nebo Aldric... Hello Goud Etiolate. The former meaning gold, or star, I think, and the other - I had to look that up. It basically means ashen. Golden Ash._

 _I'll tell people to call me Ash.  
Groovy._

 _If it isn't obvious yet... They're sending my ass to Beacon so I can find Amber._

 _Before I go on, let's get this cleared up:  
I'm working with Cinder, spying on the League... Who I am working for... Spying on Cinder... Whom I plan to use to meet Salem, to spy on __**her**_ _for the League, so I can inevitably betray her and - why does everything smell like copper?  
What the fuck, Chuck? This is Revolver Ocelot type shit. Does that make Ozpin Big Boss?_

 _Cinder laid out the plan for me. She knows Amber is in Beacon, that's where Torchwick said the cryo pods are getting shipped. She wants a spy on the inside, writing reports on the up and coming Huntsman, Beacon's staff, Ozpin himself, and eventually, Amber's location._

 _So, while we're gone and his cronies are out robbing dust shops, Torchwick is going to forge some paperwork and get me into the Beacon entrance exams. I've been told that only sixty percent of the grade is the physical portions, so I'm going to have to figure out how the fuck not to bomb the written exam and still get in. From there, I entrench myself in the school, start spying on the locals, send reports, and figure out where Amber is.  
Technically, I already have that last bit covered, so... Problem solved. Whoopee._

 _Meanwhile, they're telling me that after they pick up Taurus, their plans gear down until they can drain Vale of its dust shops. Cinder liked the burner phone chat app idea (why the fuck do we have 'main' scrolls if we're going to not use them at the first available chance?!), decided to adopt it._

 _I smell copper again: I need burner phones for Neo, so I can talk to her, the Watchmen, and the Legion, get updates from the Watchmen, probably sexts of some sort from Neo, I dunno, and updated orders from the Legion._

 _So basically, I'm Light Yagami pretending to be Revolver Ocelot working for L while betraying Brutus by telling him I'm driving a Trojan Horse... For Benedict Arnold.  
Allthewhile using Watergate's telephones._

 _What the fuck even_ _ **is**_ _my life?_

 _Finally:  
Cinder said that before she ships me off to beacon, we're going to spend some time trying to crack into my power - see if we can prove whether or not it's Master or just fight or flight - At least to such a point that I can access it on my own and experiment while I'm gone. Obviously, she'll want updates on what I find._

 _And that brings us back full circle, to Beacon.  
It occurs to me that I may have to tell the Watchmen that I'm going there... But so too does it occur to me that telling them 'Nathan Drake is going to Beacon' might also be a piss-poor idea. I'm keeping my damn identity from them to ensure as remote a possibility as possible that they may hesitate against me if we ever meet on the battlefield, because - god forbid I survive, or win, that will inevitably lead to the Legion catching on to me. _

_So should I instead tell them that_ _ **a**_ _spy is going to Beacon?  
Because, if I don't, they may take that as a breach of trust... And, push comes to shove, they catch me on campus and try to detain me, the name Nathan Drake is a get out of jail free card._

 _I'll have to think more on this._

 _At least Taurus' camp is coming up, next. That'll be an hour or two of beating the snot out of people, won't have to think as hard.  
Now, just watch: Somehow, some way, some shape, some form, it's going to happen. I'm going to have to fight Adam. I'm calling it, because that's my life now.  
Travel to exotic planets, get superpowers, meet new and interesting people... And promptly beat the shit out of them._

 _But before all of that?_

 _I need a new arm._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

Much like how Aldric was pretending he was fully rooting for the Legion of Doom, he knew he'd have to play a character when it came to Goud 'Ash' Etiolate, and chief on the list was not broadcasting that he could see as well as he could. Instead, his goal was to make 'Ash' something of a Matt Murdock kind of blind, in so much that he could still functionally see, but not perfectly. Aldric's story would thusly be similar to the eponymous Daredevil's, that being enhanced senses secondary to his loss of eyes. To that effect, during the few days he had spent in the garden, Aldric had begun getting in the habit of using the Power Glove to spawn a white cane, and getting used to using it properly. It would take time to further develop Ash, to come up with all of the niches and mannerisms that would throw off any of the League's attempts to identify him based off of what they knew about the Legion, but that time would have to come _after_ Adam Taurus.

So, focusing on more important goals, he found himself in the lower levels of the Garden, making his way into its armory and searching for the prosthetist. Entering the sterile, white workshop, the prosthetist's head snapped up, and he grinned.

"Mister Drake!" He waved Aldric inside, "come in, come in." He said, "give me just a second, I finished it just this morning." He said, rushing back deeper into the workshop.

Aldric reached the man's desk and leaned the cane against it as he sat down. It took a few more minutes for the portly mechanic to return, with a box in his hands. With a little focus, the amputee in the room could see inside the box, and knew that his arm was in there, and looked just as glorious as he imagined it. The prosthetist placed it down on his desk and let Aldric lean forward and open it up. Cracking open the cardboard box, Aldric grinned at the black and red mechanical limb. Aldric ran his hands along the cool metal, noting the dulled smell of paint floating up to his nose.

"And it's got all that stuff we talked about?" Aldric asked, as he started undoing the bandages around his stump. It was still partially swollen and a little tender, but it wasn't the purple and blue mass of enflamed tissue it had been a few days ago. The doctor was still somewhat surprised at Aldric's Old Man Logan healing factor, citing that even with aura, most people couldn't heal as fast as he did.

The mechanic nodded, "yup. I used the nanites you gave me to set up the chainsaw's teeth." He explained, "though I'll be taking a little more time with the spare you asked for. There's been this experimental Atlesian design running around..." He waved his hand, "ah, never mind. Once I've got a working design I'll send it to the address you gave me."

Aldric was only half listening to the man, just nodding along as he spoke. "I notice that there aren't any straps." Aldric said, as he hoisted the arm up in his good hand, also noticing that it wasn't nearly as heavy as he would have predicted. "Do I just stick it on?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about it falling off, Mister Drake. Everyone does, but you'd need to get hit by an Atlesian cannon to break that seal."

Aldric frowned, as he inspected the shoulder socket of the arm. "But I can still take it off? Do my own little fiddles and modifications?"

"Of course." The man nodded, "it's all about intent."

 _Blurring the line between science and magic even more._ Thought Aldric, as he slid the mechanical limb into place.

It became affixed to his stump with a light sucking sound, and barely a second later, Aldric felt tactile sensation return to his left arm. Not phantom pains, and not the feeling of the air from his radar pulse, but actual sensations, as if he had nerve endings again.

He chuckled, "whoa." He said, unable to hold back a grin, as the arm sprang to life and, after the fingers flexed and all of the mechanical parts rotated on their axes, he found himself in full control of the limb.

"You'll find a full return of sensory information, even beyond the finger tips." The mechanic prodded, as Aldric confirmed this by running his fleshy hand along the cold steel of his new black and red robo-arm, noting that he could feel his fingers running along the steel, and not even bothering to wonder how such a thing was possible. This kind of science would firmly be beyond him.

"I'll say." Aldric responded, as he stretched the limb and tested out its range of motion. "Damn." He found he was able to completely reverse the limb, appearing as if the arm had been put on backwards. "That'll take some getting used to." He thought aloud, clenching his fist. The air was filled with light metallic clicks and clanks as the arm's plates rubbed up against eachother. "And I assume..." Aldric murmured, as he let some vague notions of a chainsaw enter his mind. "Yup."

True to his assumptions, merely willing the chainsaw to appear caused the plates on his forearm to split down the middle, revealing the chainsaw. It flipped outwards, storing his hand in the forearm. With another thought, he sensed the Power Glove do its thing, and teeth appeared on the chainsaw, accompanying the sound of its engine rumbling. A few silent thoughts made the saw whir and spin, and made a wide grin appear on the amputee's face.

"Nice." He said, stowing the chainsaw away and flipping his hand back out. "Thanks a lot, man." He said, reaching forward with his new arm.

The mechanic shook his hand, "all in a day's work, Mister Drake."

Aldric snatched up his cane with his new arm and made his way back to his room to finish packing for the White Fang.

* * *

Aldric spent most of the short journey to the White Fang's camp fiddling with his new arm, reading over what equated to an owner's manual provided by the prosthetist. He was, in a word, surprised at how natural it felt in comparison to his organic right arm. He felt the sensory input all over it, had a full range of motion, and when he'd tried it out, he'd found that he could crush a small metal paperweight in his hand without any effort. Granted he was certain it wasn't any dense metal like steel or titanium, but still, he'd picked up a solid block of metal and crushed it in his hands like it was putty. In comparison, without his semblance, such a feat was impossible with his formerly good hand; all he needed now was to train a little ambidexterity and he'd be good. As they arrived at their destination, he slid his armored gauntlet on, deciding that the extra armor wouldn't hurt, and that not advertising he was a lefty would only help in any fights he'd get into.

The journey to find the White Fang camp took a lot less time than it did the first go-round. They only intended to be here for a day at most, so when they landed, they didn't even bother bringing camping gear, only their weapons, and the cases of money and dust. They beat feet, as fast as they could, sprinting for Taurus' camp, and making the journey inside an hour, their goal being simple: Incapacitate, but don't kill, and just keep going until they'd either taken down Taurus himself, or until Taurus was more amiable to their desires.

To give the White Fang a little credit, they did have scouts posted in the few kilometers of forest surrounding their camp, but they did little more than delay them. Without even losing momentum, when Aldric came up on the first of the scouts, he clapped his left fist in his right, and with his speed and his momentum, swung the fist forward in a powerful downward arc. The metallic fist smashed into the Fang's face with a crunching sound and he was thrown to the ground with a grunt of pain, as Aldric thundered past him. He sensed Mercury behind him, leaping into the air and coming down hard, slamming both of his feet into the Fang's chest and burying him, unmoving and unconscious, into the dirt.

 _God damn! Might have to chop the other one off!_ Aldric thought with a grin.

As continued running, a Fang tried leaping on top of him from the tree tops, but he'd seen her long before she'd seen him, and had thusly sensed her coming. She didn't even reach him, he thrust his metal hand up and over his shoulder, about-facing and running backwards. She froze in mid-air, and with a single horizontal swing, he sent her flying away. A third Fang tried to take advantage of his orientation and charge him from behind, but he made the mistake of letting loose a loud battle cry. Aldric spun around again, enveloping his new limb in his shield; it took the brunt of the attack, shattering the Fang's blade in a shower of metal shards. Aldric then rammed his shield and then his fist into the man's face with a powerful one-two punch, before using his semblance to slam him to the ground, as if Remnant's gravity had spiked massively.

They continued surging forward, and the Fang knew their momentum was too great, as those in the trees ceased their attempts to halt their advance and instead sprinted past them, towards the camp. Aldric could sense them mounting their defense there, there were dozens of them and their numbers were only growing. When the Legion arrived, these numbers did little. Aldric and Cinder charged straight into the center of the mass of Fangs, with Mercury handling the outlying fringes, instantly filling the air with the sounds of battle.

Aldric tackled his way through three fangs by using the flat of his shield as a battering ram. He rolled to his feet and quickly knocked out the Fang underneath him with a powerful blow to the head. He sensed a Fang charging him from behind, but he spun around, bringing his shield up in a wide arc. The Fang's blade hit the shield and instantly slid off of it in a shower of sparks, allowing Aldric to carry into his momentum and bury his less mechanical fist into the Fang's stomach. The Fang went flying several feet, but his allies seemed not to care, instead only trying to attack, to knock out Aldric's momentum. One came in, lunging forward and latching his arms around Aldric's shield arm, another locked onto Aldric's free arm and they both wrenched his arms out to the sides. A third came in from the front and gave a swift front kick to Aldric's face, but these were normal men moving at normal speeds. They were good, but Aldric was better.

With his semblance, he deflected the booted foot, shoving it over to his left and then deactivating his shield, letting it vanish in a shower of embers. The Fang holding his shield stumbled forward, and as Aldric swung his now free left fist around to hit the man holding his right, the Fang that had tried to kick him, now kicked his ally, with Aldric adding a little of his own semblance behind the other man's kick, to ensure that the shield-grabber went down. Aldric's metal fist smashed into the man's nose with a loud crack and an accompanying crunch, and then again in his cheek with another. This stunned the man enough to let go of Aldric's arm, and now with no one holding onto him, Aldric leapt up into the air before a Fang could tackle him from behind - this resulting in the Fang tackling the kicker and sending them both to the ground.

Up in the air, Aldric formed his shield again and then threw it with all of his might, it bounced off of four Fangs before Aldric landed on the ground again and caught it deftly. He sensed a Fang leveling a gun at him, and quickly charged this Fang. The gun went off three times, with each slug bouncing off of Aldric's shield without a single adverse effect. When Aldric reached the gunner, he dropped to his knees and swept the gunner's legs out from under him. The Gunner hit the ground with a light grunt of pain, just as Aldric sensed two men charging into the battlefield from Taurus' tent.

 _"What is this?!"_ Taurus demanded in an outrage, as Aldric got to his feet.

Both he and Aldric turned to see Cinder standing openly in front of the tent, her two blades held calmly in her hands. Mercury slowly approached from her rear, the two suitcases hanging from his back and sliding down his arms to his feet. Aldric sensed the Fang beneath him groaning, and with a brief grunt and a chop from his shield, the Fang was knocked out, his nose deformed.

"We could have gone to _anyone_ for help..." He heard Cinder distantly intone, in a cold voice, as she took a single step forward, throwing both of her blades to the ground at Taurus' feet. "But we chose _you,_ Adam Taurus." She took another step forward, this one with a threatening posture, accompanying her grin turning to a feral one. "Our plan will be beneficial for _both_ of us." She raised her hand, and as the dust lines in her clothing glowed a bright orange, the ground at Adam's feet, and her blades as well, burst into powerful, searing hot fire, causing the leader of the White Fang and his lieutenant both to retreat backwards a step. "Or _one_ of us." She said, laying out her ultimatum.

With this, Mercury knelt to the ground, laying both cases down and opening them, revealing the fruits of Roman Torchwick's labors, in the form of stacks of cash money and canisters filled with dust crystals. "So which will it be?" She asked, as the glow on her clothing died down, and she lowered her hand.

Even from behind his mask, Taurus looked livid, his entire face twitching with barely contained fury. "You come in to my camp..." Taurus growled, tightening his grip on his red blade. "You attack _my_ men... Threaten _my_ people - and you just expect me to roll sit down and _let_ you take that you want?! To _let_ you spend their lives as if they the were money in that case?!" He demanded, giving a livid nod to the case in question.

 _So am I about to watch the butterfly effect bite me in the ass? Or is this just the 'convincing him' part that the show didn't cover?_ Aldric wondered, adjusting his grip on his shield, and keeping his eye on Taurus' sword, ready to throw the former at the latter at a moment's notice.

"You seem to think we came here as pillagers, Mister Taurus. You would do well to notice that not a single one of your men has died, this day." Cinder responded, slowly adopting a more neutral stance, albeit now with both hands raised slightly above her hips, in a messianic pose. "You know more than any the skills of your men and women. It is in your hands that their lives lay... And I would think you would truly wish to consider our offer. After all... What else would make the White Fang more feared than to have been intimately involved with the destruction of Beacon?" She sneered.

Taurus' frown remained firm, though Aldric noticed his lieutenant briefly cast a look over in the red-head's direction. "That's impossible." He countered.

Cinder merely smirked, and there was a snap of her fingers. A few seconds passed by in silence, before Aldric sensed several speeding masses approaching at high speeds from the forest's edge. He turned his head as they launched into the camp, and revealed themselves to be three beowolves. They skidded to a halt next to Cinder, and took on docile stances, allowing the half-Maiden to pet their heads as if they were pets. Adam and his lieutenant both retreated another step, with the White Fang leader raising his firearm the moment he saw the Grimm.

 _Yup!_ And as Adam pulled the trigger, Aldric heaved his shield.

It passed by between the two just, taking the bullet from Adam's gun with a loud ringing noise. Adam's head snapped to the shield, and then to Aldric, who stared right back, as his shield hit a tree, and returned loyally. Aldric caught it easily, and affixed it back to his right arm, arcing an eyebrow, daring Taurus to try it again. He noticed Taurus' eyes, shielded by his mask, briefly snap down to his left arm, before he turned his scowling gaze back to Cinder, seeming to only now notice that the Grimm weren't attacking, but were instead acting as docile animals. Cinder turned her orange eyes to Adam, likely reveling in the look of shock that was replacing the one of rage.

"Nothing is impossible, Adam Taurus." She said in a warm, velvety tone. "Shall I assume your cooperation?"

Taurus bared his teeth, but after a few moment's thought, slowly sheathed his blade. Aldric sensed Cinder grin as two of the three beowolves vacated the area; and as Mercury closed his cases and got to his feet, Aldric realized that this was the first time he'd seen a Grimm since Cubone and Mothra. It was unnerving, but Cinder was keeping control of them, so he'd keep from freaking out, for now. However, when the leader of the White Fang looked over to him, Aldric got a sinking feeling in his gut.

 _Don't do it._ Aldric thought, repressing a sigh as Taurus looked back to Cinder. _Please, don't you fucking do it. I will nope the fuck out of here if you fucking do it._

Cinder raised an eyebrow, at this continued silence. "Or... Your lack thereof?"

"I want assurances." He growled.

Cinder removed her hand from the thick fur of the beowolf. "Such as?"

"The lives of my men aren't cheap." He stressed, glancing at his lieutenant. "Every step and every action I take is calculated. Every plan I make is thorough, with every variable considered. All this in the aim of preserving as many of their lives as possible." He turned to Cinder. "I know deaths are unavoidable. I am waging war. But throwing lives away is what _they_ do." He pointed at Cinder, "if you want me to convince them that the way we win our war is to ally ourselves with the very people against whom we fight, I want you to assure me you won't throw the lives of my men away." He lowered his hand to the hilt of his blade. "Or so help me, I'll fight you myself."

 _Yeah, good luck with that, my friend._ Thought Aldric. _You'll find this little fireball a little more tough than a seventeen year old Huntress in training._

Cinder nodded to him, "of course, Adam Taurus." She said. "I understand the value of life, as well as when and where one must be ended." She gestured around her, "you will notice that few, if any, of your men here today will have perished in this battle."

 _Holy shit, wait a second, am I actually avoiding having to fight this guy? Is that possible? I attract this shit like Goku._ Aldric watched the exchange.

Taurus let out a long, steadying breath, as he let his hand slide off of the hilt of his blade. "How do you intend to stay in contact with me?" He demanded.

"Simply." She said, "we've connections to Roman Torchwick, in Vale. It is with him you will be most closely be working, and he he shall handle communications. It is only you and he who will ever commune directly with me." She said, nodding to the thief and the assassin's son, who closed the cases, but left them on the ground as they got to their feet. "I will be in touch." She said, about-facing and waving over her shoulder, prompting the remainder of the Legion to follow her.

 _Holy shit I did it! I didn't have to -_

"And there's one more thing."

 _FUCK!_ Aldric knew he'd jinxed it.

Cinder's smile turned to a light, almost imperceptible frown. "Oh?" She intoned, coldly.

"I remember you." He said. "I remember the last time you were here, and I remember what you said you wanted to do." He growled. "You intend to change the world. You want to tear down Beacon, but I can tell you won't stop there - just as you know that if given half the chance, neither would I." He said, "and maybe I would believe you could do it... But then, the next time you come here... You're missing one of your men, and another one -" He snapped his fingers and pointed at Aldric, who _knew_ where this was going, and was only keeping from freaking out because now, unlike most other situations, he was actually allowed to scowl. "- another one came back mutilated. So you're trying to convince me you and yours are strong enough to do what it is you desire... When you're not even strong enough to keep yourselves alive, and in one piece." He shook his head. "I don't know how it is you do that with the Grimm... But that doesn't change a damn thing. You're expecting me to donate my men and my men's lives to a cause where you can't even guarantee your own." He growled, baring his teeth.

Cinder hummed. "So you wish for us to display our power. Prove that we are capable of what it is we set out to do." Cinder surmised. "Against someone more equipped to face our challenges than mere mortal men."

 _"Faunus."_ Taurus growled, "and yes."

 _That's it. I'm going to kill everyone. Change my name to Joe Kerr. This is literally the same excuse Torchwick used... Granted that one was a set -_ Aldric's face fell. _No. No, she didn't set this up. She couldn't have._ He could sense her facial expression, and though he was a long way away from being able to determine things like micro expressions, he could at least tell that she was just as blindsided as Aldric was. _So is this the coincidence, or is Torchwick's use of it the coincidence?_

Taurus continued. "Look at this from my point of view, Fall." He demanded. "All I've seen are some pyrotechnic semblances, and a near full-strength team of unaffiliated Huntsman take apart an army that only had a few aura users readily on hand... Both of whom are standing before you." He indicated himself and his towering lieutenant, who nodded. "You have skill, and you have connections. Your display here had shown this clearly...But you've also shown me a very callous disregard for the lives of those who should trust you." A pause, "a very _human_ trait." He added, scathingly. "How do you truly hope to accomplish this goal you've set out?" He demanded, brazenly. "This is something where _all_ pieces on the board will have to contribute their part. There can be no acceptable casualties. This is something where _everyone_ will need to carry their weight... And there can be no backseat Generals." He summarized, with a firm shake of the head.

 _Or... Wait, is he suggesting he wants to fight her?_ Aldric wondered, as Cinder gave the Grimm a pat on its flank, and it vacated the area.

"Am I to assume this to be a challenge from you to me?" She asked, an eyebrow raised.

Surprising Aldric, Taurus nodded. "I don't order my men to do anything I myself would not do. I'm just as willing to put _my_ life on the line as they're willing to put theirs. The only way I'll even consider fighting alongside you is if you'll do the same."

Cinder grinned, "I am flattered by the respect you imply... But I must decline."

Now the livid scowl returned, "ex _cuse_ me?!" The Fang's leader demanded, aghast.

"Very recently I came into the possession of a certain skill. A skill that has fundamentally changed the way my aura functions, and unlike some of my associates, I am not the kind to flourish in a trial by fire. My body is still yet unused to that which flows through it, and as such... Any engagement in which you and I become involved in would not only be unindicative of what I am capable of, but would also place my life in undue danger." Aldric was ready to tear his hair out.

Taurus was briefly surprised by this free admission, and he took advantage of it quickly. "Then what's to stop me from taking you out and being rid of your threats?!"

It seemed his response had been exactly what Cinder had been hoping for. "Both my trust allies behind me... And my right hand." She nodded to Aldric.

 _Uh, wait, what?_ When did this happen? When had Aldric gotten this promotion? Was there a pay raise? Could he avoid what he knew he probably wouldn't be able to?! Regardless of these questions, he kept up his neutral frown as Taurus looked over to him.

"I can assure you that his power will be comparably only to mine, when it levels out." She continued, attracting Taurus' gaze again. "There are an incredibly rare few like him. If it is a test of might you wish for... Of power and skill... You can consider him a reflection of myself."

 _God fucking damn it! God FUCKING DAMN IT!_ This was the guy who _one-shot_ Yang - the same chick who'd broken all of his ribs and given him a concussion. The only reason he felt he'd gotten out of the Amber fight not as injured was a combination of her lack of skill, over reliance on her powers, his shield, and his armor. But against this guy? Aldric wasn't fond of his chances.

" _Power_ is only part of the equation, Fall!" Taurus growled, "how can I be expected to place any modicum of trust in you, if - as evidenced by _right now -_ you'll throw your people's lives into the fire, instead of your own?!" He demanded, taking a bold step forward, and clenching the sheath of his blade tightly. "Whether or not you have control shouldn't matter. If you're even a _portion_ of the leader you _need_ to be to accomplish something like this, you'd place your life on the line first, _before_ throwing theirs away!"

At this, Cinder's feral grin dropped down to an angry frown. Never the one to enjoy being challenged like this, Aldric sensed her briefly drop her gaze to the ground in thought.

 _Is she actually considering it?_ Aldric felt a small swell of respect for her.

But, breaking his fucking heart, she slowly turned her head towards him. In the few moments he had before he knew he was out of time, Aldric realized that the butterfly effect had, indeed, bitten him square on the ass. But, then he had an idea; a terrible, _awful_ idea. Perhaps the dumbest one he had ever come up with, and that was fully aware of the fact that he was being a spy in the Legion of Doom; but, if he could just buy himself one chance to make it work, and if he _could_ make it work, he may be able to make the butterfly effect work _for_ him, and not against him.

 _Oh... Fuck beans._ He thought, as he straightened up his stance and nodded to Cinder. He felt his heart rate quickening as Cinder turned to Taurus. _How am I going to do this?_

"I told you... Adam Taurus." She intoned, dangerously. "Our plan will be beneficial for both of us..." She took a step back, as Mercury came upon her flank. "Or one of us." She said, before she turned her gaze to Aldric. "Don't kill him."

Adam's head snapped up as he heard Aldric's shield spinning through the air, hurtling right towards him. As he spun around to face it and brought his sheathed blade up to block it, his lieutenant charged forward, roaring just as loud as his chainsword. The shield slammed into Taurus' blade, and he grunted from the force, before it rebounded and flew back to Aldric, who was already surging forward, his metal hand reared and clenched in a tight fist, his right hand held in front of him. He caught his shield and swung it out of the way as he brought his mechanical arm down hard, but Taurus pressed the trigger on the sheath, and the sword fired out far faster than he could have drawn it. Aldric's fist slammed into the blade, and it only barely didn't cut through the gauntlet that covered it.

The two of them skidded backwards as Aldric sensed Mercury sprinting forward and kicking the Lieutenant's chainsword out of the way of Cinder's head. Aldric wrenched his fist back and dodged a quick, savage swing from Taurus, the blade dragging against the edge of the bandages covering his eyes. Using his semblance to ensure no loss of balance, Aldric spun around and slammed the broad side of his shield into Taurus' flank, causing him to stumble just enough for Aldric to follow up on the momentum of his spin and backhand him with his left arm.

Taurus recovered quickly and had his sheath, now closer to a rifle in appearance, pointed at Aldric. Aldric's shield was up just as Taurus fired, the bullet slammed into the shield and rebounded away, and Taurus snapped the rifle downwards to get at Aldric's feet, but where he expected Aldric to not have seen it from behind his shield, he underestimated how well Aldric could fight, even with such an obvious injury to his eyes. Aldric quickly crouched down and the next bullet again rebounded off of his shield with a loud bang. Taurus growled and Aldric hopped to his feet, using his shield to parry Taurus' next slice. The extremist faunus, however, had planned for this, and Aldric, now with his greatest defense off to the side, was wide open. Taurus capitalized on this by swinging around the one-handed rifle and pointing it right in Aldric's face, pulling the trigger in the same amount of time it took to blink. He, however, wasn't prepared for the bullet to freeze mid-air, so close to Aldric's face that the displaced man could actually feel it digging into the skin of his nose.

 _That was close!_ Aldric grunted and slapped the stunned faunus' rifle away, before shoving his head forward and headbutting the masked terrorist. _Fuck, he's not playing around. How do I do this?!_ He demanded of himself, as Taurus met his headbut with one of his own.

Aldric stumbled back and sensed Taurus stabbing at his shield, but instead of going for the arm it was wrapped around, he went for the shield itself, and with a powerful slice, tore it from Aldric's arm and sent it soaring away. Aldric bit back a curse and deflected the next chop with the back of his gauntlet, swinging around with the metal arm and beating Taurus in the face. One, two, three lefts rammed into the masked faunus' head before Aldric followed it up with a right uppercut, but Taurus recovered faster than he'd predicted, spinning around and raising his gun again. Aldric crouched down to one knee and clenched his fist, and as the bullet flew out, another shield appeared. However, as fast as these shields could spawn, a bullet flew just a bit faster, and Aldric felt this one drag across his neck, him being literally an inch away from death.

If Taurus was surprised that Aldric had pretty much pulled another shield out of his ass, he didn't show it. He did show, however, a remarkably fast adaptation, knowing that Aldric's shields were all but impregnable and protected him from all the damage that it intercepted. Thus, he didn't even bother trying to attack it like most of his other opponents would, he didn't try hammering away at it to keep Aldric pinned down, and he didn't try to take it away from Aldric.

He snapped his head over to the one he'd previously stolen from Aldric, and dived for it. Aldric cursed and pulled the shield away from him with his semblance, but Taurus hit the ground, right in front of the shield. In one smooth motion, he rolled to his feet, stowed his rifle on his hip, and caught the shield, bringing it to his chest. He skidded back several feet, calling out loudly before he wrested the shield from Aldric's telekinetic grasp, and even turned Aldric's strength against him, using the momentum generated by his grabbing the shield and adding it to a kick to Aldric's chest, that sent the human flying back. Just in front of them, he and Aldric could see Mercury blasting away at the Lieutenant with the cannons on his feet, his pants partially shredded by repeated contact with the chainsword.

 _Uh, that's not happened before!_ Aldric felt his heart fall into his stomach, as Taurus clenched the shield tightly in one hand, adjusted the grip of his sword in the other, as his hair and the markings on his coat began to glow a deep red. _Oh fuck, how... Wait... Wait, I can use this!_ And as Taurus chose to glare at him menacingly, Aldric charged forward.

Aldric threw the fist clenching his shield towards Taurus, and the faunus, as he'd hoped, used Aldric's first shield against him, bringing it up to block Aldric's attack. What he didn't know, however, was that by making contact with it, even through another Power Glove construct, Aldric had reestablished his connection to it. But, unlike previous times when he'd used this trick, this time, instead of using it to make the shield Taurus was holding vanished, he used it to alter its shape. Specifically, he made letters appear on the inner surface of the shield - the very surface Taurus _had_ to be looking at if he was using it defensively.

 _THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY, ADAM TAURUS._ _ **STAND DOWN!**_

They appeared as would all new shapes for the power glove: Pale blue, wireframe outlines, meaning they stood out against the otherwise red, white, and blue inner surface of the shield. And with his radar pulse, Aldric could see the exact moment that Taurus registered his desperate attempt at contact. As Aldric silently thanked every god he could name for aura-enhanced reflexes, he saw the faunus' pupils dilated a fraction, and his frown briefly went from rage, to incertitude, and then back to rage as he brought his blade around to stab at Aldric's flank. The fighter bit back a curse, and instead of using his semblance to deflect the attack, decided to trust his armor and his barriers to do it, so he could focus on wiping away any evidence. The message vanished as Aldric felt the blade cleave through his barriers, but it didn't off of his armor. Taurus had repeatedly shown himself to be intelligent, even in their brief battle. He'd deduced Aldric's powers, learned how he fought, how his shield worked, and now?

Now he'd found the literal gaps in his armor. Aldric felt Taurus' blade slide between the plates of his armor, and an inch of the blade slid between his ribs and into his chest. With his radar pulse, Aldric could actually see it come desperately close to nicking one of his lungs, but it stopped just short.

With a bark of pain, Aldric swung downwards and backhanded the blade away with his right hand, tearing it out of his chest and from his armor. The blade grinded against the hardlight shield with a shower of sparks and a brief spray of blood, but Aldric bit through the pain and pressed on, praying that the sword stopping short was hesitation on Taurus' end, and not sheer luck. Before Taurus could react, Aldric sent a powerful haymaker his way, which impacted Taurus' stolen shield, right in the center of its white star, with a loud gonging noise, which briefly overwhelmed the sounds of the chainsword and its wielder's battle with the assassin's son.

 _YOU ONLY HAVE ONE WAY OUT OF THIS!_ Aldric pleaded, as Taurus struggled against the strength of his new cybernetic limb. _ONLY ONE!_ And Aldric, now able to talk to the Faunus, had just one card to play if he wanted to end this fight, but he knew that it carried a lot of risk.

Unfortunately for him, Taurus wasn't biting, and Aldric had to leap back to dodge the next slice. When he landed, however, he found himself surprised when Taurus tossed the shield up into the air, caught it by its edge, and then threw it at Aldric with all of his might, in an almost _perfect_ replication of how Aldric threw it, minus the telekinetic help. Even without the TK boost, when Aldric caught the shield, it nearly knocked the wind out of him, it hit him so hard. Aldric skidded back a foot, digging the dirt up with his feet. He sensed Taurus sheathing his blade, it, his hair, and the markings on his coat glowing with a greater intensity.

 _Oh shit, this is the Yang killer!_ Aldric adjusted his grip on the shield, and as six very specific words appeared on its surface, he desperately thought. _One shot!_ And threw it back at the faunus with all of his might. _"COME ON!"_ He bellowed.

The faunus' blade roared out of its sheath, glowing brightly with the aura it had collected. It collided with Aldric's spinning shield with a loud clash and a shower of sparks, as Aldric's semblance fought against Taurus'. When the shield hit the blade, Aldric felt as if he'd been hit in the chest by a freight train, Taurus' attack was so powerful. It took all of Aldric's strength to struggle against it, and as he felt his blood begin to boil and a light pressure well up in the empty pits in his skull, he saw Adam's eyes snap down behind his mask, beholding Aldric's last ditch effort to stop this fight before it got even more out of hand than it was.

Aldric had never seen a man's heart skip a beat before, until the words printed on his shield registered to the faunus leader's eyes. They gave the enraged man brief pause, this lapse in judgement just long enough for Aldric to win their struggle. The shield burst forth and collided with the faunus' chest and sent him flying backwards with it. He ended up colliding with his Lieutenant, pushing the man out of the way of Mercury's coup de grace, a concussive blast which nearly decimated Adam's tent.

Aldric wrenched the shield back with his semblance and continued charging forward, but as he leapt into the air, bellowing loudly, he sensed more than heard Taurus call out, _"alright!",_ causing Aldric to falter and slow himself down, mid-air. _"Alright!"_ He repeated, breathlessly, as Aldric cautiously floated back down to the ground, his final words vanishing from the shield.

Cinder, who had lazily been seated upon the two briefcases they had brought with them, tilted her head, and arced an eyebrow in Taurus' direction. "Alright?" She repeated, as Taurus hauled himself to his feet.

The faunus leader scowled as he sheathed his blade, and held his hand out to his lieutenant. He helped the bleeding and bruised man to his feet, and glared at Cinder from over his shoulder. _"Alright."_ He whispered behind clenched teeth, so much fury in his voice that it could have set fire to the air.

Cinder wasn't done playing with her food however, and merely crossed one leg over the other. "Alright..." She let the word hang.

"I'll..." The livid faunus breathed. "Convince... My men... " He sucked in breath from between his teeth. "To work for you." If looks could kill, everyone present would have been long dead. Aldric noticed the Lieutenant give Taurus a questioning glance, but a single hand gesture from his leader made him hold his tongue.

Cinder's grin returned. "Oh?" She asked, raising herself to her feet, as Aldric and Mercury both came to flank her. Aldric was glad half of Taurus' face was hidden behind a mask, because if it hadn't, it would have been impossible to miss the terrorist leader's eyes briefly darting over to Aldric's lack thereof. "Are you certain, Adam Taurus?" She asked, the way she said his name almost making it sound like an insult. "Do you need another display?" She asked, "or perhaps you would question me more?" Her tone dropped from one of playful mirth to one of cold fury.

"Because if you are certain..." She stopped when she was inches from Taurus' face, looking up at him, and yet still managing to seem larger than him. "Then it would behoove you to know that I do _not_ tolerate anyone questioning me. Be it my orders, or my leadership." She warned, before taking a step back. "I understand your brief outburst here. It is one of pride and anger, both of which are things integral to who you are, and why I desire your alliance above all else. However this understanding is not synonymous to forgiveness." She said, "but... I have become increasingly aware recently that an education is a very important tool to have."

 _Oh you bitch._ Aldric thought, as he felt his heart come back under his control.

"So consider this your one and only free lesson. A chance, in other words." She nodded over her shoulder to Aldric. "A blind man hardly used to his new prosthetic matched you, and he has barely fought for six months, in comparison to your lifetime." She said, "so if you ever question me again... Rest assured that I, far more powerful than he, will be displeased." And as she said this, her eyes slowly drifted over to the Lieutenant, who barked in pain as his chainsword suddenly began to glow white hot, and when it hit the ground, it was melting into a pool of molten metal. "And I will have to voice this displeasure." She said, turning her gaze back to the masked faunus, whose face was still contorted in fury.

 _Uh... Lady, I honestly think he_ _ **let**_ _me 'win'. Five more minutes I think he'd have done more than give me a new scar._ Thought Aldric, as he felt his chest flare up in pain, the stab wound still leaking warm blood.

The furious faunus nodded once. "Understood."

Cinder grinned wider, and about-faced. "You'll be met by a representative of Roman Torchwick. He will tell you for what you are needed." She explained, as Aldric and Mercury fell in behind her.

Once they left the camp, Taurus looked down at the dirt in front of him, in which Aldric had used his semblance to carve a single, simple phrase.

 _I'LL BE IN TOUCH_

* * *

Three days passed after the fight with Adam Taurus. Aldric had to take the first to recover from the fight itself, and the second because he still needed to get fully used to his new arm, and to dodge more bullets from Cinder. She was ready and willing to try and start cracking into Aldric's Master powers, but Aldric managed to fend her off by diverting her attention away. The two made a game plan, but that was about it. On the third, Aldric tried to run around and find a voice modulator _anywhere_ but the Garden, but struck out. When the sun went down, he snuck out of the Aviator for his usual nightly run. He spent an hour making sure no one was following him, before he bolted back to the forests.

He flew much faster than he had for the Fall Maiden fight, because then, he'd had time to spare, but now? He was perhaps risking more than even when he'd made contact with Qrow and Ozpin. He had less than twelve hours to fly out to the camp, convince Taurus of his validity, and fly back, and he had to _pray_ that Cinder didn't go looking for him during this time. He had an excuse prepared for if she cornered him and demanded to know where he was, but he really didn't want to use it. Lying about a booty call with Neo would probably turn out to be lethal in any number of ways, but that took less effort to explain than his second, and much more dangerous, option. At least the former had some kind of precedent.

Regardless, it took him two hours of nearly blackout-speed flight to get to Taurus' camp. He landed so hard he left a crater, and when the dust cleared, he had a lot of guns settled on him, more than a few of the potential shooters were sporting bandages and bruises, likely having been a part of the fighting, days ago. Aldric didn't even flinch at the sight, as he straightened up. He simply stood there, in the middle of his small crater, face masked behind the mask and goggles, and head wrapped in the shemagh. Add in the moderate breeze making his coat billow, and he looked like an animate shadow, flickering in the night air.

He sensed Taurus approaching before any of the Fangs could decide to shoot him. He called out for them to stand down, and Aldric took that as leave to step out of the small divot in the ground. The leader of the White Fang stopped inches away from the masked spy, scowling as he gave him a once over, either having not expected, or not having been prepared, for Aldric to appear in full regalia.

He said as much, "what's with the get-up?" He asked, looming several inches over his human guest.

 _"You're one to talk."_ Aldric shot back in his gravelly tone, his goggles staring right up into Taurus' decorated mask; true, the 'anonymity' angle was kind of thrown out the window when Taurus already knew who it was he was expecting, but this wasn't all for Taurus' benefit. The way Aldric saw it, only Taurus and maybe his Lieutenant would know about this double dealing, and would be able to pin it on him. Everyone else had no clue who this Nathan Drake character was, and he aimed to keep it that way. _"Drake."_ He presented his gloved hand to the faunus.

Taurus glared at the hand, and looked back up to Aldric's eyes. "You told me you know where she is."

Aldric lowered his hand. _"In private."_ He nodded to Taurus' tent.

But when he took a step forward, Taurus placed his hand on Aldric's shoulder, halting him. "You _said._ " He growled, "you _know."_

The silence of the air between them was broken only by the sounds of the night around them. Distant fires crackling, crickets and bugs chirping, even some of the Fangs not directly involved with the goings-on could be faintly heard going about their night, talking and eating. Aldric didn't turn to look to Taurus, just as Taurus was still pointedly staring at the crater Aldric had left on landing.

 _"I know a lot of things, Mister Taurus."_ Aldric slowly rasped back. _"and the exchange of information depends on trust. And a standoff isn't trust."_

This got Taurus to look at him, which Aldric reciprocated. "Says the man wearing a mask."

 _"_ To _the man wearing a mask."_

"You need guns on _me_ for this to be a standoff." Taurus said, his hand still on Aldric's shoulder.

 _"You've got guns on me. You decide to shoot, I'm dead."_ He rasped, _"but up there?"_ He indicated to the starry night sky, _"I have_ bombs. _I die, they drop down here, you're dead. That's a standoff."_

Taurus leered at Aldric from behind his mask, and Aldric stared back from behind his own mask. With his radar pulse, he sensed several Fangs slowly lowering their weapons and looking up to the sky, as if they could locate his threat. Taurus and Aldric continued glaring at eachother, the air growing cold between them, and the faunus' strong grip on the human's shoulder only growing tighter as the former argued with himself.

"Fine." Taurus finally growled, before he gave each of the assembled Fangs a look, nodding to them all. Aldric sensed them lowering their weapons, and after another nod, they dispersed back into the camp. Taurus about-faced and marched back to his tent, motioning for Aldric to follow him.

Once inside, Aldric observed Taurus placing his weapon on a desk. The redhead looked over his shoulder at the human, and nodded at the desk. Aldric understood the unspoken demand, and placed his gun on the desk, next to the blade and scabbard. Knowing that Taurus was smart enough to realize he wasn't dropping the weapon that had made his shields during their fight, Aldric then dropped the Power Glove, depositing it in one baseball-sized viscous blob right next to the pistol. Taurus didn't have to know about the backup canister, or his chainsaw.

The two exchanged another glance of mutually cold anger, before Taurus approached the back of the tent, where the map of Vale still hung. "Where is she?" The red head demanded, crossing his arms and staring intently at the map.

 _"Let me clarify something."_ Aldric rasped, approaching Taurus' flank, and looking up at the map alongside him. _"I said I know where Belladonna_ _ **will**_ _be."_ He emphasized. _"Not where she_ _ **is."**_

Taurus growled, "and?"

 _"She_ _ **will**_ _... Be at Beacon, around the time the Lady In Red wants to bring it down."_

"And how can you possibly know this?"

 _"Process of elimination."_ Aldric responded, _"she's one of the few people working in this camp with access to her aura. She would both need a way to not be tracked once you return to your main camp and reconnect with the others, and a place to hide that would provide adequate enough excuse for her presence. A huntsman academy would be perfect. Other sources of aura would mask her own, and would also give her a built-in excuse for her presence, given her natural strength and skill."_ A pause, and then Aldric grinned from behind his mask. _"And I have reliable sources that have access to Beacon's roster. Her name was on it."_ He wasn't lying, either - he had access to the show, which gave him this knowledge, and is Torchwick could get him into the academy, that meant the mobster could get his hands on student rosters if he saw the need. It wasn't bulletproof, but it was good enough for what he needed.

"Then how did you know her name? Do you have spies here in my camp?"

Aldric shook his head. _"First visit. She was present. One of the Fangs referred to her by name. We left, I obtained the Beacon rosters by an unrelated coincidence, saw the name. Second visit, you and the chainsword Lieutenant were here talking. Referred to a 'her' in a way that didn't suggest cordial feelings, and she wasn't here. I put two and two together."_ He rasped. _"You're looking for her. Why, I don't care, but I could tell there was weight to her name... So I dropped it, because I knew it would get you to stop your suicidal struggle long enough for us to talk. Sold you the name for your time."_

"You actually think you could have killed me?" Taurus asked, pride mixed with incredulity.

 _"Not alone. And I wasn't."_ Aldric countered. _"You didn't deny it."_ He added.

"I wouldn't let you people take mine. Better to die on my feet than to live on my knees."

 _"You have it backwards, but I don't blame you."_ Aldric responded, his voice deep and grating. _"I feel it's better to live on your feet than die on your knees."_

"And how would _you_ know? You're human."

 _"Because my peoples' footprints are on the moon."_

Taurus' frown didn't change, he merely went back to staring up at the map. "Don't think I don't notice what it is you're doing, human. You're betraying your own kind, not just once, but _twice,_ in one fell swoop. _And_ you just sold out one of mine without a second thought." Aldric sensed the man's grip on his crossed arms tighten, as his frown turned to a livid scowl. "I'm smart enough to know what it is you're here for. You want me to play along with Fall, but be ready to cut her head off when the chance presents itself. So how do you expect me to place an iota of trust in you, when you bend, break, and betray it so easily?"

 _"The enemy of my enemy, Taurus."_ Aldric rasped. _"You know as well as I that Lady In Red will spend the lives of your men like a Schnee spends money."_ That got the desired reaction, when Aldric saw Taurus grit his teeth at the mention of the name. _"She proved she has no true concern for anyone she interacts with by sending her men to attack you instead of rising to your challenge_ _herself."_ He explained. " _She's not an idiot. She knew what you were doing. But she's proud. Far more so than you, and you challenged that pride by challenging her. She didn't take that lightly, and now here we are. You hate her and what she stands for, just as much as you've grown to hate my kind and what we've done to yours."_ He noticed a tightening of the faunus' grip, and decided he had him mad enough, so now it was time to lay off the gas. _"And for all of your faults, you_ _ **do**_ _respect the lives of your men. Of your people. You're speaking to me now because you want - you_ _ **need**_ _an out, or else a_ _ **lot**_ _of White Fang and just as many, if not, even more faunus are going to_ _ **die**_ _when she inevitably either loses, or betrays you once you've outlived your usefulness."_ He said, his gravelly voice filling the still air between them.

"And you think you can be that out?" Adam demanded. "You're human."

 _"Yeah."_ Aldric didn't even deny it, his merely being here was kind of proving the faunus right. _"And what a piece of work is man."_ He rasped. _"How infinite in faculty. In form and moving, how express and admirable."_ He noticed Taurus looking at him as he spoke, though if in interest, or something else, he didn't care to guess. _"In action, like an Angel. In apprehension, like a god. The beauty of the world, and the paragon of animals."_ A pause, _"and yet to me, what is this but the quintessence of dust?"_ He turned to Taurus. _"Do you know what that means?"_ He didn't give him the chance to respond. _"It means there's what we want to be, and then what we are. We want to be gods, we want to be angels and beauty... We want to be noble, when in reality we're anything but."_ He wouldn't admit he felt ill qualified to explain Shakespeare when the only reason he knew this quote was because of Patrick Stewart, and ignoring that he was in a universe where it didn't exist in the first place, but regardless, he continued. _"You know what you are, and so do I. I know what I am. And so do you."_

"Then tell me. Why should I trust you?"

 _"Because I could have waited to tell you where she will be."_ Aldric countered, turning to face Taurus fully. _"But I didn't. Because you and I have a mutual enemy that we cannot even hope to destroy alone. If I tried, I would die, and no one would rise up to take my place."_ He rasped. _"If you tried,_ _ **you**_ _would die, and you would either be martyred, or replaced, and in either case, a great and vast number of those whom you care for would die. Enough so that the bodies piled high could reach the moon; the blood enough could stain the ocean. Alone, we are mighty, but might is not what is needed. Not to win this shadowy war."_ He explained. _"What is needed is cunning. Strength. Intelligence... But most of all, a unity._

 _"You yourself are proof."_ He attracted the intense scrutiny of the faunus as he took in a breath to validate his claim. _"You alone would be unable to accomplish what it is you strive towards. You alone could give the world a black eye, but you would die and that would be the end of it. You understand that a voice is strongest when unified. A people is strongest when striving for a common goal. An ideal is at its most powerful when truly believed in. So instead you rallied your men, gained their loyalty by displaying their own. There are people who would die for you, just as you would for them. And now, you have the strength and numbers to be considered a true threat in the eyes of your enemy, and a valuable tool in the eyes of those with whom I work._

 _"Now you find yourself in a very unique_ _position."_ Aldric said, preparing to end things. _"Three doors in front of you. You can either take... Door number one: Tell her about this, and win her respect... But at the cost of your only ally's life, as well as not truly changing your lot in life or her propensity to spend those of others."_ A pause, _"or through door number two: You can take what I've offered and reject it, in so doing throwing away all of those lives for in a foolhardy effort to resist her yourself, just to feed your pride."_

"And door number three?" Taurus demanded, leering down at the human.

 _"You work with me._ " Said Aldric, matching the stronger man's gaze with an equal intensity, not budging an inch. _"You do everything you can to prove to her that you're dedicated. I do what I can to make sure she keeps in mind the precarious position of your alliance, and how bad of an idea it would be if you rallied the entire White Fang against her, as well as what little information you do possess on your own, and how damaging it would be, should it be released. You prove to her you are loyal, and all the while, you and I make efforts. Slow, sure, efforts. We prepare and rally ourselves and wait for the perfect moment, and rid ourselves of her. You get your war. You get your revolution. Both against an enemy arguably as worthy as the one against which you struggle now._

 _"And should there be any incentive truly needed beyond that..."_ He drawled in his gravelly tone. _"Imagine what would happen for your own goals when it is inevitably brought to light that a faunus was instrumental in the protection and rescue of truly_ He explained, noticing a brief widening of Taurus' eyes as the faunus leader considered his words; Aldric decided it was time for the killing stroke, to give Taurus _exactly_ what he wanted. _"Even if nothing changed... You would be reinvented in the eyes of your people. You would be practically messianic... And imagine what you could do with those numbers and resources."_ He extended his hand again. _"So what door will you take?"_

Taurus looked down at the proffered hand, no small amount of fury twisting his face, before it settled down to a cold glare as their conversation settled upon him. He clasped Aldric's hand, and looked back up, his mask staring deep into the human's own. "When this is over. You're still human." He affirmed, with a single shake of the hand.

 _"I've gotta admit."_ Aldric rasped, again meeting the intensity of the masked faunus' gaze. _"I'm looking forward to round two."_

As Aldric gathered his weapons and made for the entrance to the tent, Taurus called out. _"Hey."_ Aldric paused, and looked at Taurus from over his shoulder. "She said she wanted to kill a Maiden. Does that mean they exist?"

Aldric was silent a moment, Taurus' lack of haughtiness not lost on him. _"Yes."_

"Did she?"

 _"That and more."_

Taurus let out a slow huff of air from his nose, before asking, "how do you expect to tear something like that down?"

To which, Aldric said, _"there were never any bombs."_ And walked out.


	21. Prepare For Unforseen Consequences

_AN:_

 _Passed the test; next one is easy in comparison, I'm hardly even worried about it._

* * *

Chapter 20

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Oh, dear god I'm tired. This was a terrible fucking idea._

 _From the top: I was right, and wrong at the same time._

 _I had to fight Adam Taurus, I was right about that. But I was wrong about the_ ** _why._**

 _See, I'd thought it would be some kind of contrived BS about 'Oh, prove to me your power!', and then Cinder would be all, 'One armed attack dog! I choose you!', and I'd use Improvise, and it would not be very effective, but I'd win somehow, like I always do. Probably need to put my new arm back together, but still._

 _But, no. That's not what happened._

 _Instead, Taurus noticed I'd been mutilated and that Emerald was missing, concluded she was dead, and basically called Cinder's character into question, refusing to work for her if she'd 'throw [our] lives away'.  
He's probably a lot closer to the mark than he realizes, but I digress. The result was predictable: Big fucking fight. _

_But, in that brief little calm before the storm, I realized something:  
Things had changed. _

_In the show, Cinder had convinced Taurus to join her mutually. She beat the shit out of his guys to do it, but still: He_ ** _chose_** _to join her. Somehow, some way, she won his respect, be it immediately or gradually. In the show, he was loyal._

 _Here? Fuck no! He was ready to fight and die just to spite us! She_ ** _forced_** _his cooperation, there is no loyalty and likely will never be any. He's a proud man, and she all but insulted said pride. Add on that this dude is pretty much loyal to a fault when it comes to his men, he's not willing to waste a single life, and all that, and she basically flipped him the bird and said she'd throw bodies at the problems like the Soviets if she wanted to._

 _That pissed him_ ** _off._** _He won't take that lying down._

 _So, he's not loyal. He's as far from loyal as you can be._

 _Change._

 _A startlingly major change... But not one I can't do something with.  
After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?_

 _To summarize a surprisingly short (but painful) fight, I managed to convince Taurus to shut the fuck up and roll with the punches. I sold Blake Belladonna's location for some of his time._

 _A couple days later, I made contact with him, and then I abused the shit out of all of this butterfly effect nonsense to convince him there's no goddamn way Cinder would ever respect the lives of his men, blah blah blah. The end result being some tentative 'Enemy of my enemy'-style loyalty._

 _Now the Watchmen have four people: Myself, Qrow, Ozpin, and a surprise special guest star: Adam motherfucking Taurus.  
_ ** _That's_** _the good news. That itself. Only that. I have a kinda-sorta-pseudo ally in the Legion, if things turn south._

 _The bad news is that the moment we don't have our common enemy, we'll be at eachother's throats again, and the only goddamn reason I didn't die during our fight was because I had something he wanted. So if we ever come to blows again? I'll probably lose the_ ** _other_** _arm, and a leg and a leg, maybe make good on that impression of Darth Vader I did a while back._

 _And I'm pretty sure I can't trust this man at all. Like I said: His loyalties lie with his men. If their lives are in danger, there isn't a damn thing he wouldn't do to safeguard them, but if they're good and well kept? As much as killing Cinder is important to him, if the chips were down and I had to rely on him to save_ ** _my_** _ass? I don't think he'd do it._

 _I mean, for chrissakes, I'm basically doing the same thing the United States did to the Soviet Union, back in the eighties (or was it the seventies?) When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, the US funded and equipped a local guerrilla fighting force to take the war to the Soviets, such that they couldn't take over Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure it was for oil, everything was for oil._

 _Well, the Soviets lost, Afghanistan didn't turn into a communist country, and those rebels? Twenty or thirty-odd years later they hijacked a couple of airplanes and killed three thousand people, and we're_ ** _still_** _dealing with it. In other words, to beat one enemy, the US made another, and I'm worried I may be doing the same thing._

 _All else being equal - and I mean_ ** _everything_** _else - if the the Watchmen - and through them, the White Fang and the Justice League - manage to kill Salem and stop all that, Taurus could be in one hell of an actionable position.  
Like, maybe he'll just do a coup de grace and kill the other Watchmen, and use the chaos and discord that would result in the League to steamroll over the rest of the world, virtually unopposed. _

_Or, because this guy's an evil super genius, maybe he'll use his 'I helped save the world' card, and build_ ** _political_** _power instead of military power.  
Maybe then he'd be able to use his reputation along us humans to bring the faunus out of whatever pit they're in, in regards to all these social issues.  
He does _**_that,_** _he'll basically be Furry Jesus, and then they'll follow him through anything.  
Then he could slowly radicalize the faunus, who would follow him like zealots because he's one of the men who helped save not just the goddamn world, but also improved the lives of every faunus on Remnant. _

_Does any of that sound familiar?  
Because that's kiiiiiinda how Adolf Hitler did it, and his ass didn't have modern technology or an army of supersoldiers.  
And for those of you (read: Pretty much anyone who will ever get their hands on this journal) not from _**_my_** _planet, the long and short of that story is that he's generally considered the most evil motherfucker in the universe, and he's also probably the first person since Rome under Caesar to come_ ** _this_** _close to conquering the entire planet.  
Seriously, if he hadn't have tried invading Russia (during the winter no less!), he would've won. Hands down._

 _Now, one could argue that that all sounds too ridiculous or impossible to be true.  
But then they'd be speaking to a blind multidimensional superhero with literal god powers, a robot arm, and spies and contacts in the Legion of Doom and the Justice League... And is _**_already_** _ominously repeating some kind of history, just from a different era.  
And that's ignoring all of this super-sleuth spy stuff I'm pulling off... With no prior experience save a religious dedication to Magnificent Bastards like Ozzymandias, Revolver Ocelot, and Light Yagami. That only makes the entire situation more ridiculous, and my fears all the more plausible._

 _Taurus was well established as a good and charismatic leader in the show, and during our fight it didn't take him five minutes to figure out_ ** _how_** _I fought and_ ** _how_** _he could land a killing blow. So not only is he a charismatic, skilled leader, but he's also a fucking genius. I honestly would not put any of this past him, because I'm pretty sure he's already, on some level, come up with this idea.  
Aaaaaand I also kind of pushed him towards it, so he would have more reason to think that working with me, against the Legion, was a good idea._

 _I think I'm going to have to put some_ ** _real_** _consideration into being ready, willing, and able to kill Taurus at a moment's notice.  
Christ alive, now I'm not trusting the god damn Watchmen, and am actively making preparations to spy on and kill them.  
I really freakin' _**_am_** _Revolver Ocelot.  
Call _**_me_** _Shalashaska!_

 _Ho... Boy.  
I'm going to have to tell the other Watchmen about this, no way around it._

 _"Hey, Ozbourne! Mister Crowley! So, we recruited Adam Taurus (Henceforth: Red Bull), but Lady In Red pissed him off like nobody's business! Sooooo... Guess what I turned right the hell around and did? That's right! Now Red Bull is on_ ** _our_** _side! I mean, not really... Only kind of... And only until she's not actively threatening the Fang... Yeah I've pretty much got a delayed fuckup on the way. But until then, now you've got_ ** _two_** _ins in the Legion! Booyah!"_

 _Okay, okay, I'm done. I'm going to get some -_

 _Oh, would you look at that, Cinder's on her way, and she... Actually, she doesn't look pissed, and that's the more worrying.  
So much for sleep, but thankfully I had a plan or two in case what might be happening, happens. Need a little refuge in audacity to make it work, but let's see how this plays out._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

Aldric rubbed his eyes as he shut off his Earth-tablet, and leaned back from the desk in his small cube of a room. He could sense Cinder approaching his room from the front of the ship, and he could sense a small packet of papers rolled up in one of her hands. A few potential reasons as to why she'd want to see him flew through his mind. Maybe she wanted to know how much thought he'd put into Goud Etiolate, or maybe it was time for them to get on the same page in regards to the Masters. When she turned to his door, Aldric opened it with a wave of his hand and a pull of his semblance. Cinder didn't even slow down, and Aldric found he didn't like the look on her face.

"What's up hot stuff?" He asked, clearing his throat to mask its light hoarseness. "Did the eggs hatch?" He asked, as he adjusted the bandages wrapped around his head.

Cinder was halfway to his spare chair, when she blinked, and gave him a sideways glance. "Eggs?"

He chuckled, and turned in his chair to face her. "Oh, never mind." But she continued frowning at him, so he huffed. "Terrible joke. One I liked to use back home - someone would run up to me, freaking out, pissed off, or what have you, and I'd go - 'Oh! The eggs must have hatched!', and then they'd say 'never mind', implying I'd dropped lizard eggs or something the like, somewhere they frequented." He rolled his good hand in a circle, "so... They hatch... That's the joke."

Cinder didn't respond to this, instead sitting down, and crossing one long leg over the other, giving Aldric a firm look from behind the mask of her light frown. The silence lasted for a few moments, before she said, "so where did you go?"

 _Well, shit._ "Ah, you noticed that, didn't you?" Aldric groaned, a grin playing at his features as he leaned back and locked his hands behind his neck. _Play it cool, play it cool._ "The ah... Long and short of it is that the ice cream mute wouldn't take no for an answer, and she scares me too much to say no in the first place." _And now, if she's worth her salt..._

Cinder affixed him with a blank look, one that reeked of incredulity. "You truly expect me to believe that you left your scroll _and_ the city... For Neopolitan." She deadpanned.

 _Bingo. Now the question is whether or not I can see the future, or I'm getting good at this spy shit. Neither is particularly appealing._ Aldric nodded, "well, _no,_ otherwise you wouldn't be here." He responded. "You're smarter than me when it comes to this stuff, lady." He responded, stifling a yawn. "So it's understandable you'd be kinda curious. But, you ever heard of Occam's Razor?" He asked.

"I'm not from Earth, Aldric."

"Well, the long and short of it is... When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, and not unicorns. The simplest explanation is usually the easiest one." He explained. "Now, I left yesterday. Which is the simpler explanation? That I was doing something I wasn't supposed to? Or the sexy horny terrifying assassin lady wanted in my pants?" A beat, "ignoring that they could probably go hand in hand." He neglected to mention that one had precedent and the other didn't; he _had,_ after all, let slip to her that he did want to find a girl if he survived all of what it was they were doing.

Cinder still wasn't buying it. "So if I were to contact her, she would validate your claims."

This was the part that had been most difficult to plan around, because Aldric knew what Neo's answer would be. So if he claimed she'd say something along the lines of 'Yes', and then she didn't, he'd be in deep shit. But if he said she'd say 'no', he'd have to explain why. "Well, you _could,_ but I'm pretty sure you'd be disappointed." Now she had two choices, to call his bluff, which he was prepared for, or to trust him, which he was less prepared for.

She took option number one, pulling out her scroll, maintaining eye contact with Aldric the entire time. "I don't like liars, Aldric." She said, coldly. "I am giving you a chance to tell me where you were."

"And I'm tellin' you, hot stuff. I had a secret rendezvous with a certain someone." He yawned again, "Jesus... What else would make me so tired?" Though he would admit he felt a small flutter in his heart as this dragged on.

He was, however, confident in his ability to weasel out of this; after all, the biggest weakness in all of this arguably wasn't even Neo herself, but his fight with Taurus. If his and Cinder's powers truly were similar, that meant she should have a radar pulse, and so she should have been able to detect their brief communique. If that were true, however, the beginning of this conversation - and even the last three days - would have gone down much differently. Since he wasn't currently plastered across the wall, or on fire, and since Cinder hadn't shown any kind of facsimile of his omnipresence, he was confident that she wasn't aware of what had happened during the fight. So, this meant that aside from his strange disappearance yesterday night, she had no _real_ reason to distrust him, and that her coldness here was more of a show to put him on edge. It was working, but that was besides the point, it was all another test, and as long as he stuck to his guns, and as long as his story was ironclad, he'd be able to -

Neo's reply appeared on her scroll, and with Aldric's semblance, he saw it as soon as Cinder did, and it ground every thought he had to a halt, as if his thoughts were speeding cars and the message on Cinder's scroll was an enormous brick wall.

Cinder had asked, _Neopolitan. I couldn't find Aldric yesterday night, and he left his scroll aboard our airship. He claims he was with you. Is this true?_

To which, Neo had responded. _Yes indeed! Do you need the gory details? Size? Endurance? Virility? That his arm vibrates?_

 _Uh... What?_ Aldric had been prepared for pretty much every way this could have played out, except for exactly how he was putting up he wanted it to.

Cinder's eyebrows furrowed, and she looked up to Aldric. "Can you see the screen?"

"It'd be a bad replacement for eyesight if I couldn't." Another piece of evidence that she didn't have the pulse, though Aldric had used that as a delaying tactic, because he had no fucking idea how to respond to this development. "I told you you'd be disappointed." He added, resting his chin on his hand; he could tell she had expected this reply about as much as he had.

Cinder gave her phone another look, before gazing back up to him, "your arm... Vibrates." Aldric had to bite back laughter, as her earlier cold fury was replaced with thinly masked bewilderment, as if she couldn't believe, of all things he could have asked to be built into the prosthetic, he'd asked for _that._

Fortunately, Aldric knew how to respond. With a dull grin halfway between sheepish and amused, he lifted the cybernetic limb, clenched his fist, and revved the chainsaw. With it still being stowed in his forearm, it made the entire limb hum, shake, and vibrate. He wondered if Neo hadn't said that _specifically_ , to set him up. He ignored that such a thing meant he understood how she thought more than he'd like, in favor of it meaning _she_ must know how _he_ thought more than he'd initially considered. Though even if that were true, however, it didn't wipe away the utter shock of her actually defending him like this. He knew he'd be in deep shit the next time she saw him, that he'd probably be hunted down sooner rather than later, and that any time he could spend sleeping would likely have to be put to better use to come up with the why of why he'd used her in his lie.

Though he would admit, the look on Cinder's face made whatever he would end up having to suffer through later, somewhat worth it. Her jaw was slack, lips were slightly parted, and her eyes were so wide they looked like they may fall out. It appeared that, like him, she was prepared for every possible way this could have turned out, except _exactly as advertised._ Aldric's own lips began to quiver as he tried not to laugh at the display in front of him.

He stopped revving the saw, and in the brief moment before he spoke again, the air between them was utterly silent. "I _told_ you." He said in a conciliatory tone. "I _did_ tell you."

Neo chose this moment to chime in again. _Helooooo? You didn't kill him, did you? Even Mr. Torchwick was starting to like him!_

Cinder shot back a terse, _No. Thank you. Goodbye._ And looked back up to Aldric. "I am at a loss." She admitted.

Aldric couldn't resist a snort. "I have that effect on people." He only kept from breaking out into full laughter through sheer force of will, tightly clenched abdominal muscles, and the thought of how doomed he was when Neo got her hands on him. "I'd be fine if you never want to speak about this again." He added, giving her an out.

She nodded idly, "next time, Aldric... Warn me." She said, "I do not like suspecting my allies. Especially those I trust."

Aldric spread his arms out wide, "if I'm one of those trusted, then what was the issue, Hot Stuff?"

"It must go both ways." Cinder responded.

Aldric's arms slumped, and then he nodded and dropped them back to his sides. "Good point. Next time I have a booty call, I'll let you know. Take pictures." He didn't even bother fighting this yawn, "anything else?" He asked, briefly pointing the empty, bandages pits that were his eyes down to the small roll of papers Cinder had brought with her.

She blinked, and then nodded. "Yes." She stowed her scroll away and handed him the papers, "Goud Etiolate. Torchwick had these sent over yesterday night. It is how I discovered you weren't in the city."

"Ah, so this is what made you think I was double dealing on the only friends I have." Aldric hummed, taking the papers and holding them up to his desk light. He could only see the top sheet, the ones beneath it didn't have enough light to reflect properly. "It's kind of bare-bones." He pointed out, as he found little information beyond a name, his picture, a small academy Goud had been to to serve as an educational history, and a village he had supposedly been born in.

"You are meant to go over it." Cinder responded, quickly shaking off the previous conversation. "As you will be playing the role, it is more important that you create a story that you can remember versus having to memorize one made for you."

Aldric hummed, nodding as he went over the papers. All that had been filled out for him was that he'd come from an out-of-the-way village in Mistral, and had attended what Torchwick had annotated as a 'no-name academy', one perfect for him to slip between Beacon's cracks from. "Well... First thing I've gotta admit: I have no idea how to do this spy stuff. I liken it to a dog chasing cars." Aldric explained, swivelling around in his chair and placing the papers on his desk. "I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it." A grin, "I just _do_ things, you know?"

"But?" Cinder predicted.

"But another quote from the same guy is that the best way to hide something is to shove it under somebody's nose and wait." He tapped on the papers, "where I'm from, what school I went to... That's _painfully_ bland. Like, those are the places you'd pick if you were actively trying to stay below radar; and since our enemies over at Beacon would probably be expecting some kind of response to their possession of the Fall Maiden... Below radar is what they'll be looking for." He pulled out the tablet-scroll, and opened the internet.

"So what are you thinking?"

"Well, that depends: Did Torchwick pick Mistral because he's got more contacts there, than other non-Vale places?"

She nodded, "that was what I was led to believe."

"Sweet. Then fudge these names a bit." He pointed at the village he was supposed to hail from, "give me a village that was wrecked by Grimm. Had a few survivors, preferably ones that weren't well documented. Slip Goud into that village's census... And then say I attended... Hm..." He swiped through the lists for Mistral's primary combat schools. "Sanctum? Nah, one rung lower on the ladder. Sanctorum? Sanctum Sanctorum. Doctor Strange, I like that. Let's go with that."

Cinder blinked, "Aldric, those are very prestigious schools."

"Exactly!" Aldric rapped his knuckles on the scroll's screen. "It's so overt, it's covert. You say Goud Etiolate came from some backwater school in some backwater village, fuck you might as well dress me up with a sign that says 'I'M UNDERCOVER!'." He said, with a flourish of the arms. "But you give him a tragic past that's a little difficult to crack in to, and then a decent standing in a big name school? Shit, the people that'd doubt the story are the ones who'd be doubted themselves for being too paranoid." He didn't mention that he was intentionally trying to be bad at this, to betray a lack of skill at the spy game.

"Aldric that's idiotic." And Cinder was buying it.

"Well what would you suggest?" Aldric asked.

"That you listen to the man who has made staying under the radar his life's work." She scooted closer to the desk. "And you don't pick the all-girl combat academy."

Had his eyes not been bandaged over, he would have blinked. "Say again?" He gave the screen another look over, and sure enough, Sanctorum was indeed a female academy. "Oh. Well, Ash is an androgynous name, so..."

"No."

"Okay." He chuckled. "So what the hell is this place called... Chancel?" He asked, running over the paper with his radar pulse, before he looked the place up on his scroll. "Place has three hundred students. Don't you think it'd be easy for faults in the story to be sniffed out with so few kids?"

"Not if it suffered a minor Grimm attack earlier this semester, which caused still present damage to its archives." Cinder responded, "he picked it for a reason."

Aldric gave a jerk of the head, "got me there." He grunted. "What happens if I run into other folks from Chancel? You guys are having me go through the whole rigamarole with the entrance exams. If I meet another Chancellor, I'll be in one hell of a bind."

"Most of them are going to Haven Academy. Others to Atlas. Not one chose Beacon, save for Goud Etiolate." Cinder responded, indicating the papers. "That is information included in the packet. What you are doing here is creating a rough outline of Goud's history. What kind of person he was, what kind of student he was. His home life, things of that nature."

"Coming up with how he got his fucking arm ripped off and his eyes gouged out." He picked up. "Okay. I should have something by the end of the day." He groaned, "I'm not getting any sleep, am I?"

"It was your decision to burn your night and your energy in between the legs of Torchwick's Gardener, Aldric." Cinder said, getting to her feet. "Do not forget what we talked about."

"My arm vibrates?"

"Do not leave without proper warning." She said, leaving the room.

Aldric nodded, before a thought occurred to him. "Hey, are we replacing Emerald any time soon? I need someone to fuck with and you're not as fun."

 _"I'm working on it."_ Cinder called back, as she made for the front of the ship, where Mercury sat.

"Good to know..."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I am fucked._

 _Things did not go according to plan._

 _Well, actually, I guess you could say they went_ ** _exactly_** _according to plan: The plan was, if Cinder somehow knew I'd left Vale yesterday, to tell her Neo came a knockin' and I'm (truthfully) too scared to ever say no. Cinder called the bluff, called Neo, aaaaaand... Neo said yes._

 _As in, Cinder fucking asked Neo if I'd been with her yesterday - which I wasn't! - and that crazy ice cream lady SAID YES!_

 _WHAT THE FUCK?!_

 _Oh God, I'm going to get cornered by a pissed off assassin when I go for my run here in... Oh... Five minutes.  
And I can't skip it because I have to keep up appearances. _

_And to make it worse: I honestly am not sure if Cinder bought it. It_ ** _looked_** _like she did, but this could be a situation where L totally knew Light was Kira, but just lacked the hard evidence._

 _And even if I don't get cornered_ ** _tonight..._** _There's always tomorrow. And the next day.  
If she doesn't come after me tonight, I swear, it's because Neo's the type to to get off on this. Keeping me all anxious and paranoid about the when and the where._

 _I basically swapped Cinder's potential suspicion for Neo's actual suspicion, and as I've constantly demonstrated: I do_ ** _NOT_** _know which is worse!_

 ** _Exactly_** _what I wanted to happen is_ ** _exactly_** _what I did not want to happen!_

 _God damn it!_

 _'Till next time._

* * *

 _To:  
OzpinHeadMast-(a)-BeaconCCT; CC:CrowBar-(a)-SignalCCT_

 _From:  
PrivateGomerFuckingPyle-(a)-ScarletMailCCT_

 _Subject:  
A Mistralian Prince Needs *Your* Help! Earn 15000000 Easy!_

 _Message:_

 _Ozbourne, Crowley. It's been a busy week._

 _The most important piece of news: We made contact the_ ** _Red Bull_** _of the White Fang. I mentioned him to you on the rooftop. He's been recruited to our side.  
Emphasis on _**_our_** _side._

 _Lady In Red underestimated Red Bull's pride. He noticed that we had lost one of our number since our last meeting, and called into question her leadership, demanding a personal trial as proof of her skill. She refused, and instead sought to force his allegiance first by subduing him and then by summarily executing a Fang, one by one, until he agreed to her terms._

 _I, however, knew differently. Red Bull is a proud man, and he would not be taken alive. Before his or any lives could be taken, I managed to convince him to cease his resistance by selling him information I had pieced together earlier, and had discovered was of great worth to him. I later made contact with him again to define terms._

 _The result: I have Red Bull's promise of assistance._

 _I have not, however, told him of our involvement for two reasons:  
One, he and I do not yet fully trust eachother. I hand him that and he may use it as a bargaining chip to get his people out of the firing range.  
Two: Much the same reason I requested you keep my identity a secret from the rest of your inner circle: Compartmentalization._

 _Another problem is one I suspect you've already predicted by now:_ His _endgoal hasn't changed. He still desires a revolution above all else. The moment Lady In Red and the White Witch cease to be problems, we will lose any mutual enemies. Worse is that depending on how long it takes to achieve victory, he'll be closer to his goal by proxy, and may find it easier to pursue if he goes public with his involvement and garners support from his people._

 _Not much we can do about it at the moment, so while we need to keep this in mind and be prepared for unforeseen circumstances, I vote we count this as a win: We've got another friend on the other side._

 _Next:  
They want to find Her. Finish the job. To that end, they're going to send someone to infiltrate Beacon in the upcoming semester. I can't give much information on the individual, but I can say that ideas were tossed around, plans for this person to hail from Mistral, one of the big-name academies. I heard Sanctorum mentioned, as well as some village that got destroyed by Grimm some time ago. Other ideas were tossed around, but Infiltrator was supportive of it, and Lady In Red wants Infiltrator's assumed background to be as simple as possible for him, so it's likely that whatever Infiltrator is most supportive of, they may go with._

 _I can't tell you what to do with this information, only to be careful when and if you act on it._

 _Next:  
I'm certain you're already aware, but Cresset has already begun work in Vale. To what end I am yet unsure, but his goal is to empty Vale of all of its Dust. Be it from major Schnee distributors, or small holes-in-the-wall, if they carry dust he intends to rob them. I am working on figuring out the endgoal, and I can at least say with confidence that it involves the Grimm._

 _Finally:_

 _No progress as of yet in either proving or disproving the Masters theory. Lady In Red and myself will begin working on it imminently, as we search for our next recruit._

 _-Nathan Drake_

* * *

 _To:  
PrivateGomerFuckingPyle-(a)-ScarletMailCCT; CC:CrowBar-(a)-SignalCCT_

 _From:OzpinHeadMast-(a)-BeaconCCT_

 _Subject:  
RE:A Mistralian Prince Needs *Your* Help! Earn 15000000 Easy!_

 _Message:_

 _Mister Drake, it is good to hear from you, and I am pleased to see that you are doing well._

 _Red Bull, an interesting name. Is that a deity from a tribal society from your home?_

 _Regardless, this is intriguing news. I will trust your judgement in regards to compartmentalization, but it may behoove you to at least make him aware that there are allies on our end as well, if and when you find an opportune moment and a reason to trust him. Considering what is at stake for him and his very public ideals, I do truly feel that the latter will, so long as we've our common enemy, be a non-issue._

 _I would, however, assuage your worries in regards to the aftermath of any operations and his continued allegiance. While valid, and something to keep in mind, a counterpoint would be that, dependent on how long this conflict with the White Witch runs and how open it grows, he may very well lack the necessary manpower, and subsequent public opinion, with which to pursue any major conflicts._

 _As well, it may be as simple a matter as to paint him a messianic figure in the eyes of his people and a tragic hero in the eyes of ours, and subsequently place him in a better position with which to achieve his goals in a peaceful manner. If he is as cunning and skilled a leader as I have come to understand, he would thusly understand the weight and value of the lives he intends to improve, and seek not to risk them if needless._

 _Worry not for situations outside of your control, Mister Drake. Let us focus on one issue at a time._

 _Now, as to your warning about potential subversive elements within Beacon this coming year, I shall keep this information in mind. Their plan to place this individual in a prestigious academy such as the one you names is a clever move; what better way to hide a secret than to brazenly advertise it? I must admit, I may have overlooked it had I not been warned ahead of time._

 _At the moment we've two applicants hailing from Mistral, one from a major academy, and the other with such poor grades that I fear he may not survive the entrance exam unscathed. As well I can see two more waiting to be approved; I shall keep an eye on all of them, but as you said, it will be difficult to act without any ironclad evidence against them, and if they work for the White Witch, I worry for how difficult the procurement of said proof will be._

 _Now, on our end:_

 _There is some good news. Very recently we had brought in medical equipment from Atlas. She is now stabilized, and we have been bought time enough with which to figure out our solution, and progress is already being made on that front._

 _To borrow your proclivity for anonymizing codenames, and your confidence in us to discover the identity of the person to which it was attaches, I have recently brought into the fold an individual that may prove to be of great use to our cause. Ferrum has informed us of his country's rising desire to unify science and aura, in a manner much similar to that which you hinted at during our first meeting. He has described to us a machine which he explains will be able to transfer the aura of one person, into another. His intent is to railroad the research and development of this machine, while we create a list of potential candidates to receive Her power._

 _We do this due to the very real possibility that, should She deteriorate and pass on, what remains of her power will either seek to reunite with its other half, or will follow its rules. Either scenario is undesirable, for obvious reasons. Our hope, however, is that we can imbue a righteous woman with Her remaining powers, and recruit into the war a symbolic force that the world will sorely need._

 _Now, I promised you our thoughts on your Masters theory, here is what we have come up with:_

 _To turn a phrase, it is said that someone with an unbridled mastery over their aura can become, I quote, 'something else'. I would therefor conclude that it is not impossible for Masters to exist, but perhaps not in the way you and Lady In Red believe. Perhaps what is happening is less your possession of magical powers, and instead the result of the application of science, a contemporary education, and a unique worldview and mindset, to aura._

 _To elaborate: You were educated in a different world. From what we have recovered and translated from your crash sight, there is_ ** _no_** _presence of Dust or Aura in your world. As such, your people, the 'Terrans' as you called them, relied on hard science to reach technological heights similar to our own; eclipsing our world in some places, and being eclipsed in others._

 _I have read about your Manhattan Project, and to be frank, it terrifies me.  
But that is the point: Through science, and an education built off of said science, your world is completely alien to our own. _

_So, when you arrived here, and awakened your aura, you naturally applied your world's logic and reason to it. The result was such a fine, precise control, over such an over abundance of aura, that you are in the process of becoming 'something else'._

 _Compare and contrast to huntsman and huntresses here. Very few ever study their auras in and of itself, but rather study and advance the byproducts of said aura: Their semblance. The result is a short-term gain of a bare fraction of the long-term power a mastery of their aura could provide. To put another way, when given a scroll, humans merely press the buttons to make the phone call. Terrans, however, study the scroll's programming and find ways to alter and improve it in key places. The result being the same exact machine with the same exact source, but on two entirely different levels._

 _To summarize, and to borrow your own phrase: Magic is merely science we do not yet fully comprehend. Perhaps you are so similar to our maidens, because you are on the road to mastering your aura in a way few ever have._

 _But, the thoughts above may reflect Crowley's initial theory, I brought up another, this one predicated upon taking your being a Master, and thus, capable of magic, at face value._

 _The universe is an incomprehensibly massive place. Even traveling at its fastest physically possible natural speed, it would take years just to reach our stellar neighbor. And, with an infinite vastness, leaves room for infinite possibilities._

 _Consider, for a moment, the sheer mathematical improbability of White Witch using ancient dust rituals to tear open a portal to another universe entirely, and discovering this universe to contain an entire species of Masters and Maidens, who never unlock their power due to a complete absence of dust, and as a result can, at their basest, eclipse us at our greatest. The possibility is non-zero, but considering that the odds are, quite literally, one in infinity, it would be easier to simply state that it is so improbable that it is functionally impossible for random chance to grant her such a boon._

 _So perhaps the answer is that she didn't, and instead what she did was open up a bridge between two different points in the same universe. To find a world similar to ours in that it supports life as we know it. And since life is born from dust and aura, it is therefore not impossible that the reason our two species - and many facets of our worlds - are so strikingly similar is simply because we came from the same wellspring of life: Dust. The difference between our worlds simply being the amount of said dust upon it in a physical sense, and thus a much different biological and evolutionary imperative._

 _In short, are we alone?  
No.  
Both you, and I, prove this for my species and yours, respectively._

 _Now what does this have to do with Masters, or Maidens?  
Simply: The White Witch only knew about these ancient dust rituals, because they had been done once before, and were subsequently written down.  
Suggesting that this is _**_not_** _the first time our world and yours have met, but instead is merely the most recent time._

 ** _When_** _we met previously, there can honestly be any guess. Perhaps the deity brothers came from Earth and chose to play God on a blank planet. Perhaps a man from our world went to yours, and was deemed a messiah and later crucified for the 'magical' things he could do, among other things. Perhaps both, perhaps neither._

 _Or, perhaps a single man came from your world to ours, but found himself unable to return home, and chose to live the rest of his life in solitude, until four young women convinced him to join this new world which he called home, and were thusly bestowed a power the likes of which was_ ** _alien_** _to this world, not because it was magic as the ancient and ill-understanding humans believed, but because it truly was. The product of aura being allowed to evolve in an environment completely separate and less hostile than ours. Being allowed to age and blossom into something structurally different, but equally as beautiful._

 _As an aside, from what we have recovered from your crashed ship, it seems that a number of your people believe in reincarnation. Perhaps this idea, of life being reborn, passed from one form to another, came from aura going from one living being to another? And perhaps, in a broad sense, the very terran concept of a 'superhuman' came from one of the few terrans that came across what little dust is on Earth, or otherwise naturally unlocked their aura.  
That is not to say all of your superhuman fiction came from a living person, but that the concept itself, as all legends to, started with the truth, and was eventually, and inevitably, twisted and turned until it was but a tale of fiction spun endlessly for the entertainment and education of the young.  
Food for thought._

 _But to return to the topic at hand, Crowley posits that perhaps Maidens are what they are, because their power_ ** _came_** _from Earth. That maybe the answer is that, on Remnant, being a Maiden is the closest Remnant humans can be to their Earth cousins, the terrans; and subsequently, you are, as are all terrans, as are the four maidens, as was the Wizard that bestowed upon them... And as_ ** _is_** _your aura in comparison to ours: Alien._

 _To bring it all full circle, Magic, as you said, is merely science we do not yet understand. Physical forces obeying very real and very concrete laws that we simply didn't know existed._

 _So perhaps you are as you are because you are gaining such a minute control over your aura that you are beginning to ascend to a plane and state of being where the laws you obey are ones we simply do not know exist, and affect the ones beneath them in ways we cannot explain.  
Or, perhaps you are simply so alien that there are laws that apply to you that do not to us, and the interaction between our laws and yours results in what the uninitiated can only describe as paranormal._

 _And, of course, there is always a third option, this one being the easiest of all of them:  
That you have simply, unconsciously, sealed away that overabundance of aura within you, and in that moment of stress during your duel against Her, you were briefly able to enter a 'Fight or Flight' state and tap into that surplus, and ascend to such levels of power that we misinterpreted it as something mystical. _

_There are any number of explanations, and though I feel these three are the ones that can hold the most water, I suppose only time will tell._

 _Good luck, Mister Drake.  
Now, and as always, should you feel an exit strategy appropriate, my doors will be open to you._

 _~Ozbourne_


	22. He Who Fights Monsters

_A/N:_

 _Apologies for the (most recent) delay; while I won't go all out and say I've been having a crisis of faith when it comes to this story (as that isn't the case whatsoever), what I've been suffering with is the rapidly approaching realization that if I keep doing what I'm doing (that is, following canon once Aldric hits Beacon), I'll get bored **real** goddamn fast, because that's a story already been told, and multiple times at that (both by actual canon and any of the dime-a-dozen OC-S/I's on this and other sites), and as such I've been hammering out exactly what I want to happen as I approach the 'in medias res' bit from the prologue, and what I want to happen afterwards, because the whole 'follow canon with minor divergences' shtick will get old real fast.  
At least for me.  
_

 _Fortunately, with the way I've been writing the story, and the **numerous** metaphorical guns I've been putting on chekhov's wall (if you'll forgive a horribly butchered phrase), as well as the plethora of ideas I'd had going into this, figuring out what I want to do once TPATS hits the point where it abandons any and all pretenses and goes full-blown AU won't be difficult. I've already got ideas ready and rearing to go, although ___God help canon once we get there._ If you've read my Naruto story, you'll have something of an idea of how horrifically I intend to butcher things, to service the story.  
_

 _Like the Joker said: Introduce a little anarchy, and everything falls to chaos._

 _ _All that to say: I had no idea what I was doing when I went into this, but I'm starting to form a picture now.  
Although that picture looks like some unholy mixture of RWBY, House of Cards, and Dragonball Z.  
(Shrugs) Anyways...  
__

 _ _I know this is a little short compared to what came before, but... Well, I'll let it do the talking.__

 _ _On with the show:__

* * *

Chapter 21

* * *

 _For the Record  
_

 _Well, the good news is I'm alive._

 _The bad news is that I was right (and I'm starting to hate how me being right is becoming increasingly **bad!** ), in that Neo would probably get off on letting me agonize about this whole mess I've made. I went out yesterday night, but no Neo._

 _Oh, god damn it._

 _In other news, Ozpin thinks I'm a badass, and Qrow thinks I'm an alien.  
Technically, they're both right.  
_

 _I think both theories have weight, but one thing to consider is that, all else being equal, it was Salem that brought me here to begin with. I can't make any final judgements until I meet up with her - and can we just pause for a moment and note that I basically just said I intend to have coffee with Satan? What the fuck is my life?_

 _Now, I **like** Qrow's idea about me being an alien, because, strictly speaking, that means it's easier to get home... In a crazy... Cosmic sort of way. My first thought process is to see if I can't use my semblance to build a tesseract and then FO back home, live like a superhero for the rest of my life... But something tells me that it won't nearly be so simple for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which being I'm a third-dimensional being and I may not be able to mentally process 4D space with my sanity intact... It'd be like trying to comprehend Cthulhu. Or trying to imagine a square with no straight lines or right angles.  
_

 _And... You know: I don't even know how to build one in the first place. If I knew **that** , that would pretty much solve all of my problems instantaneously._

 _But I digress._

 _We're taking off, now. Cinder has grand plans for our new number four.  
She heard rumors of some chick in Vacuo whose semblance - drumroll please! - is goddamn telepathy._

 _Hear that? That's the sound of the entire universe coming down around me, shattering like glass. I'm **screwed.**_

 _All else being equal, at the very least that means she can read and control minds. So she can just crack open my skull and have me sing my Green Hornet song, and there's nothing I can do. I've been doing some thinking as to the science of how she could do it, and if there are any counters, but there's not really much I can do in the way of pursuing these counters until we land again.  
_

 _At least I can take a **little** solace in that I doubt Cinder would let such a potentially existential security risk in on it, if she felt she posed... Well, an existential risk. So I'm praying that it's one of those 'if you know the trick' scenarios, where, if you know the person is invading your mind, you can - provided enough willpower - resist and fight off the effects.  
Or maybe it's because Cinder is magic that she thinks she won't be affected, in which case I may not be either._

 _Or she's so desperate for someone with skills comparable to Emerald's that she's willing to let in a motherfucking telepath that could convince us all we're three year old girls._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

Aldric was starting to notice how much sleep he wasn't getting, as time went on. Ever since he'd clawed Amber's eyes out, and the plethora of issues being piled onto his plate after the fact, he'd begun relying more and more on the physiologic changes to his body thanks to his aura to keep him going, as opposed to keeping up a semi-respectable sleeping schedule. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a peaceful eight hours, or eight hours period. Today he'd gotten three before he'd woken up in a cold sweat after a brief nightmare about Cinder charging into his room, followed swiftly by a cackling Torchwick and a smiling Neo.

 _Thank god for Coffee..._ Aldric thought, sighing into a cup of the hot brown liquid. During his brief tenure on Remnant he'd gone from not ever having touched the stuff to downing it habitually. _Thank goooooood for coffee..._ He thought again, taking a sip. His eyes felt heavy and his body felt sluggish, even the bite of the heat of the drink sliding down his throat didn't do much to stave off the lethargy. If it weren't for his aura he knew he'd be approaching the limits of functionality.

Checking with his radar, he saw Cinder sound asleep in her dark room, and Mercury leaned back in the pilot's chair, deep in sleep but also, as Aldric had long since learned, ready and able to wake up the moment a single out-of-place sound graced his ears. If he didn't know them better, he'd have wondered how they dealt with it, but unfortunately he did know them. As rounded as they were becoming through mere fact of interacting with them, Aldric still knew that they were cold, and used to nightmarish tasks. These two could probably tear a man's head off and still sleep like a baby. It was something Aldric actually took comfort in, the fact that he couldn't sleep. It meant he hadn't gone over the edge, yet.

Idly, he pulled out his scroll. He - as did everyone else - had a _box_ of burners in his room, as well as a cautiously growing stash of coins he'd been stealing from Mercury, but this one was his 'main' scroll. He used it to open the CCT and browse Remnant's internet. Nothing much had changed since the last time he'd done so, hardly twenty minutes ago. He'd gotten an email on the scarlet mail account he'd set up for Goud, Beacon had accepted his admission and had provided him information on the when and where of the entrance exams. He'd been slightly worried about how he'd get through the written portion, until he'd realized he could just cheat his way through the entire thing by using his semblance to peek at everyone's papers, and pick the answers he saw marked most often. This conclusion had led him to decide that Goud's story would be that he could still see, but only in a very short range, and only if he focused hard. This would allow him to convince his teachers to not give him his paperwork in braille, and would also be something he could keep to himself from whoever wasn't in the know, so he could play up his whole 'blind man' act. To that effect, he'd started using a white cane made from the Power Glove more often, even going so far as to figure out how to make it collapsible, so he wouldn't be spawning and despawning it constantly, and remove the risk of revealing that the shield and his pistol weren't his only weapons.

He had also, to his great relief, finally been able to take off the bandages that covered his eyes. It didn't really change the fact that he had two empty, still somewhat swollen pits in his eyes, but at least now he was walking around wearing a pair of thick sunglasses instead of two huge square gauze, with ace bandages wrapped around his head. It made him feel less like a walking pile of bruises and scar tissue and a little more like a human being. Unfortunately, whatever joviality he may have felt at reveling at the lack of itchy bandages on his face was quickly wiped away when he sensed that he wouldn't be alone for much longer.

Over in her room, he could sense Cinder's heart rate and breathing pick up, and after a brief twitch of her eyes, they opened up and she began to stir. Aldric had noticed recently that, even with her training on figuring out her half of the Maiden's powers, there was something about her. She'd begun to favor her right side, just a bit more than her left. He wondered if it didn't have something to do with some kind of imbalance, maybe it was the aura equivalent to an immune response. Maybe the Maiden powers were trying to overpower her natural aura like a virus, maybe her aura was trying to isolate and fight off the Maiden powers, like an immune system would fight off an infection. Despite this, though, she was returning to top form pretty quickly, her body was starting to acclimate to the powers; Aldric thought the speed of this adaptation may have something to do with Cinder liking to flash her powers like she did, to intimidate him and Mercury.

Cinder left her room, and upon noticing Aldric's presence, nodded to him. "Early." She grunted, smoothing out the wrinkles in her nightgown.

"The time, or my being awake?" Aldric asked, as she crossed the kitchen and prepared herself a cup of tea.

"Yes."

Aldric shrugged, "couldn't sleep. Trying to figure out what it is I'm missing with the whole Master business." He stifled a yawn behind a sip of his coffee. "How'd you jump it so fast?" He asked, "you no sooner had it than you were shooting that huntsman."

"I'd been trained, Aldric." She responded airily. "In a manner much similar to what you and I intend to do with you, when we return."

Aldric didn't even need to know what he did about Salem to realize there was more here than Cinder was letting on. He wondered if Salem hadn't found some way to temporarily 'spark' some sort of Maiden-esque power in Cinder, to get her used to what it feels like to control it. "And how long did it take you?"

"A year, before I was deemed sufficient enough to access them once I had obtained them." She responded. "But it will likely be just as long, once I gather what I am missing, to begin to master them as I would need to use them with any efficiency." She removed her cup and sat down at the table, letting it cool off as she submerged the teabag in the hot water. "Considering your previous feats, however... I would at least think you could reliably access them at rest before Goud leaves for Beacon."

Aldric nodded to the side, figuring she'd be right. He knew how to crack into it when he was fighting, and turning five seconds to five minutes, to eventually accessing them at rest, was only a matter of time. "Got the email yesterday." A pause, "we'll probably be back in time, but uh, you know." Another nod, "don't blame me if I cut and run when the clock hits twenty four hours."

"I would expect you to." Cinder countered, "Mercury says we should be landing in the morning."

"Fun." Aldric said, dryly. "What was her name? Fume? Ray?"

"Rayne." Cinder responded. "I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Oh?" Aldric said, before another sip.

"I was wondering what you thought of her semblance. How it works."

Aldric frowned, "like, how she can screw with the brain?" He asked, "scientifically?" She nodded, and he leaned back. "Well... You've got me at a loss, there, to be honest. The nature of thought, and all that, we were still working on it." He began. "And you're also asking a guy that looked up this kind of stuff for shits and giggles and stopped looking when it got too technical. The extent of _my_ knowledge is that thought and consciousness is a mixture of the chemicals that flow through the brain and the electrical signals it creates. That's why things like pheromones and electrical brain stimulation work the way they do."

She frowned, "so... Gas or electricity." She said.

"A very simplified way of explaining it, but sure." He said.

"So what can we do about it?" She asked, brushing some of her dark hair out of her face.

"Well... The problem is we don't know _exactly_ how... But..." He hummed, "you said she can read minds, right?" She nodded. "Well, I think that might point in the way of some kind of... Electromagnetic manipulation..." A pause, "she screws with how the neurons fire in our brains." He chuckled, "I confused myself there, trying for the fancy words." He said offhandedly, before taking another sip of his drink.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because as far as I know, there's no real way to turn chemicals to readable, translatable data. We can get a list of them and guess at what their function is, if we put them together, but that's about it. Chemicals by themselves don't tell us anything." He said, "but there is a precedent for turning electrical signals into something humans can understand." A beat, "we call them computers." And she nodded, understanding the joke and the comparison. "So... The question then becomes not, how do we protect ourselves from pheromones - which, itself is an easy answer. A gas mask. - but instead, how do we stop outside electromagnetic signals getting into our brain, and how do we stop our brain's signals from leaking out?"

There were a few seconds of silence before Cinder realized he was baiting her; she shook her head and said. "I do not know, Aldric. This was never my area of study."

"Need to fix that, lady. You Remnants are just a bunch of back-asswards savages, I swear." He chuckled, "a Faraday cage."

"What is a Faraday?"

"Actually it's a person, but that's not what's important. The long and short of it is... You wrap something in some kind of conductive material, like copper, or something similar. Doing that shields equipment from outside electrical influence." A beat, as he finished off his cup. "A common stunt is to make a cage and then blast the shit out of a guy with a tesla coil, or something - uh..." He shook his head, "- basically, a less powerful lightning bolt. The bolt will hit the cage, but won't affect the person inside. So pretty much, if it has something to do with the electromagnetic spectrum, if you stuff yourself in a faraday cage, it won't get in."

"You think that could protect us from a telepath?"

"Well, we're assuming she works on some basis of science, and it's not comic book-style astral projection nonsense." He said, before shaking his hand.  
"Considering that most semblances I've found so far at least follow some kind of science, though, I'm willing to make that bet." He explained. "In a perfect world, she wouldn't be able to break through it. But this world is even less perfect than _mine,_ so I'm thinking that, instead of instant 'I say, you do', it would be something closer to... She says something, but there's enough resistance with the cage, that we might be able to fight her off through willpower." A pause, "like... One hundred percent control without the cage, versus fifty percent control with it."

"Those are still concerning odds." She intoned, finishing off her own cup.

"Well you're the one wanting a mind reader. I'm just giving you what I got." He said, shrugging. "Though... I think for once it's a good thing you're not from Earth. Because the next part would make any self-respecting terran, myself included, genuinely consider mind control as a better alternative." A pause, before he nodded. "To prove the point, I _honestly_ am."

Cinder frowned, "why?"

"Do we have any tin foil?"

* * *

Aldric felt he had a pretty good way to describe Vacuo: Tattoine condensed into one single continent. There was no formal law or order here, only a huge collection of isolated city-states, where those who had the power, had control. This equated to organized crime families, or less-than-moral Huntsmen, taking the place of official governments, but these were tenuous at best. The moment weakness was sensed, or someone stronger came along, it was only a matter of time before the current bosses lost control of their village. This even applied to the city that had sprung up around Vacuo's Huntsman academy, Shade - the staff and faculty there doubled as the city's bosses. It was as if the Justice League - the comic version - ran the planet because no one could feasibly fight against them; as a matter of fact, it wasn't uncommon at all for retiring Vacuoan Huntsman to go hunt down either their home towns, or some new one, depose the current boss or bosses, and take the place over, and from there it was a toss up for whether or not they were better or worse than the previous leaders, morally speaking.

For the Legion of Doom, this was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that they didn't have to worry about raising any red flags with Vacuo's government, but it also meant that they would have to be careful when they made it to Rayne's village. The word was that she had been top dog there for five years now, and considering what her semblance was, it wasn't terribly difficult to decide why: Anyone who challenged her one-woman rule was suddenly struck with a great and sudden urge to ventilate their brains. Considering that there wasn't even any reports on her having actually fought anyone, that theory held more weight, but it only made Aldric's heart drop out of his chest, because he knew without even having to ask that, if they were indeed able to resist her semblance, they'd likely give her the same tests they had given him once he'd unlocked his semblance.

And that brought him to his current situation: The faraday cages he'd 'built' for the others in the Legion. He was mountainously glad that he was the only one from Earth in the group, else he would have had a much harder time selling everyone on the idea. Though the fact that there weren't any 'tinfoil hat people' on Remnant surprised the hell out of him. Fortunately, they were able to at least escape actually looking like the fools he felt like, as they all had various manners of desert clothing covering them and shielding them from Vacuo's sun, from turbans to shemaghs, so their heads were covered and their 'hats' were out of view. In order to cast away his own notions about the plan, Aldric had forced himself to conclude that, technically, Magneto was a tinfoil hat person; he promptly _vowed_ to return to the Garden and get them to construct a Magneto helmet out of materials that would serve much better as a Faraday Cage. It'd definitely fit with his earlier pipe dream about getting a cowl to match his armor, at the very least.

One good thing came out of it, though: The laughter that burst from Aldric's chest when he got a good look at Cinder's head before she covered it with her headdress was the most genuine, boisterous laughter he'd had since he'd come to Vale. He'd taken pictures, Mercury had demanded he send them to him. Aldric made thirty lien before Cinder threatened to stab him.

Once they left their port city, desert gear and supplies in hand, they began crossing the desert at a brisk pace. Aldric was tempted to say that the desert in Vacuo was the hottest place he'd ever been in, but some of the music festivals back home actually had this place beat, because that heat had had an oppressive humidity to it, whereas this was, appropriately, as dry as a desert, and easier to deal with. Didn't make it any less miserable, but that was where his semblance came in: Some moderate concentration, and Aldric was able to drop the temperature from miserable, to almost tolerable, and the result was that when Cinder and Mercury both soon began to sweat and take swigs from their canteens, he looked like some sort of ghastly monster, impervious to heat. He relished the astonished looks they gave him when they noticed how he was comparatively hardly even sweating. It also doubled as good training, like an endurance test, so he called it a win.

At their pace, it took them two days to reach Dira, the village Rayne had taken over. They took refuge outside of the village, hiding in an abandoned stone house, the idea being that they didn't want to find out if she could read anyone's mind in a certain radius, or if she could only do so to someone she could see and focus on. Aldric drew the short stick when it came to the first watch, and now here he sat, using his radar to check the environment around them, moon high in the sky and the desert night's temperature dropping like a rock.

As much as he would love to be doing anything else, be it opining in his journal, planning for his inevitable encounter with Neo, or simply doing more reading on the specificities of Remnant, he was agonizing about the more imminent problem: Rayne. He saw no good way out of this; because of the unknowns of her abilities, he had to assume the worst, and that meant he had to assume that it was less Zebediah Killgrave, and more Charles Xavier. She could crack open his skull and learn all his secrets if she were determined enough. As such, if his improvised Faraday cages didn't work exactly as he wanted them to, it was inevitable that she would learn about his Green Hornet plan; and because of how Cinder operated, when she inevitably got Rayne's undying loyalty, Rayne would spill the beans, and Aldric's goose would be cooked. Rayne was a walking, talking, living, breathing risk to not just his own health and safety, but also to that of the future: If she got ahold of what he knew about the show, there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell that the Justice League would win the war.

That kind of threat was existential, but Aldric had no idea how to fix it. Even if, god willing, the Faraday cages worked, and Cinder and Mercury would adopt always wearing it like he would, just _one_ slip-up, _one_ moment where he was inside Rayne's zone of influence, and the cage was broken or he wasn't wearing it - like, perhaps, all of the time he would be spending at Beacon - she'd have everything. He couldn't try to win her loyalty first, because not only would he not have the time to do so - he was leaving for Beacon in _days -_ but if Cinder was willing to bet on her, Aldric took that as a pretty clear indication that her morals weren't clear enough to let him do his work. If he tried to double-deal right under Cinder's nose, Rayne would take that, shove it in his face, and tell Cinder.

All that, of course, was thoroughly ignoring the fact that Salem would eventually get her hands on what it was that Rayne knew through Aldric, and because Aldric would be dead, Salem - so far as he knew - would be free to crack open another portal to Earth, and not only try to sustain it for unlimited information on the future, but also search for someone with far more backwards morals than Aldric's, which would put Remnant in an even worse position, as then Salem would have an army of Masters, access to the history of things to come, and nothing but time. Rayne was a ticking timebomb, all but literally waiting to explode in his face, and kill everything.

And he had no idea whatsoever as to how to deal with her. Add the other timebomb in his life - the ice cream mute herself - and Aldric was starting to feel like everything he'd worked for these six months was built on a glass foundation. After a while, his head sank into his hands and he groaned, idly contemplating how simpler life would have been if he were still powerless, dealing with Beowolves and Nevermores after a plane crash.

 _Hell..._ Aldric thought glibly, _Ozpin let slip that they found the crash-site, and took everything they could. Maybe if I hadn't gone to the temple place, and had just sat there and waited a while longer, my problems would have solved themselves. No Green Hornet, no Ozzymandias..._ He wiped his face, _No Jane Wick, Yuno Gasai hybrid trying to get into my pants. That sounds good._ He thought.

* * *

After changing shifts and sleeping the rest of the night away, the three members of the Legion met briefly before making way for Dira. Cinder ensured that they were all on the same page: Violence, while definitely an option, wasn't their first one. If they could convince Rayne to work with them of her own accord, that was most desirable, but 'another Adam Taurus situation' wasn't out of the question. As they were on a timetable - Aldric's timetable, specifically - they didn't waste time, and hightailed it to Dira. Along the way, Aldric tried to figure out what exactly would happen in the aftermath of killing Rayne.

He was willing to put money on the fact that Cinder wanted Rayne due to her semblance so closely resembling Emerald's. Rayne could alter peoples' perception of reality in a way similar to that of Emerald, and the logical extension was that Rayne would serve as Emerald's replacement when it came time to trick Pyrrha Nikos into killing Penny Polendina. If Aldric killed her, either the plan would have to undergo a drastic change, or someone would have to play sacrificial lamb and get grievously injured, similar to how Mercury pretended to get kneecapped by Yang. Blood would have to fly on camera.

But Aldric cut those thoughts off once buildings came into view in the distance. Dira looked like any desert town Aldric had seen in a movie before: Stone buildings, built low to the ground, and many of them clustered together, with people hanging out in front of, inside, and on top of them. They attracted a few eyes as they entered, but were left alone for the most part; Cinder used Aldric's radar pulse to guide them to a hotel in the center of town, where they blended in so Aldric could have the time he would need to probe the village.

The sounds of the patrons faded away into a white noise as Aldric frowned, furrowing his brow and using his radar like a searchlight, scanning the entire village to locate Rayne. It took a lot less long than he would have thought, though it did give him a headache, taking in an entire village's worth of 'data', so to speak, at once. He found someone matching Rayne's picture in a house a few stories bigger than the others, gated off and surrounded by guards. Just as he could with everything he brushed against with his radar pulse, he felt everything there as if it were an extension of himself, as if they were all nerve endings. He could see and feel the sweating guards, could feel their boots shifting the sand, and could even feel the sand being shifted by the boots.

"Aldric, what's taking so long?" He asked, feeling a brief poke in his shoulder.

Aldric's 'vision' snapped back to the area around him, and his frown became more annoyed than it was focused, as he turned his head to glare at Mercury. "Dude, I have to focus." He said, "I throw my radar pulse out in a three-sixty, and the further out I stretch it, the less vivid the details get." He explained, "I'm basically spotlighting an entire village to eliminate that problem... And you just wrecked my concentration."

Mercury shrugged, "sorry. Thought you could see everything, is all." He took another swig from his water.

Aldric rolled his eyes, and after a moment, threw his vision back to the compound. He probed through the house, and eventually ran across Rayne herself. She was still asleep in her bed, her heart calmly beating and her lungs taking air in and blowing it out. She looked to be around his age, give or take a few years, with sandy hair and brown eyes. It made Aldric feel strange, staring at this woman without her being any the wiser, especially since he knew well and good how easy it would be to concentrate a little less hard and see what decency was hidden by the blankets and bedwear.

 _If all else fails, I'd make one **hell** of a stalker._ He thought, _have that kind of all-knowing, creepy ass quality that'd make the Joker blush._

"I -" And as he began speaking, he had an epiphany. "Uh... Fuck. False alarm." He gave an expectant-looking Cinder a raised eyebrow, "unless the chick we're looking for is visibly pregnant."

"No, Aldric."

"I'm almost through the whole place."

His thoughts on the Joker had been what had sparked the epiphany. As would always happen when the villain entered his thoughts, the legendary performance in the Dark Knight inevitably joined those thoughts, and if it wasn't clear already, Aldric was a creature who existed to quote both the obscure and the not-so-much. One quote specifically came to mind, which sparked the epiphany. This entire time, Aldric had been trying to solve this problem backwards, when it was often said that the best solution was the easiest one, and barring a lucky streak of such godlike perfection that he honestly didn't believe he'd achieve, the best and easiest solution would be to remove the problem - to remove Rayne from the equation.

With extreme prejudice.

Of course, such a thing would sound difficult on paper, but Aldric was suddenly realizing that, with his semblance, it was far easier to just kill the Batman, than it was to try and beat him. To put it another way, what was easier? To locate Batman and drop an enormous missile on him and the surrounding area? Or to try and beat him in a fist fight? Was it easier to stab the hell out of Superman with a dagger of kryptonite, or to shoot him with a regular pistol? Would one rather try to beat the Sonic in a foot race, or kneecap him and be done with it? When the Joker, surrounded by mobsters, had told them 'it's simple, we kill the Batman', Aldric was beginning to realize that he hadn't been bragging, he'd been _telling_ them.

What stunned Aldric was that the clown prince of crime was _right._ In Aldric's situation, what would be easier? To beat the living hell out of Rayne, and kill her through attrition, through pitched combat? Or to use his semblance - which he'd already long since demonstrated was up to the task - to, perhaps, create a blood clot in a major artery, or even in her heart, and straight up kill her? Or even just physically grab her heart and stop them from beating, or pulling a trick he'd already demonstrated he was capable of, and going full Darth Vader and choking the life out of her, without even touching her? Was it better to run the existential risk of having Rayne run around and inevitably figure out his deepest, darkest secrets? Or to just remove her from the problem entirely?

Worse, was that Aldric realized he could get away with this. He'd already long since established he tried his damnedest to not use his radar to peek under peoples' clothing, so if it came down to Cinder wanting to know how he didn't notice Rayne's heart wasn't beating - he had an in-built defense: He hadn't looked. Then consider that there wasn't even any physical evidence to link him to it in the first place, especially if he got creative and made it look like a 'conventional' murder, so it wouldn't look like she just dropped dead at the ripe old age of... However old she was, but therein lay the problem.

As with every adrenaline rush, a crash inevitably came afterwards. Even if he ignored the fact that she could very well still be under eighteen, and the moral quandaries of actively deciding to kill a kid, she didn't have anything to do with this. Yes, just earlier today he had been operating under the assumption that her morals lined up more with Cinder's than his, but that didn't remove the fact that he didn't _know_ that, and that in the here and now, she was technically innocent. She hadn't done anything wrong, and he was actively considering assassinating her, in her bed, and implicating anyone but him, because it was a more convenient option than letting her live and potentially screw everything up six ways from Sunday. Considering he was still having trouble sleeping 'just' from gouging Amber's eyes out, and felt more than a little bad about selling out Blake to Adam, could he live with straight-up murdering someone he had never met, simply because it was more convenient than to let her live?

And it wasn't an issue of whether or not he could _do it,_ either. It was becoming frighteningly clear to him that his semblance - no matter the specificities of its nature, be it an actual semblance or what was left over from him being a god - was a more effective assassination tool than John Wick with a pencil. He could literally tear the hearts out of everyone in this bar if he _really_ wanted. Whether or not he could actually perform the act wasn't the issue, but rather if he could live with having done it, when it was blatantly obvious and painfully clear that, if he really wanted to, he could have avoided it. Yes, if he killed this woman, effectively all of his problems would be solved. No mind reader, no secrets in jeopardy, no potential for him to die and be replaced by an army of much more sociopathic terrans, no existential risk to life, the universe, and everything. So the 'could' in 'could he do it' was less literal than it was metaphorical. Asking less 'was he capable of it', and more, 'would it be worth it?'

As he struggled with this, however, something else came to mind. An argument he'd made on multiple occasions, - with varying degrees of success, ironically to do with the same man that had sent his thoughts down this dark path. It was an argument any two Batman fans would inevitably have with eachother: Wouldn't it just be easier if Batman killed the Joker? Wouldn't more lives be saved by taking the one, than would be lost by sparing it? And then there was the Punisher argument: Was it better to straight up _remove_ evil from the world, than to give it the chance to commit more because said evil _might_ turn a new leaf? In both scenarios, and for both characters, Aldric's very own argument had always been based on it being better to end one life to save a thousand.

To further muddy matters: Aldric's very presence in this world, his every action here, was predicated on the idea that him working with the Legion and assisting them in ending lives, would eventually lead to more lives being saved when (and if) he would assist in the Legion's downfall. He had _literally_ designed part of his plan around a character who had killed millions of people, to save billions more, and based on that fact, Aldric had told himself he would be fine in being integral to lives being lost, if it meant more lives would be saved. He had told himself he was willing to take on that evil for goodness' sake. But here at the moment of truth, he couldn't put his money where his mouth is? How could he expect himself to go forward with the Breach, or the Battle for Beacon, if he wasn't willing to stain his soul for the greater good? This should be cut and dry: Right here, and right now, he was faced with choosing between one life, and potentially, **literally,** every other one; and while it could be argued that, based on that logic, the only 'good' solution was to kill himself, not only would that not solve anything, but it would create just as large a risk, when the Legion inevitably found and deciphered his data, meaning that Rayne would be spared, yes, but they would have his knowledge anyways.

So there _wasn't_ a choice, here. Could he do it?

He _had_ to.


	23. Gaining the Will

Chapter 22

* * *

Human instinct was to struggle, and violently at that, once oxygen was rendered unable to leave the body. It was a reflex, and it was the primary reason people weren't able to choke themselves. It takes ten minutes for irreversible brain damage to occur due to a lack of oxygen. She struggled against an unseen, untouchable, and unstoppable assailant for five and a half, before losing consciousness, and that assailant had to force himself not to let up or let go for another six, as he and his companions made their way to her compound. Due to the nature of his powers, not only could he personally feel the sensation of squeezing her throat shut, but it felt as if he had done so with his own hands, and that meant he felt it when her throat began to pop from the pressure, saw it when blood vessels in her eyes began to burst, heard her gag and wheeze as hardly any air at all left her forcibly collapsed windpipe, and could see the fear in her eyes, as all she knew was that she was dying, that something was killing her, and she could do nothing about it.

By the time they made it to her compound, there was nothing anyone could do.

After making it there, and after the news began to spread that Dira's Boss was dead, Aldric began to realize that he was a goddamn idiot. Nearly everything he did, all the time, inevitably fell apart or went to shit because he planned for everything, and considered every outcome, except one small thing that made the plan less of a plan and more of a general outline. When he fought Cubone and Mothra, he'd failed to consider how fragile he was against these demon animals. When he fought Neo, he failed to consider that Torchwick would respond foul play with foul play. When he fought Yang, he'd forgotten to realize that her sister would show up, and would probably want to know why it sounded like things were exploding inside. When he fought Amber, he failed to consider how long it would take Qrow to show up and exactly how difficult it would be to fight a goddess when she had her back to a wall. Trying to outwit Qrow afterwards had fallen apart when he failed to think about how he and his boss-slash-partner had been at the game far longer than him, and it only felt like he was in control because they wanted to see how he'd handle it. Then there was Neo again, and failing to think his way out of her doing exactly what he'd said she would - a problem he still didn't know how to deal with.

He had a _horrible_ case of tunnel vision, he only focused on the variables he was aware of, and always routinely failed to consider unknown variables, the human element, or things that were so obvious he'd overlook them. This, when combined with general idiocy, was where all of the scars and missing bits he'd collected and lost came from over the last few months. Oftentimes his 'solutions' merely bred more problems, be they short term problems he could deal with quickly - like his miscalculations in battle - or longer term problems that required a more creative solution - like losing limbs and failing to consider how crafty the ice cream mute could be when the situation called for it.

There was no better proof of this than right now, when he failed to consider what would happen in the immediate aftermath of murdering the Boss of a village, in a country where forms of government ran on the rule of might making right. It took ten minutes for a human brain to suffer irreversible damage through a lack of oxygen, and it took eleven minutes to go from the hotel to Rayne's compound at a walking pace. Aldric gave himself two extra minutes to make sure the deed would be done, and to scuff up the floors and make it look like someone had snuck in late at night to do the deed. Aldric's thought process had been, when they got to the compound and found Rayne dead, Cinder would get pissed and leave; and while he hadn't been wrong, he had failed to consider that she wouldn't be the _only_ one whose anger would surge.

Just as he failed to realize that a power vacuum in a country where the strongest person functionally held office, was a _bad thing._

It utterly _astonished_ Aldric how quickly things went from 'calm-ish desert morning', to 'absolute fucking anarchy'. It felt like one moment, they were waiting outside of Rayne's compound, and he was doing everything in his power not to break down, vomit, and relive the experience of having killed her, over and over again, and the next moment bullets were flying, people were shouting, and pandemonium was spreading like wildfire. Like the entire village was a powder keg, literally waiting on Rayne to die so it could explode, and when it did explode, a chain reaction went off until everyone in Dira worth their salt was fighting everyone else to try and take over Rayne's throne.

Arguably worse was when Cinder turned her dumbfounded, befuddled gaze on him. It actually took him for a moment to realize that her look was less accusatory than it was looking to the guy who could see everything for a few miles, and asking him what was going on. Now, Aldric had seen Cinder angry before. He'd pissed her off more than a few times, he knew how it looked. He'd seen her pensive, and he'd seen her in battle. But he had _never_ seen her as utterly _mad_ as she got when he told her that Rayne's heart wasn't beating, and that the chaos was spreading because of the power vacuum left by her sudden death.

"How the _fuck_ did you _miss this earlier, Aldric?!"_ The demi-goddess demanded, as she tore her shemagh from her head and then ripped the tinfoil she'd had secured to her scalp.

Aldric took a step back, raising his hands, "whoa, hot stuff, I -"

"Don't you 'hot stuff' me, Aldric! I thought you saw everything! How did you miss that she was _DEAD!?"_ She shouted over the sounds of gunfire and battle, her eye beginning to glow with an otherworldly energy.

"Lady!" Aldric tore his own shemagh and his own tinfoil hat from his head, "I'm pretty sure you and I had a conversation about this before! You brought it up when you realized I might be staring at your _tits_ all the time!" Aldric shouted, angrily gesturing at her chest as he did so. "I don't just walk around using my radar to stare through peoples' clothing, remember that?!" On the plus side? Being able to shout right back at Cinder was proving an effective mask for the fact that he was so off-kilter after having murdered someone. "That extends to looking at peoples' innards, too!" He tapped on his nose, "I don't just _see_ things, Cinder! I feel them, I smell them, I'm figuring out how to hear them, too! If I didn't put forth the effort to _not_ look so intimately, I'd be seeing any combination of genitals young and old, male and female, intestines full of shit and empty too, bladders waiting to burst, lungs full of phlegm, or cancer, or whatever!"

"Uh... You two?" Mercury was looking around, "maybe not here?"

"That kind of disgusting isn't the one you get used to, lady!" Aldric ranted, advancing on Cinder, who stood her ground. "I _found_ the bitch! We were coming here under the assumption she was alive, it didn't fucking occur to me to check if she was breathing!" Aldric's radar was slowly constricting, until all he saw was him and Cinder, hardly even inches apart, eying eachother down. "For fuck's sake, lady! I get screwed just as hard as you when shit goes sideways like this! Maybe instead of pointing fingers you should roll with the goddamn punches!"

"Would you two just fuck al-" Mercury's head snapped up, "incoming!" He shouted, as he leapt backwards.

Aldric's radar shot outwards, and he saw two thugs leaping in. He spun around, shield forming around his arm, but before he could do anything, two arrows flew through the air, slamming into the thugs and, in the blink of an eye, incinerating them, and leaving their ashes to scatter to the wind when they hit the ground, leaving only the smell of roasted flesh, and Cinder, lowering her black bow with a look that could kill.

"So... That killed the mood... Uh..." Aldric murmured, as he straightened up. "We cool, now? Or -" And before Aldric could react, Cinder rounded on him, her arm swinging around in a wide arc, and her hand latching onto his face.

The energy she summoned from inside of her body shot outwards, coiling around her and surging up her core, to her arm, and right into Aldric. Aldric screamed from an equal mixture of pain and surprise, before she shoved him away. His entire body felt abuzz, his blood was boiling, but unlike how her eye radiated fire, his body was enveloped in silver flames. His radar pulse felt more vivid now than it had just a moment ago, and any lethargy Aldric had felt accumulated over the last few days seemed to have vanished entirely.

"These are your powers as they are mine!" Cinder shouted, a look of pure malice and frustration in her glowing eyes. _"Use them!"_

And Aldric _did._ His aura exploded outwards, acting as a signal fire for everyone for miles around: Anyone, from the mightiest of huntsman, to even the lowliest civilian, could sense the Master and the Maiden, as the latter sparked the former's powers, and they both let loose. Many locals who feared that the two were staking their claim, would charge them en masse. One of two fates awaited them: To either be blasted away by the blind warrior in the longcoat, or to be incinerated outright by the woman next to him.

Aldric found that he was capable of things now, that he had only been able to conceptualize even a day ago. His radar pulse was so great that he could hear across the village, his semblance so powerful that with a thought he could set the air ablaze and freeze it just the same. Anyone who grew too close to him found that they couldn't touch him, be it because he could deflect their abilities with painful ease, or because he blasted them away with a telekinetic pulse, so powerful that it shattered stone as if it were glass. It actually took more effort to reign himself in and not use too much strength, especially as those who used aura to fight began to run out of shields and were more susceptible to injury.

When they were finished battling their way from one end of Dira to the other, and had made it to the Aviator, Aldric finally collapsed, gasping for air. It was the strangest, most alien thing he had ever experienced: Being utterly exhausted, yet still feeling as though he could snap right out of his lethargy and fight another army if he had to.

Cinder seemed to catch onto this, as she approached him. "How do you feel?" She asked, as Mercury circled around him.

Aldric clenched a hand, feeling the power still coursing through it. "Great." He breathed.

"Good." Said Cinder, "I would have been disappointed, had this investment turned out a meager return."

In the time it took Aldric to blink, Cinder shoved her hand forward, and he felt his head enveloped in a viscuous, tarry substance. His body was suddenly cast aglow, and the pleasant feelings from earlier were viciously replaced by something far worse. It felt as if he were being bathed in acid and showered in salt. Something that belonged was inside of him, and Cinder was trying to tear it out."I _know_ what you did!" Cinder growled, as the sights and sounds of the desert around them seemed to melt away, leaving only he and her. He tried to grasp at the pistol on his hip, but Mercury was there, locking his arms behind his back and planting his boot on his spine. "You think you can hide from me forever. You thought a beginner could play a game we have spent years _mastering!"_ Malice oozed out of every word she spoke, as Aldric began to scream incoherently in pain. "I will take your power, Nebo Aldric, and I will make it my own! I will do more with it than you ever could have!" And as her eyes began to melt away, the orange being replaced by a deep onyx, Aldric knew there was nothing he could do.

Nothing but one thing. He scowled, and summoned up all of the energy rapidly draining left in his body, to let out one last, defiant, _"FU-_

* * *

 _"-UCK!"_

The entire dark room shook from the unintentional telekinetic blast Aldric pushed out. He was upright in a second, his fleshy hand pressing against his chest, gasping for air, and the iron hand clenched tightly, held halfway between a panicking and a defensive posture. He was in a cold sweat, and the clock inches away from him on the cheap nightstand that complimented the cheap hotel room, told him that what sleep he had gotten hadn't even lasted an hour.

 _Well there went sleep for the night._ Still gasping for air, his head going light from too much oxygen, Aldric buried his face in his hands.

"God... Damn it." Aldric felt around the cheap hotel room, and further beyond, more out of habit than anything else, as he tried to figure out how he'd kill time, now.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Who the fuck am I even talking to, right now?_

 _Seriously. It can't be for other terrans, because I'm the only one on Remnant that's even alive. It can't be for other English-speakers, because I've been writing this thing in some back-asswards code that any layman won't get at first glance. It's certainly not for the Legion of Doom, that's self explanatory. It can't be for the Justice League or the Watchmen either, because I'm ostensibly fighting the former, and the latter don't (and probably won't ever) fully trust me. It's not for the people of Remnant, because if I'm being completely honest - I've lost an arm and both my eyes and I haven't even gone to war yet. I don't expect to survive this. And even ignoring that, if I survived this and published it as some sort of memoir, I'd be ruining the reputations of so many genuinely good people that the message would be lost in the method._

 _So that's everyone. I've knocked out **everyone**._

 _So who the fuck am I talking to? Why the hell am I writing this? To what end and for what purpose does this even exist? Is it because I think I'm less cripplingly alone if my words exist somewhere else? Is it because if this journal exists, that's proof that **I** existed after I got torn from Earth? Is it because I think writing this will somehow keep me sane, in an insane world? Is it because I think that, if somewhere my unfettered thoughts exist, that maybe I'm not as evil as I'll need to be, for all of this crazy bullshit to work? Is it all of those things? None of them? _

_And here's another thing to think of: All of this **shit** going on right now, with Rayne and Neo, with Cinder claiming to trust me but probably having some small bit of doubt in there, could my rapidly losing control of this situation be proof of something else entirely? Did I even survive that plane crash? Was there even a crash in the first place? Am I sitting in a hospital somewhere, hooked up to so many needles that I'm a better pincushion than a human being? Is this world so similar to one I'd seen back home, because I'd crafted it in my coma-induced fugue? And if that's the case, when I feel like I'm losing control of things, is that me getting ready to wake up, in this bed? And when I do everything I can to get control back, is that me electing to stay down and under? _

_The only answer I can come up with is: To keep up appearances. I have to look like it's business as usual, or else Cinder will realize something's wrong, and when she starts asking questions, she'll get answers._

 _A year ago, if you would have told me that I'd have voluntarily murdered someone I'd never met, because it was more convenient than letting her live, I wouldn't have believed you._

 _For chrissakes, I'd never even spoken to the chick, and now she's **dead**. I choked the living daylights out of her, bruised her throat and scuffed up the floors to make it look like someone had snuck into her house at night and done it. And that's not even the end of it! Oh no! My incredible ass, as always, thought of all the ins and outs except **one** tiny little detail:_

 _The Punisher, despite ample opportunity, never killed the Kingpin. Why? Simple: The sheer chaos that would result from the power vacuum, and the struggle that would follow, following Fisk's death would cause far more problems than it would solve. More people would die, more crime would be committed, and as such more criminals would be created, than would if he just begrudgingly let Fisk do his thing. The goddamn **Punisher** didn't kill the Kingpin!_

 _But me? I didn't really think that bit through, and once Dira figured out that its boss was dead, all hell broke loose. Everyone suddenly had a claim to the throne, and everyone worth their salt was fighting for it. The body wasn't even cold! Within an hour of us showing up at Rayne's compound, the entire goddamn place had descended into anarchy and was on fire. So not only did I directly, straight-up murder someone, but by proxy I probably killed a few dozen other people, too._

 _Go big or go home, for fuck's sake._

 _And that's to say nothing of **Cinder.** Holy fuck, I wasn't prepared for what she did. _

_As it turns out, now, like **always,** she had an ulterior motive, though unlike previous occasions, she didn't want to test me so much as she wanted to train me. As it turns out, when she said she 'had a plan' for cracking into my Master powers (god that just sounds worse the more I say it), she meant she was going to have me pick a fight with the mind reader, and before I got into things, she'd kickstart them, like having to push a car a few feet in order to start the engine. Her idea was that I'd remember the experience, and the power would 'imprint' on me, allowing me to continue fiddling with it while I was at Beacon. ___I'd get my heart pumping, then she'd give me a kick in the ass, and I'd trial-by-fire my way to godhood.__

 _I'd comment on the ridiculousness of that, but that's my track record at this point. I learn more, and faster, when there's a gun to my head - and expanding on that, it's probably a good reason I'm dating Yuno Gasai. I doubt I'd get it up if I didn't have a knife to my throat._

 _But I digress: That plan kind of fell through when... You know... Rayne fell down with a sudden case of death. But if Cinder has learned anything from our time together, it's how to improvise and unfuck a plan. What happened next I can only describe as she shoved her powers into me, and used that like a match to light a pool of gasoline. They're both fire, but one started a bigger one. The result was basically Chuck Norris fighting an army of Yamchas._

 _But, I wasn't the only one who let loose. Mercury pretty much got to **walk** out of the village, we were tearing through people so fast. I've never seen Cinder that angry before. She personally incinerated five people on our way out of the village, and was responsible for a few of the fires that sprouted up on our way out. I think she specifically took the long way out of the village, just so when anyone ran afoul of her, she could blow them up. Even Mercury - a goddamn assassin - steered clear while she vented. It's the closest I've ever been to a Maiden letting lose, since the Maiden let loose on my goddamn eyes. And that did inevitably turn right back to me, once we got back to the ship. How didn't I know she was dead? How could I have missed the signs? All that shit. I thought I was going to spontaneously combust, the air around her was so hot. Thankfully I prepared for **that** , and dodged those bullets like Neo - as in, the One, not 'politan - but she's furious. _

_If you really wanted to dig, though, you could probably find a silver lining to all of this. See: Goud is leaving for Beacon imminently, so once we landed back in Vale (after some of the most intense training I've ever had, directly under Cinder, I feel I should add), I pretty much had to leave so I could get into character. I'm sitting in a cheap hotel just a few blocks away from the testing hall, right now. This is a silver lining both because I get to avoid Cinder's wrath, and because Mercury - ever proving to be better at thinking things through than I am - basically gave me a supply drop, and a place where I could get more if I needed it, for my days in Beacon._

 _What were these supplies?_

 _More cold, hard cash than I've ever had at any point in my life (albeit loaded onto a card), and a stack of those glass coins he was harping on about. So that problem went and fixed itself, didn't it? I just had to murder a chick and send her entire village into chaos._

 _Jesus Christ._

 _Oh, yeah, and then there's Neo. 'Politan, this time.  
_

 _Still not a goddamn word from her, and that test is **this afternoon.** So not only do I have to worry about an angry, somewhat irrational (okay, completely irrational. I mean, what reason would she have to not trust me? It's not like I've been actively betraying her since the moment we met!) Cinder making a leap of logic that ends with my ass in the fire (though I did make sure to remove the harddrives and SD cards from all of my electronics before I left. I may be stupid, but I'm not dumb.), but I've still got Neo to worry about and deal with, and at this point I doubt I even need to describe why **that's** a problem, again. If that lady doesn't show up before I have to get into character, that's another ticking time bomb._

 _And now I have a goddamn precedent for dealing with those, don't I?_

 _Fuck... This entrance exam has some kind of tournament/fight kind of a thing, going for it, and thank god for that. I could really use a punching bag._

* * *

If there was one thing in this world that Aldric - or should he start calling himself 'Ash' now? - found that he could love unconditionally, it was his Power Glove. Indestructible defenses, a limitless variety of melee weapons, limited variety of ranged offense, tool applications, and now? Now he could add simple machines to that list. _Very_ simple, but machines nonetheless. He'd long since figured out that the glove could only make singular, solid objects, but what was a machine but a lot of singular, solid objects working together?

So with some creativity, time to kill, and a general lack of any ability to sleep - due in no small part to the stain on his soul and the nightmares it was generating - he'd managed to use the glove to make all the pieces he'd need for a fully functional, collapsible, white cane. A minor victory, sure, but he felt it was important due to the implications it presented, as well as the fact that it meant that he could put just the slightest extra layer onto Goud Etiolate's mannerisms. On the Beacon paperwork, he'd already declared his shield as his primary weapon, neglecting to mention the Glove itself, such that he could always be armed when he was walking about Beacon, but with the cane functioning like it did now, it made it seem like Goud had had the blindness issue for longer than just a month, and had spent time into figuring out how to make it more convenient for him.

The fact that it was technically true made it all the better: The entire experiment had started in the first place because Aldric didn't want to be constantly carrying a cane that was almost as big as he was. Unfortunately, while his experiment may have given him something to keep his mind off of everything, it only lasted for so long, and it left him mentally tired as well as physically exhausted.

And then it left him on the edge of exhaustion-induced madness when, after digging in his coat, he found that he'd already done it before.

When the afternoon of the entrance exam came, and he'd hardly had an hour's sleep, Aldric, in his tiny, cheap hotel room, found that the effort required to slide on his armor and his coat, and to hang his shield from his back, felt inordinately higher than it should have been, as if they had all gone from virtually weightless, to weighing a thousand pounds each.

After he slid on the shades that masked the empty pits that were now his eyes, Aldric let out an exhausted groan and ran his hands through his hair.

 _So what's going to happen, is I'll either see her pretty much the moment I walk out that door... Or not at fucking all._ The thought of dealing with the ice-cream mute wasn't a pleasant one, but he was at least willing to think she posed just slightly less of an existential risk as Rayne did, though he had to shake those thoughts from his head, as they conjured up images of her thrashing about against an unseen force, as bruises formed a ring around her throat and her eyes began to bulge. _Maybe I'll hit up Qrow. See how well that hip flask works._ He shrugged, flipping the light off in the room as he snatched up his white cane and extended it.

 _Goud, Goud, Goud._ He thought, trying to force himself into a better frame of mind. _Ashy slashy, Ashy slashy._

Swinging the cane back and forth, tapping the ground with a repetitive 'click, click, click', Aldric led himself down to the hotel's ground floor, and out into Vale proper. The city had over the last week begun to transform, as the next Academy year's beginning loomed and the entrance exams promised to bring some sort of entertainment. From how Aldric understood it, the entrance exams were almost like a miniature Vytal festival, especially when there were immigrating students promising to bring unique new weapons and fighting styles. Unlike the festival, however, the exams didn't take place over several days and weeks, but rather just one, akin more to a football game than an Olympics-style, multi-day showcase. As he continued down the street, Aldric felt around with his radar, and noted a distinct lack of psychotic assassins. That would have been reassuring, if it weren't for the fact that this particular assassin could functionally shape shift, so his not seeing anything didn't count for squat.

 _I need to make a choice about that RWBY card, soon._ Thought the man with many names. _I barely managed to get out of that Rayne thing, and Neo is still one hell of a risk. But even if I manage to unfuck that, that's the closest I will have ever come to having everything get screwed up like nobody's business._ He frowned, as the people on the sidewalk parted around him when he grew close. _That's an insurance policy for my_ death _, or the plan being ruined. We'll at least have something of an information source, albeit one that grows more out of date the more we act on it. But I'd also need some way of explaining what it is, how it exists, and how I have it._ He hummed, his feet pushing at the concrete in front of him, and cars and people coming into and out of his literal sphere of awareness. _Qrow put up that 'alien' theory, maybe I can work with that? That maybe someone on -_ Aldric's thoughts slowed down as someone came into his radar, who piqued his interest.

 _Well I'll be damned... Would've thought Adam would be probing the city for you._ He thought, as everybody's favorite feline faunus looked back and forth between street signs and her scroll. _So either he's smarter than I thought and didn't try, or you're that good, and he can't find you._ From what Aldric could see, her screen had a map pulled up, she was trying to get to the testing hall.

Aldric had been perfectly fine with letting her go by, but fate, the universe, or both, was never satisfied with what he wanted. At their respective paces, his relaxed and hers agitated, she caught up to him, and slowed down when the gaudy shield hanging from his back, and the minor bulge on his hip from the gun's holster caught her eye. She seemed to debate with herself whether or not she should approach him, but as they came to a crosswalk and waited for the light to go red, she made up her mind.

"Excuse me..." She said, just barely loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the city.

Aldric, however, had a role to play, and the blind man had to put off as though he couldn't differentiate whether she was speaking to him, or someone else. He did, however, rest both of his hands on top of the white cane as he waited for the signal to cross, and Blake noticed it only then.

She frowned, as if silently admonishing herself, before saying, "excuse me, sir." And following it up with a light tap on his left arm.

 _Do or die._ Aldric raised his eyebrows innocently, and turned his head to his left, "oh, you were speaking to me, I'm so sorry." He said, in a softer tenor, as opposed to his normal baritone. "How can I help you?"

"I was hoping you were a Huntsman, or at least a student at Beacon." Blake began, "and that you could help me find the examination hall? My scroll's been acting up all day."

Aldric let a light smile play at his features, "well, suffice to say I am neither of those things, but I can help you nonetheless." He said, with a nod.

The feline faunus didn't even bother to hide her raised eyebrow, "are you taking the exam too?"

Aldric nodded, "I know, I know. It's kind of strange." And as he spoke, the light went red and the crosswalk opened up, he and Blake began their march again. "A guy like me..." He let the joke build, "monochrome cloths, gaudy shield. And you don't see many people who fight with shields, after all." His smile dropped to a one-sided grin.

Blake's poker face was solid, "I have ribbons on my guns." Was her counter, "a blind man with a colorful shield isn't the strangest I've seen."

"Well at least _you_ get to see it." Aldric snorted, "you almost made it." He said, giving a nod in the direction they were walking. "Just around this street corner." He raised his free hand, while the other continued swinging the stick from side to side. "Ash."

She eyed his gloved hand apprehensively for a moment, before she let out a muted sigh and shook it. "Blake."

"Nice to meet you Blake." He said, with a nod.

The two drifted off into silence as they continued walking down the busy street. Aldric noticed a few subtle glances his way from Blake, directed at his eyes and then his cane, a frown forming as she thought, though whatever questions she was forming, she kept to herself. Aldric was content to let the silence last, this was one of the few times in his new life where information from Earth was readily useful: She was fresh out of the Fang, and had yet to develop any ability to trust others, or be trusted by them. A certain fifteen year old would fix that, he knew, but he felt it best to not push any boundaries just yet, no matter how entertaining it would be to play the omniscient blind man and ask her about her ears.

They rounded the corner, and the arena in which Beacon's exams would be held came into Aldric's view. First the entrance, then the walls, and growing until he saw the top of the dome, and soon after, everything inside and out. The parking lot wasn't full, but it wasn't empty either - people were showing up well ahead of time to try and reserve seats for the physical exams and the public tourneys. Blake held the door open for Aldric, which he thanked her for, before the two found their way to the front desk.

Seated there was a plump, bored-looking woman in a dark uniform, who barely gave the two a second look before she drawled, "names?"

 _Nebo Aldric, Nathan Drake..._ "Goud Etiolate." Said 'Goud'.

"Blake Belladonna." Said the faunus, with a light nod.

"Room two." She handed Aldric a clipboard with a stack of papers, "room four." She gave Blake her own.

"Thank you much." Aldric accepted the clipboard, before glancing at Blake. "Until we meet again."

She gave him a nod, "good luck."

"To you as well." He said, as the two parted ways.

Aldric weaved his way through the wide halls of the arena, before he found himself in a small room with a dozen other people around his age, and after spending a moment searching, he plopped himself down in a seat close to the door, leaning his shield against the legs of his desk, and collapsing his cane, to store it in his coat.

The clipboard he'd been given was a whole lot of standard information. Aldric briefly entertained the idea that these may have been added in by the League as a means of potentially tripping up the spy he'd tipped them off to, seeing as how he knew that most of this information had already been given to them to ensure he could be enrolled at the first place. After a moment's contemplation, however, he came to a better conclusion: That paperwork, administration, and politics existed even on Earth's potential-cousin, and was just as asinine here as it was there. But despite that, Aldric did probe through the arena as he filled out the paperwork. He couldn't find any sign of Ozpin or Qrow, or any of the other members of the League that he was aware of. So either he was fine, or this was just part one to the master plan, and it would be a week or two before he'd be strung up.

 _At least I have an out..._ Thought the fighter, as his radar probes picked up more than a few _other_ familiar faces.

While certainly not corralled in the same room, Aldric saw most of the main cast, many of whom were doing just as he: Filling out paperwork and waiting for the written tests to start. As a matter of fact, he recognized one face in particular - sitting not even two desks away from him, and whether it was good or bad, the blonde firecracker was staring straight at him, jaw slack and purple eyes widening in growing realization. She gathered up her meager belongings and practically lunged for the desk behind him, but befitting of the role he had to play, Aldric pretended not to notice her.

Yang Xiao Long, however, wasn't nearly as subtle, and with a hard jab in between his shoulder blades and a toothy grin, she said, "I recognize that shield, Bar Boy!" Her grin grew wider as Aldric straightened up and turned to face her. "So how'd you get away from Miss Tall Thin and Pretty?" She asked, no small amount of glee evident in her voice.

Aldric matched her grin with one of his own, "well... I wanted to keep my job... But you know -" He raised up and began sliding his sunglasses off. "Miss Ember and I didn't really see eye to eye." And he revealed to her his eyes - or stark lack thereof.

The brawler was instantly torn between laughing at his play on words, and shock at the injury he'd accrued, leading to an expression that was halfway between an amused grin and a shocked, wide-eyed slackjaw. "I..." She stuttered, "I see what you mean!" She said, letting out an airy snort.

Aldric's grin didn't falter, "well that makes one of us." He lifted his hand, "what was your name again?"

"Yang." Said the blonde, recovering quickly and shaking his hand, as he slid his glasses back on. "What happened?"

"You could say I didn't see that particular Grimm coming." Aldric pressed, "jokes aside, she's still alive, but decided it may not be a bad idea for me to get some kind of formal training, and time to... You know." He waved his hand at his face, "adapt." He leaned back against the side of his desk, "how about you? Yang Xiao Long - you know I looked you up? Full scholarship, nice." He nodded, "but uh..." He leaned forward, giving her an exaggerated expression, "what're you doing here?"

Yang scoffed, "just because I don't have to pay for the school doesn't mean I can just waltz right in, Beebee." She said, turning back to her paperwork, far more through it than Aldric. "I gotta prove I'm worth the investment."

"Hm..." Aldric grunted, turning back to his own paperwork. "I sincerely hope you and I don't get paired up in the tourney." He nodded his head to the side, "I like to think I've gotten back most of my mojo, but I'm not sure if I can put on _that_ good of a show." He paused, "my name's Ash, by the way."

Yang snorted, "keep trying, Beebee, see how quickly I stop calling you that."

 _Add it to the list._ Aldric let out an exaggerated groan, "that's going to haunt me, I know it." But he grinned nonetheless, and continued to make idle chit-chat with her for the next hour, as the room began to fill with more prospective students, and the stadium's previously small trickle turned into a minor stream of spectators, ready for the tests to start so the fights would begin.

Once the clock struck ten, a tall, thin man in a Beacon uniform strode confidently into the room, silencing the conversations that had been going on, and likely for good reason: He was missing more bits than Aldric. Both of his arms were made of metal, his left leg, while covered by clothes, made heavier 'thuds' than his right, and his lower jaw was completely steel. Aldric wondered if his name wasn't professor Raiden.

'Raiden' cleared his throat, "I'm pretty certain based upon my appearance you can tell where it is I intend to take this little opening speech."

 _You'll be correct if you'll tell us how you avoid shattering your teeth every time you close your jaw._ Thought Aldric.

"To be blunt: Though you may be children now, you are children who have voluntarily elected to join a war, the likes and importance of which have no comparison in all of human history. Any squabbling between our countries comes secondary to the endless fight for survival against the creatures of grimm." He said, the metallic flange in his voice suggesting that there might be some metal in his throat, too. "Each of you here today made it through your preliminary academy's respective exams, but Beacon is a different beast altogether. We do not merely train warriors, we train leaders. A huntsman is more than the grimm he or she may kill, a huntsman must adapt to any situation he or she may come across. To wit: The body is replaceable, but the mind is not, and that is what we will be testing more than anything else today.

"The written exam I will be passing out is merely a benchmark. Those of you who fail it will not even be considered for the physical portion, and you will be forced to wait another year before you are given another chance to test again." He said, as he retrieved an enormous stack of papers from the desk he stood behind. "Those of you who manage to manage to guess your way through this will then be required to fight amongst the most dangerous foes this planet has ever created: Other human beings. Foes who, like you, are capable of complex thought and creative solutions. The _only_ species on this planet that has been able to routinely fight and defeat the Grimm. Should you win your battles, then - and only then - will you be deemed acceptable to attend this next year at Beacon.

"Have you any questions?" He asked, holding his hands behind his back.

One girl with plum-colored hair raised her hand, "sir, it almost sounds like you think other people are more dangerous than the Grimm."

Aldric was thinking along a similar line, but less 'other people are just as dangerous', and more, 'we think everyone from Mistral is a spy', and as such Beacon let their more cynical teacher come haze any of the groups of students with a Mistrali among them.

'Raiden' seemed to lend credence to this theory when he said, "make no mistake about it. The grimm _are_ dangerous, and in fact their numbers and ferocity make them the greatest foe mankind will ever face. There is an incredible chance that, should any of you succeed and become huntsman, you will die facing a creature of Grimm. But they are just that: Creatures. Animals." He pressed, "they are savage, but predictable. Strong, but unintelligent. Their greatest strength is their numbers, but they are not the most dangerous thing on our world. Humans and faunus are the only things alive who possess intelligence and the ability for complex thought. We alone have turned the raw resources of our planet into marvels of engineering and science. We alone are capable of weaponizing Dust and Aura. We alone are the only species on our planet that has been able to take the fight to the grimm and even clear many areas of our planet of their influence entirely.

"Whereas a Grimm is predictable, a person being is anything but. We can lie and deceive, we can think and strategize, and most importantly: We can create. A true test of the mind is to face an opponent nearly equal to you in skill, that you have never faced before. Even the lowliest fighter can defeat a man twice his age, strength, and experience, with superior application of their mind." He paused, "so yes, I think other people just as dangerous as the Grimm. I prefer to hope for the best in all things, but be prepared for the worst."

 _Translation: Eye have you._ Thought Aldric.

"And that is what we will be testing. First your ability to apply pen to paper and apply knowledge in a theoretical, controlled environment where the only variables are the ones provided to you. But then we will test your ability to improvise, by throwing you to the only opponents in the world who have routinely outthought people: _Other_ people." He said, "so if there's nothing else, we shall begin."

There were moments in Aldric's life where things actually went to plan, and while few and far between, Aldric loved every single one of them - even if they flayed his nerves to no end as he waited for things to go terribly wrong. Case in point: He'd long since figured out that he could skimp out on preparing for this test by using his radar to cheat his ass off. Check other tests, check the other answers, see which ones were picked on average, and jot those down as his own answers. There were some questions he recognized from his own readings on Remnant during his free time, and some more technical questions that Earth had helped him out with, but for the most part, his plan had been to shamelessly cheat - and it _worked._ At least, he hoped it did. He felt the plan was valid because he could literally see everyone in the arena, and all of the other test takers' answers. That was a _huge_ reference pool to work with, and even if he didn't get all the questions right, Aldric was at least willing to bank on him passing the bare minimum. Though, he channel his inner Light Yagami and made sure to get at least some questions wrong intentionally, going so far as to ensure that he got the same kinds of questions consistently wrong, such that it looked less like he was actively trying to lower the grade, than it looked like he was simply weak in one academic area. The real trick was making sure those wrong questions matched up with Goud's grade reports.

The test itself lasted ninety minutes, and Aldric waited until the last few to jot down the answers to the final questions and check over his test, after which he laid his head on his arms and started probing through the arena again. The coordinators were finishing setting up the stages all of the students would be fighting on, and the arena's seats were starting to fill up with the Vale citizens ready to get their entertainment for the day. Aldric actually saw Ozpin pop by to check on things, before heading out to do whatever it was a headmaster did.

When the test was finished, Aldric observed as the answer sheets were collected up and sent off to a room in the arena's basement. He watched with rapt attention as he saw the tests promptly fed to a machine, which managed to sort through and grade them with remarkable speed. It made him wonder for a few minutes how advanced Remnant computers were, compared to Terran ones, but eventually he gave up when he came to the conclusion that Huntsman academies would likely have access to top-of-the-line models, and perhaps even supercomputers, which made the point moot. He was drawn into more idle conversation by Yang once the steel-jawed professor left, with the blonde firecracker taking the chance to try and humanize the guy she'd beaten the hell out of one night, and the blind fighter using it as an opportunity to fully cement Goud's story.

A half hour after the test finished, the professor came back with a stack of answer sheets. Of the people in the classroom, Aldric was astonished to find out that less than half of them had made the grade. His own grade looked just a few points shy of the upper tier, and was itself barely worse than Yang's, netting another quirked eyebrow. Professor 'Raiden' promptly threw out anyone whose tests didn't meet the standard, wishing them luck for next year, before turning to those lucky few who remained.

"You who remain have proven that, on paper, you are worthy of further training. But there is a vast and insurmountable difference between that which is on paper, and that which is seen on the battlefield." He explained, "we will soon put your minds to the ultimate test." He stood up straight, "while it may be true that this tournament is also for the benefit of our people, such that they can see the power of those who protect them, before they receive proper training, you would do well to remember that this tournament is for you as well. Defeat is tantamount to failure. There are seventy five vacancies in this year's roster, and a three hundred remaining applicants." He explained, to the growing tension of the room. "Make no mistake: You are as much fighting for your futures as you are fighting for your lives." He explained, as Aldric sensed others eying their neighbors with suspicion, as though they were less friends now than they were enemies - or, if it was someone like Yang, they were eying everyone else with a fire in their eyes, greatly anticipating, if not a good fight, then a marathon session of adequate fights.

Aldric was willing to bet that was part of an underlying test as well: Fighting pretty much nonstop for an entire day, likely as a means to see where everyone's endurance lay.

"The intricacies of the lives of huntsman and huntresses will be something you shall be taught as time goes on. But suffice to say, if this is your first time here: It looks far better if you pass, than if you fail, and pass next year. It will not be forgotten. Huntsman and huntresses are as much public figures as they are guardian warriors. You are looking at potential employers and sources of income, tt will not be forgotten if you failed this test even once, just as it will not be forgotten if you barely pass in last place. Damage to your image and reputation is not something easily remedied. "

Aldric hummed lightly; this was something they never touched on in the show, but as much as the prospect fascinated him, 'Raiden' seemed to be getting off his soap box.

"Keep an eye on your scrolls and do not miss it when your names are called." He nodded, "there is a section in the stadium reserved for the prospective students. Find a seat and wait for your turn to battle." And as everyone gathered up their weapons and their things, and began shuffling out of the room, he left them with: "And good luck."


	24. Improvise Adapt Overcome

Chapter 23

* * *

The way the Beacon Entrance tournament worked, it was half free-for-all, half a marathon run of fights, one right after the other, until it got to the 'graduation group' - the seventy five that had been deemed to have 'passed' and would attend Beacon no matter what happened for the rest of the day. That was when it went from anywhere from five to even ten fights happening in tandem, to much more singular one-on-one bouts; and from there the fights continued until the two who had made it to first and second place finished things off. It lended itself both to the entertainment and reassurance of the populace, but also to the reputation of the rising Huntsman and Huntresses - winning in first place looked a lot better than just barely scraping by for last place. The reputation one would garner would help determine the quality and frequency of the jobs one would get after graduating. Aldric understood it as the difference between a highschool diploma and an Ivy League diploma - one could get a job with both, but one clearly was better than the other. So while the citizens of Vale could derive entertainment from the tournament and could see how strong their rising Huntsman were before any of the 'real', 'formal' training, they could also use it as an opportunity to build a list of who's who.

Considering the sheer amount of things he'd survived during his half-year on Remnant, Aldric had no doubts that he'd make it through this little tournament Beacon was holding. In all seriousness, he was using it first and foremost as a means to _not_ think about Amber and Rayne for a few good hours. There was, however, a wrinkle in the plan - not a full on problem, but a wrinkle that deserved some thought.

The way his powers worked, he could either have a major, practically insurmountable amount of offensive power - enough such that he could get into a pseudo-beam struggle with a Maiden and win - or he could shunt all of that offensive power into his aura shields, trading the ability to damage his opponent for the ability to take no damage _from_ his opponent. For his purposes before today, he'd _long_ since figured out how to use this effectively: He put _everything_ into offense, leaving zero room for his aura shields, under the idea that he could use his semblance to deflect and dodge his opponents, and could use armor and the Power Glove to blunt whatever made it through. This was how he'd managed to fight Maidens, but was also where he'd gotten a lot of his new scars from. The wrinkle in the plan came in that the rules of the tournament considered aura depletion - and not even that, but rather one's aura reaching a certain threshold - as grounds for defeat.

So suddenly, Aldric had to drain a lot of his power to make sure he wouldn't get thrown out, either because the computers would think he had no aura shields period, or because he did, but one lucky shot would break them like glass. The bad news was that he would neither have his maiden-busting strength, nor could he try and get creative and try to crack open his Master abilities; the good news was that this wasn't, on the whole, a bad thing. After all: He'd long since figured out how to creatively boost his strength past certain limits, his 'mantis punch' came to mind, then there was also the fact that his shield was impregnable, and his new arm hit like a rocket-powered dump truck, and now that he was fully reliant upon his Radar to detect attacks coming, that meant it was easier to deflect and counter them.

And ringing out your opponent was a perfectly viable tactic for victory, in this instance.

But as good as such a development may seem to solve his problems at first glance, the wrinkle spread a bit further than that.

How much further?

Well: Draining his power also meant the range and the clarity on his radar pulse also tanked. Whereas this very morning he would have called himself some unholy fusion of Matt Murdock and Neji Hyuga, now all of a sudden - in order to fuel his aura shields - he was closer to what he'd wanted to portray Goud Etiolate as, than he'd initially intended. He hadn't gone fully blind, not by a long shot, but whereas earlier he could have seen clear past the arena's outer walls, and comprehend each and every little detail in that range, now his range barely reached the edge of the rings he fought in, if he stood in their center. The visual quality hadn't had nearly as much of a downgrade, but if a fully-fueled Radar Pulse was like a high-budget action movie with photorealistic CGI, then this neutered one he was working with looked like something from the turn of the millennium: Definitely passable, but dated _hard._

So, while it only served to remind him that he couldn't skate by on the radar forever, and that he _definitely_ needed to stop by the Garden again and check in on when his robo-eyes would come in, those were problems for later. Right now, all of the small handicaps he had to adopt in order to fight here, added together to mean he was much closer to fighting like a blind man than he'd initially intended. Putting more focus into fixing the visual problem meant his semblance suffered just enough that he couldn't deflect attacks as easily as he could in any other situation, which translated into taking hits, which would only spell doom for any prospects of surviving until the graduation group with enough stamina to not fall out of the fight in last place. Cover be damned, an admittedly large part of him wanted to know how he stacked up to the main cast with this handicap.

The good news, though, was that if there was one thing he'd learned in this world, it was how to take a punch, and with his aura shields playing a factor where they usually didn't, that meant it was only easier to take the hits, tire out his opponents, and rope-a-dope them right out of the ring. Now more than ever he was glad most of his combat strategies revolved around bolstering his defense, be it because he had a shield that really was after Captain America's heart, or because he could use his semblance to dodge, block, and deflect attacks like he were in the Matrix. His strategies were practically built around taking hits and using the opportunities they would reveal to counter his opponents and deal equal or greater damage, because that meant he could spend all the time he needed to adapt to this wrinkle in the plan, and take the hits he otherwise wouldn't.

It was the single closest call of the morning that helped him cement exactly how he would fight when computers were running. Aldric, already winded from a few fights that took longer than he would have liked and sporting a few bruises that hadn't been there when he'd woken up, was called to the next stage with a text to his scroll. He made it there at about the same time his opponent did, though where Aldric's entrance was a ginger landing that couldn't have been heard over the noise of the battles around him, his opponent's landing in the arena sounded as though a stone from a trebuchet had slammed into the arena, and he'd left a crater to match the analogy. Aldric's opponent was a _mountain_ of a man, so big and burly that he had trouble believing the guy was under eighteen. He looked closer to the Incredible Hulk than he did to an ordinary teenager. Locked onto both of his hands was an equally enormous pair of cestus, giving the guy a look as if he could break apart concrete with his fists, could punch his way out of a bank vault, or into a nuclear bunker. Aldric stowed his white cane in his coat and adjusted his grip on his shield. There was no referee for the fight - only their aura monitors, and a single message sent to their scrolls that sounded the proverbial starting gun.

The mountainous teen launched himself forward, Aldric used his semblance to snap his shield around and block his titanic right jab. The impact managed to overpower the sounds of everyone else's battles with a loud bell toll, and even attracted quite a few eyes from the audience as they searched to locate the source of the toll. Aldric dodged the man's next few strikes and continued perpetuating the image he was building, that no one could hit him - they could only miss, or otherwise hit his shield. The Mountain grew angry after a few missed strikes, and after the two separated, his next punch was aimed at the ground - a shockwave blasted outwards as their ring quaked. A few stalagmites sprouted out from the ground, putting Aldric on the back foot, but the Mountain's plan had likely been to attack once Aldric's attention was focused more on moving away from the damaged part of the ring. Unfortunately for him, it was at this point functionally impossible for Aldric to take his eyes off of someone - for more reasons than the obvious.

So when the Mountain leapt forward again and crashed through the stalagmites in a minor explosion of rocks and dust, one fist reared for a mighty blow, Aldric remained unperturbed, already prepared for it. His shield snapped up to defend against it, and the mountain of flesh's fist slammed into the red white and blue discus with another bell toll of metal striking metal. Aldric skidded back a foot, and it was here Aldric made his counter - wrenching his shield to the side, stunning the Mountain, and smashing his fist into the his opponent's gut with a loud 'thud'.

Instead of going flying like he'd hoped, the Mountain skidded back a scant few inches, as if he weren't hit by a jackhammer and were instead smacked by a baseball bat. Aldric flexed the fingers of his gloved hand, as he and his opponent recovered from their brief spat. It felt like he'd punched a block of solid iron, and the telekinetic pulse he'd put behind the punch hadn't done nearly enough to the guy. With the computers running and monitoring his aura levels, Aldric couldn't pour more power into it, and since he couldn't run the risk of experimenting and burning stamina at the beginning of a day-long marathon of fights, he needed a less resource-intensive solution.

But before he could make a decision, the Mountain charged again. Aldric met his charge with one of his own, lunging inside the mountainous teen's range, using his semblance to deflect one attack and his shield to take the other. With the Mountain stumbling back, Aldric pounded his gut with two more strikes before he hopped upwards and roundhoused him in the face. It had a desired effect, clearly doing some sort of damage, but not nearly enough to fully stun him - as the Mountain grasped Aldric's leg, and that was all the warning he got before he was smashed into the ground like a useless sack of potatoes. Aldric hit the ground so hard that the impact jarred his shield from his hands, and he heard some grunts and groans of pain echoing out from the audience above. After the third impact, Aldric was able to gather his senses just long enough to throw one of his hands out - and with the sound of metal scraping against concrete, he dug his mechanical fingers into the ground and grounded to a halt. The Mountain was so unprepared for this tactic that Aldric's foot slipped out of his grip.

Aldric yanked himself forward and out of the reach of the Mountain, rolling across the ground and back to his shield. When he got back to his feet, he spun around with a flourish, the back of his coat billowing like a cape as he came to face the Mountain, the enormous fighter frowning in equal parts frustration and concentration. Aldric stomped on the edge of his shield and caught it as it bounced upwards, but instead of affixing it to his left arm, he put it on his right. His left hand felt as if he'd just spent hours putting it up against a belt sander, but using it like he just had, gave him an idea. His right hand was flesh and bone, there was only so much power he could use to increase its impacts before he needed to use _more_ to ensure he didn't tear it out of its socket; this meant that while he could certainly punch like a jackhammer with it, there was only so much it could do - especially under the computer's limiting eye.

But his other arm? It was firm and unyielding, made of stronger stuff than flesh and bone. It could take, and dish out, a lot more punishment than his fleshy one, and that was before he added any of his tricks to the mix. So what was stopping him from using that to his advantage? It wasn't like this was completely new tactic - it literally had a name. Whenever he was under the computer, he could just fight southpaw, and avoid - at least for today - needing to come up with any creative workarounds.

So, with his shield now secured to his right arm, Aldric flexed the fingers of his left, before clenching them both into fists and charging forward. The Mountain met his charge with a war cry and charged himself, but he clearly expected Aldric to do as he had thus far: Take the attacks and open up an opportunity to strike back. Instead, Aldric ducked under his opponent's meaty fist and swerved around his back; the Mountain was quick enough to spin around and avoid a strike to his back, but Aldric's response was a brutal cross to the huge kid's cheek. With a bone-crunching thud, the Mountain stumbled back a few steps, dazed from the impact. Aldric lunged forward, delivering a one-two chop to the throat with his shield and another punch with his cybernetic hand. The Mountain snapped out of it now, but his wide swings were easily deflected, dodged, and blocked by the faster of the two.

Aldric _thought_ he might have something going for him, until - as if he'd switched gears - the Mountain sped up. Aldric barely was able to bring his shield up to block the strike, but it still sent him skidding to the edge of the stage, with only his semblance keeping him from falling off entirely. But before Aldric could recover, he had to plant both feet firmly on the ground, and use his semblance like a wall - because the Mountain leapt into action without a moment's hesitation, leaving a small crater at his feet, and hitting Aldric hard enough to create another deafening gong, this one strong enough to send out a shockwave that left Aldric's hair and coat billowing in the resultant winds.

Unfortunately for the Mountain, this was the final hint he needed to finish this puzzle. The Mountain left a crater when he first landed, was able to hit like a rocket-powered dump truck, could leave craters whenever he moved fast or suddenly, and could move faster than his size should allow. Aldric was willing to bet a lot that his semblance had something to do with mass manipulation, and while that may not seem like it could help him initially, it was when he'd given the guy a good sucker punch just a minute ago that let him know how his semblance worked: He had to be braced for it, prepared for it. It wasn't always high mass or always low mass, and the decision to alter that mass was a decidedly conscious action, so if Aldric could catch him unawares, as he had moments ago, this iron-like durability that the Mountain boasted wouldn't even be an issue.

Problem: His only idea involved giving up the shield, and that left him open for an assured beating.

But he'd _long_ since learned how to take one of those.

So after recovering from this most recent attack, Aldric slammed his fist into the Mountain's iron gut again, this attack getting him to take a step back, giving Aldric the space he needed to lunge forward, tackling the Mountain and pinning his shield against his chest. He pounded his opponent's ribs over and over again as he forced the two of them away from the edge of the arena, taking a few hits of his own as a result, and feeling a nasty welt welling up on his back. Once he wasn't in danger of falling off of the arena again, Aldric hopped back, breathing heavily and frowning. The Mountain briefly pressed at his ribs, eying Aldric with anger in his eyes, which briefly flashed to fear before settling on confusion when Aldric reared his right hand and chucked his shield as hard as he could. It crossed the distance between them in a flash, but the Mountain dodged to the side even faster than that, watching as the shield flew on by with a befuddled look, before he turned to look at Aldric, instantly dropping to a defensive boxing stance when he saw him charging forward.

Aldric leapt into the air and threw the Mountain a wide superman punch. It was caught by his raised arms, and though Aldric managed to keep up the momentum and force him back a few feet, the Mountain put him on his back on the ground with one punch to the chest. Aldric coughed, and rolled out of the way of another one, the Mountain's huge fist burying into the arena, as if he were punching through cardboard. Aldric sprang to his feet, only to receive a savage cross to the cheek, which threw his glasses from his shade. He jerked both of his hands up to intercept the Mountain's next jab, though he was still sent skidding back several feet.

Though it hadn't been a part of his plan, the stunned, shocked expression on the Mountain's face and his freezing up played well into it, as Aldric's shield hit the wall of the arena and, with a push from his semblance, came flying back _much_ faster. The Mountain stayed standing there, stunned at Aldric's blank black pits, just a moment too long - and the shield came flying in, ramming into his back like a speeding car. Completely unprepared, the Mountain was _finally_ sent flying as easily as he had so often propelled Aldric. With a single step to the side, Aldric got out of the speeding mass of flesh and muscle's way, catching the shield as it passed him by.

Aldric watched the Mountain claw at the ring to try and slow himself down, but a timely pulse of his semblance made the mountainous teen fail to get his grip in time. He careened over the edge of the ring, and aside from his scroll vibrating, that was the only signal to the end of their fight. Aldric considered not doing anything further, but when he saw the mountain's face crack into a grin, he knew he owed the guy something - his _metal_ hand was still sore from that first sucker punch.

"Hahaha!" The mountain laughed, as Aldric approached the edge of the ring, sliding the sunglasses back on his face. "Nice hit, man! How'd you figure out my semblance?"

Aldric knelt down and shook the man's meaty hand - itself twice the size of Aldric's. "Saw the crater you left when you leapt into the ring, and you didn't leave one on a second jump. The little earthquake thing and my first sucker punch was what really sold it, though." He said, as the mountain shook his head and walked away. "Is it mass or density?"

"Little bit of column A, little bit of column B." The man called over the sounds of the battles raging in the rings around them. "You better make it, blind man! I don't wanna see you here again next year unless it's to watch fights!"

Aldric was soon called to another fight, which wasn't nearly as interesting as this one, especially now that he had a much better way of dragging out as much stopping power and strength out of his strikes as he could. He lost a few spectators as his fights slowly progressed into him getting used to fighting southpaw, playing with his food and then ending it with a TK punch after his heart got pumping, but what caught his attention was that a teacher or two were watching him. He wasn't _not_ okay with this development, but considering he'd outed himself to Ozpin, having teachers that worked for him, watching one of the kids from Mistral, didn't bode well. There wasn't much he could do about it though, so he kept fighting.

The marathon lasted for another forty five minutes, until finally the bell sounded, and all fighting ceased. The crowd erupted into cheers and applause once it was announced when all those who remained standing were officially Beacon's next attending class, and that the tournament would begin once the rings would be rearranged into one single, enormous stage. Aldric took the time to find the 'students section' and promptly dropped his shield and his cane and collapsed into a seat, water bottle in hand, pressed against his head.

The rest lasted all of ten seconds before Yang came along, smacked him across his scalp, and with an ear-to-ear grin said, "ha! Knew I'd be seeing you again!"

"Strange, Yang. I didn't think you'd have worked up such a sweat." Said Aldric before he took a swig from a water bottle, who could see the thin film that clung to her head and matted some of her golden hair.

She scoffed and blew some of said hair out of her face, "a fight's not good unless you get wet afterwords!"

Aldric choked on his water. "Fuck -" He coughed, "fuck you!" He pointed at her, a faux-angry expression on his face, before his finger and his frown dropped and he grinned, "that was good."

Yang rolled her eyes, "besides, I see you there, hugging a cold bottle like that. You worked up a sweat too, don't deny it."

"I don't see what you're talking about." Aldric said, pursing his lips, though cracking a grin when Yang chuckled.

As the fighting rings in the arena down below were all broken apart and reorganized, and as he and Yang made more idle talk, mostly regaling eachother about the fights thus far, Aldric probed through the no-longer-prospective students to see where any familiar faces were. Upon noticing a distinct lack of the _other_ blonde, Aldric decided he'd play with a theory.

"So..." He cleared his throat, "is this the only place they're holding tests?" He asked, "because if you're going to tell me it's not... I've gotta tell you, I'll be pretty pissed."

That did the trick, as Yang seemed to never pass up an opportunity to try and get a rise out of him. "Well, hate to tell you, but nope. This is the _biggest_ place, yeah, but there are a few other places out there. They're just a bit smaller and low-key." She leaned in close, an ear-to-ear grin stretched across her face. "How far did you have to travel, and how fast, to make it here?"

"Too far, too fast, too soon." Aldric responded, as he finally felt he had some small amount of proof that Ozpin _definitely_ knew Jaune Arc's transcripts were faked, but still let him in. Probably because he thought something like that took balls and he deserved something for it, and that at the very least, it would be hilarious.

Something curious, though, was that among the eyes he'd attracted over the course of the marathon, right now he seemed to have the eye of of a certain redhead, who was eying him with a curious furrow to her brow. Aldric wondered what he'd done there, or if this was one of those 'good senses evil' moments.

"So." Yang said, as she slid down the row of seats and dropped into the chair right next to Aldric's, "how long do you think this'll go for?"

Aldric arced an eyebrow, as he started slugging down the water bottle. "What, you don't know?"

"Well I've got an _idea,_ but come on. I want to hear your 'professional' opinion." She elbowed him in the ribs.

"Hm." Aldric nodded, "yeah. 'Professional.'." He scoffed, "seventy five folks... About that many fights... Half that again and again until the finals, where the _real_ fighting will start, and you start seeing more and more semblance use and flashy fighting." He shrugged, "we'll probably be here until dinner."

Yang gave him an exxagerated expression, "you know there are easier ways of asking a girl out." She said, leaning back in her chair and resting her legs on the wall in front of them, an overly smug grin settling on her face.

Aldric threw it right back at her, "bitch, if I were asking you on a date I wouldn't beat around the bush."

She rolled her eyes, "lemme guess, you're one of those 'don't know what I have until it's gone' kind of guys?" Aldric stared at her, expression blank, and kept staring at her until the grin faded away. "Oh." But the effect was ruined when he snorted, which earned an angry exclamation from her and another swat on the head.

"Hurtin' a blind man. I'm ashamed of you, Xiao Long."

"Shut up, Beebee." She waved him off as the first fighters were called to stage, to the crowd's uproarious applause.

Without the computers constantly watching over him, Aldric was able to safely fuel his radar and extend his 'sight' so he could watch the fights, though that didn't stop Yang from trying to narrate them. It was a while yet, and nearly half the roster - with most of the faces he recognized having gone at east once - until one of them was called, and much to Yang's dismay, she had to wait even longer, as he was the one who got called up. Much to his surprise, however, he recognized the name going against him.

 _"Goud Etiolate."_ Said one of the professors over the loudspeaker, _"and Cardin Winchester!"_

"Ooh..." Yang leaned back, looking over to Aldric's left, where he could sense the tall huntsman-in-training getting to his feet, a confident smile and a light chuckle playing his features as he pointed out Aldric's size - in both stature and physical build - in comparison to his, saying the fight would be over before anyone knew it. "Big guy." She commented.

To which Aldric said, "I have literally fought bigger, _today."_

He briefly debated adopting a 'so overt it's covert' approach and pulling another superhero landing, but decided against it. He and Cardin made it to the massive fighting ring at about the same time. But where Cardin threw his hands out, riling the crowd up and attracting as many cheers as they were willing to throw his way, Aldric merely stepped up to bat, a neutral smile on his face, his hands in his coat pockets, and his shield hanging from his back. He continued showboating his way to their positions on either side of the arena, and by the time they made it to their spots, he had most of the crowds cheering his name.

 _I'm tempted to think I'll wipe the floor with him..._ Aldric thought, waiting for either his opponent to be done, or for the match to start. _And maybe I could on a better day,_ _but he_ did _make it this far. That counts for something._ He thought, as the screens above them showed their respective aura meters - Aldric's was actually a bit lower than Cardin's, which only reminded him not to take this fight lightly. _He's also got a damn mace. That's an anti-shield weapon._ Though Aldric wondered exactly how it would hold up to the physics-defying fuckery that was his Power Glove.

As the countdown began and the announcer called out the numbers, Aldric slid his shield onto his good arm, and his opponent hefted his mace onto his shoulder, confident smile still plastered across his face. When the timer hit zero, and the buzzer sounded, the taller of the two charged the smaller. Aldric merely drew his pistol and started firing, but Cardin was prepared for this - switching to a reverse grip and holding the end of his mace in front of his face, it proving good enough to protect him from Aldric's gunfire. He gave a sidewards nod, impressed, and stowed his gun away as Cardin drew closer. Unfortunately for Cardin, Aldric had tricks of his own, and while it was clear that the bigger of the two would, if all else was equal, have bested him in a feat of strength, that didn't translate too well into speed, which meant Aldric figuratively had all the time in the world to use his semblance to deflect Cardin's wide, powerful swings, backpedaling as he did so, with the end result looking as if he were just lazily dodging each attack.

It had the desired effect, Cardin growled out, "hold still!" And with both hands, swung the mace with all of his might.

Aldric snapped his shield up and intercepted the attack, and while it did press the shield against his side, it clearly didn't have _remotely_ the effect Cardin had wanted. The taller of the two had hoped to stun his opponent, or even disarm him, but instead the shield absorbed the force of the blow and left _him_ stunned. Aldric lifted his hand and splayed out his fingers, letting them rest in front of Cardin's sternum.

Cardin barely got out a, "huh?" Before Aldric clenched his fist and shoved forward, sending his opponent skidding backwards with a mechanized one-inch-punch.

Aldric kept up with the momentum, throwing his shield at the mace-wielder. He would give Cardin some credit, though: He recovered fast enough to take up the mace as if it were a baseball bat, and swing it at the shield - batting it right back to Aldric; but Aldric had seen this trick before, and without breaking stride, leapt up into the air in a spinning roundhouse, and kicked the shield right back at him. While Cardin wasn't quite fast enough to keep up their impromptu tennis match, he was able to snap up the heft of his mace and use it to deflect the shield. Aldric, however, was close enough that he didn't need to keep Cardin off balance with another round, and instead caught the shield with his left hand and spun around rapidly, before smacking Cardin with the side of his shield, as if it were an enormous, red white and blue frying pan.

Cardin stumbled to the side from this, but used the weight of his mace to his advantage - planting it in the ground and using it to stabilize himself. This led to him being much more prepared for Aldric's follow up than Aldric would have liked, and he smashed Aldric's next punch out of the way with a heavy swing. While this should have caused Aldric to overextend himself and present his back to his opponent, Aldric instead pulsed his semblance and used it to spin him right back around. With a wide, circular right hook, he aimed not for Cardin, but his weapon - punching its haft and then grinding right down to the mace itself, and using his strength, momentum, and a little help from his semblance to overpower Cardin's natural strength, and force the mace to the ground, leaving it splintered from the impact.

Aldric followed this up by leaping over the mace and slamming both of his feet into Cardin's chest; this broke Cardin's grip on his weapon and sent him stumbling backwards onto his rear. From the livid look that began to stretch across his face, which only intensified when he looked up and saw his aura dipping lower than he wanted, Aldric could tell he was _furious._ What surprised Aldric, though, was that instead of blindly charging him, Cardin got back to his feet and clapped his fists together.

 _Then_ he charged him.

Aldric might not have known Cardin's entire intent here, but he at least knew that Cardin wanted him to back up and dance with him again, so he could take back his mace and get back to swinging. So, instead of standing his ground, Aldric met his opponent head on and charged into the fray. He ducked under and deflected several of Cardin's boxing-style jabs, but it was when he allowed one to connect with his shield that he realized Cardin's full intent. The impact didn't hurt Aldric at all, but there was a force behind it - as if Cardin's fist had exploded on impact with Aldric's shield. That sent the less sighted of the two skidding to the side, until he was able to use his semblance to overcome the momentum. As he skidded away, Cardin straightened up, his cocky grin once again on his face, as he sauntered over to his mace and, with a pose that would have made Thor jealous, ripped it from the ground and hefted it into the air; the crowd _loved_ it, the cheers briefly overwhelming Aldric's ears.

Cardin, in response, loved them, but was tipped off to Aldric's next attack when the cheers suddenly became shouts of surprise. Cardin whipped around, only to get beaned in the face by Aldric's shield. As he stumbled backwards, Aldric came rocketing in as fast as his feet would propel him, before he leapt into the air and caught the shield, before spinning into a back kick and sending Cardin flying, both from the strength of the impact, and from the force from his semblance. He recovered fast enough that he buried his mace into the ground, and that was enough to make him grind to a halt well before he hit the edge of the stadium.

Aldric gave him another sidewards nod. _I don't think I've seen that yet, actually._ He thought, his lips pursed in an impressed frown. _Good on ya._ He spied Cardin sneaking a glance back up at the monitors above them, and would admit to a small amount of satisfaction at the expression that crossed his face when he saw that Aldric's had barely budged. Granted, Cardin's hadn't either - the only difference between the beginning of the match and now was that Cardin and him were completely equal, statistically - but Cardin was clearly confused, knowing he'd gotten a good hit or two on his opponent.

Aldric decided he'd play with his food just a bit, and bounced the edge of the shield up and down off the ground like a basketball, smirking at his opponent. Surprising him, Cardin snorted, nodding as his cocky smile turned to a light grin. He tightened his grip on his mace, and then charged right back in.

Unfortunately, while Cardin was clearly starting to get Aldric's number, that didn't change the fact that, compared to the blind man, he was _slow._ The guy had moments of brilliance, but his clear preference of brawn over brains meant that there were times when Aldric didn't even need his semblance to dodge him. Add on that Aldric was getting a good read on _him_ \- especially now that he got a peek at his semblance - and Aldric was liking his odds more and more with each swing he avoided. He ducked under a wide horizontal swing, twisted out of the way of a vertical chop, deflected a front jab, and when he saw his opening, Aldric struck.

The sound of bones crunching underneath his gauntlet could barely be heard past him, but the effect was clearly visible to those who watched: Cardin did an impromptu pirouette, seeing as many stars as there were people spectating. He stumbled away, and Aldric followed - throwing a quick front kick into his opponent's back and sending him sprawling onto the ground. Cardin had another minor stroke of genius when he pretended to be incapacitated until Aldric grew close to him - at which point he slammed his fists into the ground like a gorilla, using his shockwave semblance to throw Aldric off balance. He followed it up by scrambling to his feet and swinging his mace with both hands, but Aldric ducked right under it and lunged inside Cardin's defenses. Aldric followed up on his momentum with a powerful uppercut - he heard the sound of Cardin's jaw snapping shut once it met his fist, and by grabbing Cardin's mace with his free hand, Aldric ensured that he went flying _without_ it.

When Cardin landed, Aldric was there a moment later. He was actually astonished at how heavy the mace was - he had to drag it across the ground and make it look like he was trying to be intimidating, just so no one saw him struggle with it, and this guy was swinging the thing around with _one hand._ Aldric would give credit where it was due, he knew that if his shield didn't work the way it did, he was pretty sure he might have a fractured arm at this point.

Aldric now stood above Cardin, his mace held in both hands. A flash of fear ran through Cardin's eyes as he heard Aldric take in a deep breath and unleash his battle cry - and actually flinched when Aldric summoned up the strength necessary to swing his mace in a full arc. But he seemed to be the only one alive who had actually been fooled by Aldric's gambit, and was thusly the only one surprised when he buried the mace into the ground a foot from the guy's head. Aldric could tell that, after he glanced at his mace, Cardin had considered going for a cup shot, from the way his eyes flashed to Aldric's groin, and his appropriately positioned foot, but Aldric was too fast - he grabbed his chest plate, and with a single, great heave, slid him across the ground and out of the ring, his impact outside accompanied by a great buzzer.

Aldric saw him curse, but neither he nor any of the cheering audience actually heard it. Being a good sport though, he did heft the mace up and walk it over to its owner, presenting it to him with a respectful nod.

"That was a good fight, Winchester." He said, as his former opponent took up arms again. "We'll have to do that again sometime." He added, after sliding his hand through his increasingly sweat-slick hair.

To his credit, though he was clearly pissed, Cardin actually nodded. "Yeah." He said, as Aldric hopped out of the stage. "Next time I won't go easy on you."

 _There he is._ Aldric merely smiled.

When he returned to his spot in the stands after stealing a few new water bottles, Yang was there, already making a swipe at his head. "You know, I thought he had you for a second there, Beebee!"

"If he was just a bit faster, it would've been a better fight." Aldric opined, "the question -" He raised, as he cracked open the bottle. "- is whether or not he'll learn from it." And he took a drink.

It was all promptly spat right out when Yang smacked him on the back as hard as her monstrous strength would allow, when her name was the next to show up on the screen. If she noticed him choking and sputtering on his water, she didn't mention it, instead sprinting for the stairwell the moment her opponent was called.

 _I'll say this._ Aldric thought, as he recovered, and let his radar shrink and he slammed what was left of his water bottle. _I like her better than Mercury._ He leaned back in his chair, letting his shield rest against the wall in front of him, and his feet rest on top of the shield, as his vision shrank to a scant few inches around him.


	25. The New Black Gold

_AN:_

 _This'll be a **great** way to date this story - but let's hope and pray that that net neutrality nonsense doesn't get undone here in a few days, because I honestly have no idea what it'll mean for my writing hobbies._

* * *

Chapter 24

* * *

He didn't know how long, or if any time at all, had passed between his shutting his eyes and when a tentative "Excuse me." made him snap back into awareness, but he knew that Yang was still fighting down in the ring. Considering how stiff his muscles were, he figured he must have been asleep for a few minutes. He groaned, rubbing at his face and sitting back upright, as his radar expanded.

 _Now that's an interesting sight._ Thought Aldric, as he beheld the latest in his run-ins with the main cast. _Now what do_ you _want with_ me? He wondered, as he did Pyyrha Nikos the courtesy of turning to face her. Unlike him, she looked like she wasn't winded at all, as though she hadn't spent the entire morning going through one fight after the other.

"How can I help you?" He asked, in a tone of voice that effectively communicated how much he _hadn't_ been sleeping just then.

"I was..." She began, before trailing off and frowning, as she reconsidered her words. "I saw how you fought." She settled on.

 _Oh this'll be good._ Aldric raised an eyebrow and cracked a grin. "Oh yeah?" He said, "well that makes one of us." He said, raising his glasses and cracking a exaggerated, cartoony smile.

Her expression dropped like a brick, "I -" She said, hastily. "I didn't mean to offend."

 _You know, I almost forgot that this was before she had experience with the whole people thing. Though that does beg the question of why she's here..._ Aldric dropped his glasses and snorted, "I wish I could've seen the look on your face." He laughed, "I wasn't mad, don't worry. To offend someone, that person has to be offendable, and it's awfully hard to offend the guy whose icebreaker is to draw attention to the stuff you can make fun of." He said, turning to more fully face her, leaning against the arm of his chair. "What brings you over here? Liked the fight, you said?"

"Yes." She nodded, "I - I noticed how you fought." She repeated, "and I was wondering... If I may ask, what is your semblance?"

Aldric gave her a blank look for a few moments, before he shifted in his seat and rested his chin on his cybernetic fist. "Damn lady, you don't mess around, do you?" He chuckled, "you know, we're all kind of in this to win it." He pointed out, a coy smile gracing his face, as Yang sent her opponent flying down below. "I tell you what my powers are, we fight eachother, suddenly you're wiping the floor with me." He pointed at her, nodding. "I see your game, I see how it is." He snorted.

Pyrrha's expression looked as though she wouldn't have considered that option in a million years, so Aldric decided to backpedal and do a little damage control.

"Lady, it's a joke!" He chuckled, straightening up a bit. "We're all on the same team." He waved at the audience, "I couldn't give an ass rats about the reputation." He extended a hand, "name's Ash, by the way."

She accepted the hand, but wore a look of confusion. "I thought..."

But Aldric's grin remained, only faltering just a bit once it entered his mind just how easy it was, adopting this role. "Yeah, the board _says_ 'Goud', but if the shield and the eyes weren't a dead giveaway, I'm not really a 'use my first name' kind of a guy. I figured out my last name meant 'Ash' and thought it was the coolest thing ever. 'Specially since I set fire to one of my classrooms back in Chancel."

Pyrrha's head tilted as she recognized the name, "Pyrrha... You're from Mistral?"

Aldric laughed, "only the most back of the backwaters, my friend! I didn't know Beacon was a thing until I was graduating and looking for a summer job." He gave her a look, "you are too?"

He would later _swear_ he saw the question 'You don't know my name?' flash across her face, but she crushed it after a moment. "Yes. I graduated from Sanctum, before enrolling here."

Aldric snorted, "well good job lady, you made it, though -" He chuckled, and raised his hands to his sides in a shrugging manner, "- a blind man made it in, so I don't know how high of a benchmark it is..."

She finally seemed to understand that every word coming out of his mouth seemed to service only one goal, and actually afforded him a chuckle, though it amused him to _no end_ the fact that she covered her mouth in front of a blind man. He _really_ wanted to point it out, but his shtick was that he could only really 'see' in the middle of a fight, or if he concentrated hard on what was in front of him, so he crushed that desire as far as he could.

"So..." She said, after lightly clearing her throat. "Your fight."

"Yes!" Aldric exclaimed, "let you know all my secrets." He paused, "ooh! Wait! Is this an illusion right now? I met one of you once before, she actually took video of me talking to an empty room full of illusions only I could see." He pointed at her again, "I like your game!"

She politely waited for him to finish, "I'm afraid not." She said, suppressing another laugh. "I was just wondering what your semblance was, was what made me come over here initially." She finally explained, "your fighting style struck a chord with me... It looked very familiar."

"Pretending to get my ass kicked?" Aldric deadpanned.

"Hiding what is is you can really do, to keep your opponent guessing." She said, with a nod.

"Ah!" Aldric held up a finger, "I see where you're going!" And as he spoke, the buzzer sounded, and he had to wait for the audience's cries to quiet down, which took a bit longer than usual, as the semi-finalists were announced, and the next fighters went to the stage to uproarious applause. "Unfortunately, mine's nothing special." Only powers that literally qualified him for godhood, to these people. "It's just telekinesis." He nodded to her, "how about you?"

Whether it was because Aldric had called her out on it and made a joke about it, or because she felt that, since she'd asked, she may as well return the favor, Pyyrha responded. "Mine is polarity." She said, "I can control objects with magnetic fields."

 _Man I would love to settle a bet, tear my arm off and freak you out at the same time._ Aldric thought wistfully. "So, the question -" He said, as he leaned in closer to her, to be heard better. " - is whether or not you make it seem like you're _just that fast,_ and that nobody can touch you, or you let people score a hit or two on you to make the question of how you do it less prudent." He said, a conspiratorial grin stretching across his face, as he cupped his hands together.

Whereas earlier it appeared she was mostly humoring him, with a hint of genuinely enjoying his antics, now there seemed to be full-on, genuine interest in her eyes. "Considering what I've seen so far -"

"Oh good, rub it in." Aldric interrupted.

She smiled, but kept going. "- would I be correct in thinking you suggest the latter from experience?"

To which, Aldric nodded. "Did you see it just then?" He asked, as he sensed Yang bounding up the stairwell and back to the stands, the next two fighters making their way down. "I managed to hit that _perfect_ balance of pissing Tiny off every time I dodged a successive string of his attacks, and letting him get confident when he'd get me. A lot of anger and a lot of arrogance is a dangerous mixture, my friend. People start making mistakes easier with the former, and start taking chances more with the latter."

Pyrrha nodded, "I see." She said, "though I must admit to something closer to the former." She nodded her head to the side, "I prefer to make it seem as though I cannot be touched... Under the predication that a toxic amount of anger and frustration..." She paused, "and maybe a hint of despair..." She mumbled, "is by far the worst thing that can happen to a fighter in battle."

Aldric shrugged, "I can see the logic in that." He said, as Yang reached the stadium, but was briefly held up by a few of her less-protagonist friends. "So now the question you want to ask is where did I get the idea?" He predicted, another grin stretching across his face, as he leaned back against the arm of his chair.

Pyrrha's expression and half shrug betrayed that she had wanted to ask, but hadn't built up the courage to do so. After a moment of dead silence between the two, she realized her mistake and hastily said, "I - yes."

Aldric chuckled, "you'll figure it out eventually, lady." He said, briefly adopting a posh tone, before dropping it just as quickly. "The idea is that the enemy that doesn't know what you're capable of is an enemy that can't win." He said, "know your enemy and you should never fear losing a battle, and all that." Sun Tsu was probably rolling in his grave for how badly Aldric had butchered his quote.

Pyrrha grew a much wider smile now, "yes!" She said, nodding. "Exactly - though... I liked more to tire my opponents out, than study them by taking their attacks, like you seem to."

"Oh, you like to rope a dope, alright." Aldric nodded, "saving that away for later." He said quickly, before he cleared his throat.

And this was when, "what's this, Beebee?" A certain brash voice called out, attracting the gaze of the red head above him, and a lazy look over the shoulder from him.

"Oh, I'm cheating on you, Yang." He indicated Pyrrha with his thumb. "In five minutes I can tell she knows more about fighting than it took an entire bar fight to get from you."

"Oh, is that right?!" Yang got a hungry look in her eyes as she eyed Pyrrha; she approached the redhead and offered her hand, "Yang."

Pyrrha once again briefly seemed to entertain the fact that someone hadn't recognized her, but also just as quickly seemed to reach the conclusion that such a thing was the entire reason she'd come to Vale in the first place, and it wasn't good to look a gift horse in the mouse. As such, she shook Yang's hand and gave her her name, whereupon Yang climbed over the chairs and plopped down back next to Aldric, digging in a bag she'd stowed underneath it for some water.

"So why're you trying to steal my sparring partner, Pyrrha?" Yang asked, her own snide grin matching Aldric's.

"Oh, I'm -" She shook her head, "- I assure you, I'm -" But her words were drowned out by the buzzer.

Aldric actually managed to predict what happened next. Considering his luck with the universe, and how _all_ signs pointed to him fighting someone in the main cast, the moment Yang said something about it, Aldric just knew what would happen. As a result, he wasn't surprised at all when his picture, and that of Pyrrha's, appeared on the big screen. Pyrrha looked aghast - clearly demonstrating how the universe was good to her, and how this kind of bad (or perhaps it was good?) luck was an outlier. Aldric, having seen it coming a mile away, hardly even flinched when he heard their names get called.

Yang, on the other hand, was busy looking back and forth from the two of them, to the screen showing their pictures, and back, and forth, and back, and forth, her purple eyes as wide as her grin, before, with a flourish, she pointed right at Pyrrha and exclaimed, "I knew it!" She cried, "I knew it! You're taking my blind man from me!" She turned to Aldric, "what do you see in her that I don't have?!" She demanded, a grin firmly stretched across her face.

Aldric chuckled, as he hauled himself to his feet. "I already told you I was cheating on you, Yang!" He said, stooping low to pick up his shield. "You can't claim any credit for it!" He noticed there was a somewhat subdued expression to Pyrrha, as she collected her own weapons, and before Yang could play off of him, he nodded to her. "This your first time tempting fate?" He shouted over the growing roars of the crowds, as it truly dawned on them who were about to fight.

Pyrrha nodded, "yes, actually."

Aldric waved the whole thing away, and again to Yang after promising her a good fight, as the two descended the stairwell. "Well don't worry about it." He said, once the roars of the crowd were muffled by the walls of the stairwell. "That crap happens to me so often, it just bounces off at this point." He beat his chest to prove the point; she nodded, already having begun to adapt. "And besides..." He said, laying it on thick. "I'll never let you live this down. You come over to me to talk strategy, and no sooner do you steal my secrets than do we go up against eachother." He turned around, walking backwards as they exited out into the arena. "I think! -" He pointed at her in a falsely accusatory fashion. "I think your _real_ semblance is probability altering!" But as he began to get drowned out by the crowds, he rolled his eyes. "But we'll finish this later!" He called out, as the two separated, and headed to their own parts of the ring.

When they got to their sides, Aldric decided this would be as good a time as any to take the training wheels off, and he shed his coat, freeing up some mobility.

 _"Three!"_ Called out the announcer, and the crowd joined in.

Aldric and Pyrrha dropped into their stances, he clutched his left hand, and his shield raised, a grin playing his features.

 _"Two!"_ They all called out.

 _Now we'll see exactly how 'non-magnetic' my stuff is..._ He thought, as his muscles tensed.

 _"One!"_

And the buzzer to start the match sounded off.

The two charged eachother, sprinting to the center of the arena so fast that it was as if they thought the mere act of getting there first would determine who won out over who. Pyrrha's tightly bound hair lightly bobbed up and down, in stark contrast to Aldric's wild barbarian mane bouncing about in every direction with every step. Pyrrha's two weapons and several inch size advantage gave her a visual edge over Aldric's one weapon and shorter stature, and from afar, it appeared as though she would easily win out - especially when one considered that Aldric's aura meter was barely three quarters full, and hers was untouched. Were one to draw that conclusion based off of what they had, they may have been right.

But then they wouldn't have been aware that the idiot in black and the warrior in gold had spent twenty minutes spilling their secrets and combat strategies to eachother, suddenly dropping them on even footing. So instead of a slug fest between the two deciding who would win out, it came down to who had superior skill, and who could out think the other.

So one could thusly understand why Aldric felt absolutely fucking terrified at the prospect of fighting Pyrrha Nikos. She had spent her entire life training to get become a huntress, and he'd been going strong for, what, six months? Ish? Yeah he was good at improvising, but _seventeen years_ versus six-ish months. He _**clearly** _ didn't have the kind of divine luck that would let him win this; the only thing that calmed him down in the few seconds he had before they clashed center-stage, was that unlike _all_ of his fights before today, this wasn't a deathmatch, so losing didn't mean he'd be buried in a ditch somewhere on an alien planet.

So with skill and strategy both clearly on his opponents side, and with the prospect of trying to crack open his full power outlawed by virtue of the computers keeping an eye on him, what did Aldric have that could turn this from a no-holds-barred beatdown, into something at least resembling a fight?

Well, it had been said earlier: He was an idiot, and his opponent was not. He'd have to _weaponize_ the idea of taking refuge in audacity; if he couldn't dazzle her with brilliance, he'd baffle her with bullshit.

It probably wouldn't work, but there was an added benefit, too: There was no way in hell Ozpin or the Justice League would think the clandestine spy from the Legion of Doom would attract attention and like a buffoon in front of a full stadium of people, at what was perhaps the most precarious moment of his act - _especially_ since Ozpin all but outed that he would have fallen for Aldric's idea of sending Goud Etiolate in from a high-end Mistrali school, the fact of which Aldric _loathed_ that he couldn't lord over Cinder, without breaking his cover.

Whether or not he stole such the whole idea from Rooster Teeth's _other_ wildly popular show aside, when they met in the center, Aldric dropped to a knee, thrusting his shield out in front of him. Pyrrha took the bait and attacked as he skidded forward, but the instant he felt her sword hit his shield, he lunged upwards, swinging his left arm out to bat away her sword, and his shield out to the side to rebound hers. With her core open, Aldric sprang into action.

And gave her a _big_ hug.

After giving her just a moment to question what drugs he had taken to think that opening his back, armor aside, to an opponent armed with a sword was a good idea, he then lunged upwards and brought Pyrrha down in a fast and powerful suplex. She hit the ground with a horrible sounding thud, but was able to recover too fast for Aldric's ill-thought out attempt at mounting her. She spun to her hands and leapt to her feet, only to snap her shield up with a pulse of her semblance and drop behind it when Aldric's fist came swinging in; and for the first time in his combat career, Aldric was on the _other_ side of a bell-ringing punch. But unlike his shield, hers didn't absorb impact with such perfect efficiency, and she felt more of it than she didn't.

So as the air was filled with the sound of a loud bell toll, Pyrrha was put on the backfoot from the strength of Aldric's cybernetic hand, a minor, but noticeable, dent left in the center of her shield, with impressions of his knuckles. Her counter was to try and stab up at Aldric from under her shield, but his was there for the blade to scrape off of, and he didn't fail to notice the surprised glance she gave it when his shield failed to obey when she no-doubt tried to influence it with her abilities.

Just as she didn't fail to notice the wide, toothy grin that sprouted across his face as he raised his shield to chop down on her sword. The impact _would_ have jarred it from her grip, had its gun barrel not fired, and she used the recoil to yank it away entirely too fast for him to react to. Aldric kept up the pressure, locking his shield with hers with a wide cross, keeping her immobilized and freeing up his left hand to try and pry her shield off. She, however, found the flaw in his plan: Using his shield to pin hers down meant it wasn't there to protect him, and she capitalized on that instantly.

If his aura shields and his armor hadn't been there, Aldric would have had a new scar to add to the collection, right at the bottom of his ribcage, and angled up, too - she could have taken out a lot of his organs. While she didn't, she certainly got the point across, and he disengaged before she could try to slip the blade in between his armor plates and stress his aura shields more.

With distance between the two, Aldric could tell by the look on her face that she was trying to figure out why exactly she couldn't influence his shield, even as she examined the structural damage he had done to hers. He, meanwhile, was trying not to let it show that he was genuinely flabbergasted his suplex had worked. But while it may have worked, _everything_ that came after didn't, and it only reinforced the idea that he probably wasn't walking out of this with a silver medal.

 _Or... Hell, we only just hit the semis._ He thought, with a frown. _I won't even get a bronze. Fuck!_ He took a quick step forward and threw his shield.

Pyrrha seemed to have predicted this, because her response was to change her sword into a gun in the blink of an eye, and with a single shot, no doubt assisted by a cleverly hidden use of her semblance, she overcame the shield's momentum and it bounced right back to him. No doubt she was also not-so-openly challenging him to try and manipulate its trajectory mid-flight, if he really wanted this to work.

So, obviously, the best answer was to test his inner Neo - that is, 'I know kung fu!', and not, 'date me or die' - and see how well he could block bullets.

Much like he'd done with Cardin before, he sent the shield right back at her, though this time with a punch, as he continued thundering forward. Pyrrha's brow furrowed, and she acquired her target and fired again - but instantly realized something was wrong when her bullet barely left the barrel of the gun before stopping as though it had hit a wall. Aldric had had to sacrifice a bit of his radar to make sure he had the power for that stunt, and having his visual acuity snap back once he got it to work disoriented him, but fortunately Pyrrha was kept too busy by the flying red white and blue Frisbee headed straight for her face. Be it from her own skill, or an application of her semblance on her circlet, Pyrrha dodged the attack and the shield spun right on by, but this gave Aldric the time to close the gap.

The question he had to answer before he reached her was, keeping in mind her skills, what exactly would he do to top his previous stunts, that would - hopefully - have an effect?

Considering the only thing that came to mind in a half second was 'Get rid of her weapons!', Aldric decided to go with that. It seemed like a safe enough bet, his entire combat style was based around hand-to-hand, after all. When he reached her, he threw his hand forward, slamming it into her shield with a more muted bell toll. She fell onto the backfoot from the impact, and he used the brief time in which she was stunned to grab the side of her shield and wrench it to the side, and while he succeeded in opening her core to attack, he wasn't able to disarm her. So, adapting as fast as he could, Aldric followed it up with a brutal front kick that landed right on her chest.

She fell back from the impact, but rolled into it, and when she came up, her blade had morphed into a rifle and she was taking aim. Aldric, however, thrust his cybernetic hand forward just as she fired, and the bullets bounced off of his palm, it appearing to anyone who watched that his armor was just that good. He rushed forward as she fired off two more shots, before giving up and shifting the weapon back to its bladed form. When he closed the distance between the two of them he lunged forward - one hand locking around the edge of her shield and keeping it steady, and the other zipping for her sword. He managed to get his hands on it, but then a roundhouse he hadn't seen coming sent him flying to the close edge of the arena.

He groaned in pain as he slid to a halt. _Oh... Right. Any metal at all._ And his dumbass had ran right in there with a gun strapped to the very hip she'd kicked. _Clever girl..._ He thought, as he got to his feet and his shield returned to him. _Masked shooting me away like a railgun by making it seem like you're mother fucking Wonder Woman._ He grunted, feeling a bruise well up on his hip, as he affixed his shield back to his arm.

Pyrrha was waiting on him, either because she was polite, or because he'd displayed such a lack of intelligence that she honestly didn't want to risk charging him, for fear of him biting her sword, or something just as ridiculous.

 _Well..._ Thought Aldric, as he clenched his fist. _If I really want to baffle her with bullshit, that'd be the way to go, really._ And it worked for Saitama, right? He knew that the sheer audacity of biting a sword would - God willing - buy him just enough time to disarm her, and if he could do that, and bring the fight to a hand-to-hand, he may very well actually have a fighting chance.

So, after taking a moment to compose himself, Aldric practically _threw_ himself forward - making sure to make the acceleration as sudden as possible, so he could mask his using his semblance to push the gun off of his hip by making it seem like it fell. He noticed the brief grin play Pyrrha's features when she saw that she'd been made, but this grin vanished when Aldric reached her, and the latter suddenly realized he had no idea how to make her aim for his head, when they weren't trying to kill eachother.

But thinking things through was how he quickly lost whatever control he had in this fight, so he stopped doing that as soon as physically possible and instead lunged forward with a punch from his shield-arm. Pyrrha deflected it with an uppercut, and then spun into her next attack, intending to slice at Aldric's midsection. Seeing his opening, Aldric used Pyrrha's own trick against her, and with a telekinetic push, changed the trajectory of her attack. He _felt_ a good chunk of his aura shields wash away because of this stunt, but it proved to be worth it when he wrenched his mouth open and in one smooth motion, jerked his head around and chomped down on her blade.

It had the desired effect: Not only Pyrrha, but the _entire stadium_ went dead silent when he took a bite out of a solid steel sword. He felt a few cuts on the edges of his mouth where the cutting edge met skin, and tasted a little blood, but the sacrifice was worth it because of the look of utter befuddlement on Pyrrha's face, and how the previous tension in her muscles washed away, leaving only abject, limp, shock. Even her jaw started hanging.

Aldric would admit he might not have thought this all the way through, because he risked making the cuts worse when he side-kicked Pyrrha in her ribs. He built distance between the two, that much was true, but had her grip been any better than 'completely limp', he might have given himself a glasgow smile. But he lucked out in this case, and now Pyrrha was down one sword, which he pried out of his jaw and gingerly tossed into the air, flipping it like a knife.

"Don't worry, don't worry." He assured her, pointing at her with the blade. "I brushed my teeth..." A pause, as it occurred to him: "Yesterday." A downside of a general lack of sleep? He forgot things. Oops.

Regardless of his oral hygiene, he tossed the blade into the air again and caught it in a reverse grip, before ramming it a good foot into the ground, making sure it would take a _lot_ of time and effort to remove the sword from the stone. This action prompted the redhead to recover from her shock, and she took up a decidedly _defensive_ posture behind her shield, clearly having decided that attacking him was an exercise in madness. That meant the plan was working, but only on a technicality. Realistically? He was losing _bad,_ his aura was half gone whereas he'd only landed a few punches on her, and most of that lost aura was self inflicted at this point - all in the efforts of depriving her of a sword that hadn't done nearly as much damage as he had done to himself.

 _Hopefully the shield will be easier?_ He thought to himself, wiping the blood from his mouth, and trying to figure out exactly how he would pry her shield out of her hands.

Actually, he had the answer already: Yang had done it to him during their bar fight. So with that in mind, he threw the shield again - but instead of throwing it at Pyrrha, he bounced it right off the ground at his feet, sending it flying straight up into the air. Pyrrha didn't make the same mistake that a lot of the audience did, and instead of tracking the shield, she kept her eyes on Aldric, who sprinted forward.

Pyrrha was fully on the defensive now, using her semblance on herself instead of trying it on Aldric. With all the metal on various parts of her body, she did pretty well with keeping up her image, until she played right into Aldric's hands, and blocked one of his punches with her shield. After another bell toll, she shoved forward with her shield, and Aldric allowed himself to stumble back - prompting her to take her shot and jab at him with her shield arm. But Aldric cheated a bit, using his semblance to catch himself and regain his footing in the blink of an eye, and caught the edge of her shield with his metal hand. Her reaction was almost immediate - she threw an uppercut at him from under her shield, but Aldric caught it with his other hand and pushed it back, before throwing an punch her way from _over_ the shield. She deflected it the same way, but when she shoved his hand back, his fingers caught the edge of her shield.

She realized what he was doing just before he did it, and when he tried to force her arm into a painful position and wrench the shield off of it, she gracefully flipped into it, keeping her grip, but also fully presenting her arm to him - which he took advantage of by chopping at the crook of her elbow. She grunted in pain, and as Aldric started to rip the shield out of her grasp, she responded by clobbering him in the nose. The punch somehow had more force in it than one of _Yang's,_ and it was probably because of that that his next hair-brained scheme was to headbutt Pyrrha as hard as he could.

Which he did.

It made him see stars, yes, but it also stunned Pyrrha long enough to allow him to finally tear the shield off of her arm. The both of them stumbled back now, Aldric pressing the back of his fleshy arm to his nose despite the lack of blood, Pyrrha clutching her reddening forehead with one of her gloved hands. Aldric spared even less thoughts to his next action, and he threw the shield at the ground - but instead of bouncing like the head trauma had convinced him it would, it lodged itself halfway into the ring.

Both of the combatants spared it a glance at this, Pyrrha in confusion, Aldric in dull realization.

"Yours doesn't bounce?" He deadpanned.

"No..." If Aldric didn't know any better, he would have categorized the breathy laugh she let out as she spoke as 'genuine'. Perhaps it was - he _was_ seeing stars, after all, and it should be obvious why that was a problem. "Yours does?"

"Uh-huh." Aldric made a show of looking up to the sky. "Apparently too well, actually." _Uh oh._ He spared the scoreboard another brief glance before snapping his radar back to the area around him, and the results weren't good: He was dipping below half of his aura, whereas his opponent was barely a quarter of the way through hers.

And it as around now that he was starting to hear how much of the audience was laughing, as they were cheering and applauding. Aldric called that a win, though he would've liked to maybe place a bit higher for pride reasons, he was just happy he was getting to have this kind of fun. It beat the hell out of not sleeping, that was for sure.

Putting those thoughts aside, Aldric darted forward. When he reached Pyrrha he threw at her a wide superman punch, she caught it and twisted his arm around, throwing it over her shoulder and putting herself firmly within his defenses. She managed two elbow strikes to his gut and chest before Aldric crashed into her head with a left hook. She took the hint and let go, but not without a kick to the stomach. Aldric stumbled back, and Pyrrha closed in on him; in the span of three seconds he had to deflect a left hook, dodge a straight jab, and catch her knee. Aldric took his chance and punched down on her thigh, before ramming his elbow upwards into her nose. Now _she_ stumbled back, shaking her head, but otherwise not worse for wear.

As he dropped back into a fighting stance, and she recovered, he noticed Pyrrha cast a glance over his shoulder, to his left. A moment later, he saw what had caught her eye as it entered his radar: A falling red white and blue discus. The both of them watched as it hit the ring, and then bounced right out and over the edge.

"Oh... Yeah. I kind of..." Aldric mumbled, "forgot to... Keep a hold of it." He pursed his lips, "hm."

Pyrrha's knowing smile told him that she understood his pain, likely utilizing a similar trick to get her shield to look like it bounced all over the place. That smile, however, turned into a determined frown when she launched herself forward, starting the fight again in earnest. Aldric knew what she wanted to happen: She wanted to push him back behind her weapons, such that the _instant_ they disengaged, she could make a run for one of them. So he met her charge with one of his own. The two clashed, Pyrrha slapped away a left hook with her right hand, deflected the elbow he followed up with, and dodged Aldric's straight right as fast as he threw them, and he bobbed and weaved to the left and right with each attempted strike.

A wide right cross went over his head as he ducked underneath it, and when she followed it up with a knee, he prevented it from ramming into his nose by catching it with his left hand, and burying his right into her stomach. She, however, twisted her leg around his fleshy arm and then ducked downwards, pinning him to the ground, where she rained elbows on his back. He felt it through his light armor and knew he'd be getting some bruises, but her mistake was in pinning the weaker of his arms.

 _His_ mistake was in thinking that she wouldn't catch onto the fact that he liked to play southpaw, and with flexibility only seconded to the tri-haired mute herself, she fully bent out of the way, completely dodging his blind uppercut, before locking his right arm into a painful armbar. Now it was literally a waiting game: Yes, Aldric had a perfect opening to pummel her with lefts, but she was doing more damage to him than he was to her, and his aura was too far down for him to try and beat her into submission, before she broke his shields and got him on a technical knockout; and as appropriately dumb as the idea was, he was pretty sure he wouldn't get far by biting her. He did at least _try_ to break out of it, first by conventional means and then with his semblance, but she'd seen through that and was actively using her own, on herself, to keep her grip locked down. So, as much as he may not have wanted to, after a few minutes of increasingly agonizing pain, Aldric called it.

He tapped out, and a second later the buzzer sounded and Pyrrha let him go.

 _Man, I fought a Goddess._ He thought, _and this one kicked my ass_ _._ He snorted.

Aldric rolled onto his back, both arms spread wide, as Pyrrha got to her feet, though despite his loss, he had a _huge_ smile on his face. One could spend hours wondering about whether things would have been different had they not tempted fate, one could wonder whether or not it would have gone the same way if Aldric hadn't been under a lot of handicaps, but he thought of it differently. As he'd thought earlier, this hadn't been a deathmatch by any means, neither of them were trying to kill the other, this was, at most, a high-stakes martial arts fight with guns, and that meant it came down to skill to decide who would win this, and the fact of the matter was: She was demonstrably more skilled than him. He had more experience in street fights, but plop them down in an arena and slap rules on them, and then she took home almost all the advantages. He'd tried a little bit of everything: Matching her weapon for weapon, disarming her, bringing it into a melee, but each time she adapted and took control of the fight _right_ back. He straight up _lost,_ but he'd be damned if he didn't have a fun time in so doing.

 _God help me if I hadn't kept her in mind when picking the arsenal._ He thought, as she knelt down and gave him a brief tap on the hand, before standing up.

Aldric raised the hand and groped about wildly for a moment, before he grasped hers, and with her help, was hauled to his feet. The two let the audience cheer for a few moments before they collected their scattered weapons, with Aldric assisting her in prying them out of the arena, and with Pyrrha assisting the 'blind' man in locating his, and once they made it back to the stairwell and the sounds were muffled, they got their first chance to speak.

"And to think my ass thought I'd make it to the finals." He drawled.

Pyrrha tried to ameliorate the situation with, "you did good though, Ash! You should feel proud!"

But Aldric chuckled, "if your definition of 'doing good' is spending half the fight getting the hell beaten out of me, and the other half of the fight helping you out..." He shook his head, "then I'd hate to see your 'doing great'."

Though that did get a grin, she shrugged after a moment. "I think perhaps it was a case of very bad luck."

"Oh?"

"As I said: I saw your fights, Ash. I think you very well could have made it further..." A pause, "had the computers not paired us up so early."

"Says the victor." Aldric grinned, giving her a light punch to the arm. "We're going to have to do that again, sometime." He said, as his scroll vibrated.

Pyrrha looked like she'd like that, but it was also clear she was starting to learn, as her response was, "I don't know, Ash... If we fought again, would you..." She leaned in a little close, an incredulous grin on her face. "Bite my sword?"

Aldric's smile grew, and though he had the opportunity, he decided to let this double entendre slide. "You know what - I'll _own_ that shit, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it _worked."_ The two laughed, "acting so ungodly stupid that you wouldn't be able to react was the only thing I had." A pause, "lord help me next time, though. I doubt that'll work."

"I feel there is something to be said for it." She responded, "if I may ask?" She prompted, getting a nod from Aldric. "Why couldn't I push your shield?"

Aldric grinned, "well, it's - not made of metal, now is it?" He said, as they made it back to the stadium seats and back to the noise. "You'd be surprised how many amazing tools there are out there that people just don't use. Take hardlight, for instance. Shaped it into a shield, and suddenly I've got an indestructible defense, and a pretty cool offense, too."

Pyrrha looked like she would have had something to say to that as they sat down, but Yang didn't give them even a microsecond before she pounced. "Beebee! How could you lose before we got to have our round two?" She demanded, a wide grin playing stark contrast to her words.

Aldric shook his head, "tell you what, lady. You can talk shit once _you_ fight her. And if you win, I'll train with you _exclusively,_ instead of the both of you." He said, making a show of leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms behind his head.

"Hold on -" Yang said, pointing at him. "Are you saying you'll train with anyone that comes along?!" She lunged at him, grabbing the lapels of his coat, "I thought I raised you better than that!"

Aldric shook his head. "I was young and I needed the money!" He cried, raising his hands, placatively. "Mama Ember was all - 'You gotta pay for those new eyes yo _damn_ self' and then I cried." He gave Yang a pointed look, "have you ever seen a man with no eyes cry, Yang? Let me tell you, it looks _weird."_ He pointed at himself as Yang dropped him in his chair, "the _pits_ fill up. There are nerve endings in there, it feels as weird as it looks. And if you don't keep your eyes open, it all comes out in one huge splash."

She lost it at that, descending into laughter as she shook her head; even Pyrra behind them was covering her mouth and stifling some laughter. Aldric took this relative silence to reach into his pocket to retrieve his scroll, wondering what it was Cinder wanted. From the glance he got, Yang definitely noticed that the blind man was deftly manipulating a GUI with no assistance, but she looked away, deciding not to point it out. This turned out to be a good thing, because Aldric was pretty sure it would have been difficult to keep up the act after seeing what popped up on the screen:

 _Why Aldric, I'm surprised! Pleasantly so - I didn't think you were the type to bite!  
Why don't you come outside, now that you're all done?  
See you soon~!_ :)

Aldric stifled both a groan of exhaustion and a shriek of terror as he slid the scroll shut.


	26. Red Pill

Chapter 25

* * *

It took him a few minutes to slip away from his new friends; Yang in particular was ready to throttle him for leaving so soon, but was appeased when Pyrrha suggested swapping contact information, and Aldric reminded her there would be plenty of chances for the both of them to beat the tar out of eachother once the semester started. The encounter that surprised him though, was when he was flagged down by Cardin Winchester before he managed to slip out of the stadium. He flexed his networking muscles for five minutes longer than Aldric had any patience for, opining that Beacon would probably put the strong together in a team together, and that anyone who could fight the Invincible Girl for as long as he did - the fact that Cardin lost at the first chance he got, and that Aldric got his ass kicked by Pyrrha apparently not registering on Cardin's radar - was strong enough to get paired up with him.

Aldric let him go on until he finally got to the point and programmed his number into his scroll, and after he got away from him and made it outside, the cheers of the crowd and the drone of the fight buzzers becoming distant and muffled as they were contained by the arena's walls, he got another text.

 _Oh theeeere you are! For a second I thought you might be standing me up. :(  
There's a hole-in-the-wall called From Dust 'Till Dawn, a couple miles east of you. Come find me!_

 _Oh yeah, I guess that_ would _be happening soon._ Aldric slid the scroll shut again.

As he settled back into the mindset of 'everything was trying to kill him', he again brought up whether or nor he should drop the RWBY bomb on the Watchmen. Ignoring that that sounded like a passable idea for a comic book, Aldric concluded that brooding over it right here and now would do him no good. Instead, he decided he would make the decision after this little meeting; and if he had to murder Neo, he vowed that the answer would be an automatic 'yes' due simply to the fact that her death would put him on ice so thin that a feather would break it.

He didn't dawdle as he trekked to the store. After a quarter of an hour of walking, he found it, and his radar informed him that Neo and, it seemed, her employer were waiting for him. Aldric let out a long, low sigh through his nose, frowning; he considered sliding his shield onto his arm, but after a brief debate, decided that it wouldn't _really_ help him. They were _all_ packing heat: Aldric had his arm, the chainsaw, the Power Glove, and his pistol, Torchwick had his cane, and Neo had eight concealed blades, three pistols, a grenade, and more than a few of the beads on her necklace looked like they were filled with what was likely an aerosolized poison. If they were here to get violent, him walking in with the safeties off wouldn't change that. So, he collapsed his white cane and stuffed his hands in his pockets, left his shield hanging from his back, and strolled into the shadowy alley next to the store. They both turned to acknowledge him, Neo was leaning against the wall, a light smirk on her face, and Torchwick had both of his hands on his cudgel.

"My, my, my." Said Torchwick, as Aldric came to a stop just a few feet away. "You're just _full_ of surprises, aren't you, Mister Goud?" He confidently strolled over to Aldric, orbiting him, as though appraising him. "Come a _long_ way since our first little meeting just a few short months ago. I wonder -" He said, in a sing-song tone. "- have you been playing this game from the very beginning? Or is this a recent development?"

Aldric remained silent, staring straight ahead and waiting for -

 _Hold on._ He turned to face Torchwick and gave him a poke on the arm with the collapsed cane. When the crime boss didn't shatter like glass, Aldric gave a sidewards nod.

"Well would you look at that!" Torchwick grinned, adjusting his hat. "I'm _certain_ the boy we saw months ago wouldn't have had the wherewithall to realize that this could very well be an elaborate ruse..." He let his shoulders slump and frowned dramatically, "unfortunately, I must confirm that this is indeed quite real, and must also confirm your suspicions: Miss Neopolitan does, indeed, hold loyalties to me first, and others second. She is, after all, _my_ gardener, and not yours, or Miss Fall's."

At an expectant glance from Neo, however, Torchwick circled around Aldric's front and rolled his head, in an exaggerated manner. "oh fine." He turned to face Aldric, "she would, however, like me to point out that she had been the slightest bit conflicted as to whether or not to bring your little stunt to my attention. She _is_ fond of you - _especially_ now that you've gone and revealed that, when not in the midst of a battle, you aren't nearly as meek and naive as you like to pretend to be." He turned to the ice cream mute, and asked with an exaggerated bow, "is that okay?" And she nodded with a smile.

"Good." He turned to Aldric, "now... Though I believe I already know, please humor me: _What_ were you doing that made you bring the two of us into your little lie?"

Aldric remained as silent as Neo.

Torchwick huffed, "you know as well as I that I won't even hesitate to bring this up to your now-questionable ally, mister Aldric; and my patience only lasts so long." He warned, as though he were a parent admonishing a child.

"Then why haven't you?"

Torchwick grinned at this, "and he speaks!" He held his arms out and to the sides, "wonderful! I was worried." He dropped them back onto his cane, and tapped it on the ground. "To answer your question, Mister Aldric... One doesn't get nearly as far as I do, in a business such as this, without learning two things: How to take anything presented to you and turning it into something beneficial, and how to prepare for as many scenarios as is imaginable." He said, leaning back on the balls of his feet. "I, for instance, am a man who prides myself in being prepared for _anything..._ And while your actions may have been surprising, the goal they imply to service towards... Why that is something I've considered as well." He leaned forward, "do you understand?"

Aldric's frown didn't budge. What he was having trouble reconciling was Torchwick's flippant disregard for Aldric's actions against him by proxy. By working to subvert Cinder, which Torchwick seemed to be all but _stating_ he knew Aldric was doing, even if he didn't know _how,_ Aldric was putting him at risk, too. There was no way around that - if Cinder fell, Torchwick would go too; and he wasn't a dummy, he'd been at this particular kind of game longer than Aldric had, and longer still than Cinder had. He'd also outright told him that he wasn't the kind of man to be blindsided by things, so why was he taking this in stride, and letting Aldric in on all of this, if he wasn't going to turn right around and spill the beans to Cinder?

 _Unless..._ Aldric's brow furrowed a fraction of an inch, but it was enough for both Torchwick and Neo to pick up on.

"I think he's figuring it out." Torchwick hummed, as he straightened up.

"You're double dealing on Cinder." Aldric rumbled.

With the look of unrestrained glee that graced Neo's face, Aldric was pretty sure she would have squealed in delight if she could have. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in a big smile, and even more off-putting for the woman Aldric knew primarily as a high-functioning sociopath, was that she looked like she would have kissed Aldric had Torchwick not been in the way. Torchwick, meanwhile, let a sinister sneer play at the corner of his mouth, as he retrieved a cigar from his coat, and lit it.

"You're right, Miss Neo." Torchwick intoned, as he took a drag from the nicotine stick. "He _is_ perceptive." He flicked some ash off of its end, and then nodded his head to the side. "Though I would only go so far as to say 'in a manner of speaking'." He responded. "I play with the winners, Mister Aldric. I always have; and the winner is the one who survives at the end of the day. That I practically own Vale Police is only **part** of the reason I've remained out of prison for any significant amount of time, after all." He let it hang there, likely wanting to know if he was picking up on her implications.

 _If I had to guess..._ "You drop information on rival gangs to keep you and your guys out of jail." Torchwick nodded, and Neo's one-sided smile grew wider. "So you're not double-dealing with Cinder, you're just poised to look like, if she wins, you were on her side, and if she loses, you remain mostly untouched by virtue of whatever you've given to the proper authorities." Holy deva-vu, Batman.

Behind Torchwick, Neo began rotating her hand in a circular motion, as if to say, 'go on'.

"You're not concerned about me because no matter what happens, you win." If Aldric managed to destroy the Legion, then Torchwick could ride high on the information he gave to his government contacts, and find a place to wait out the aftermath. If Aldric failed and the Legion won, then he was one of their most useful players. Then, of course, there was the fact that Torchwick had him by the _balls,_ and pretty much had a get out of jail free card for both sides. Pissed off Cinder? Well, he could redirect her ire by hinting that Aldric was up to some shady shit. Need to lose some heat from the feds? Well, he knew a certain someone who owed him one _hell_ of a favor, and was pretty high up in the hierarchy, well worth an immunity.

Torchwick nodded, "I so willingly work for Cinder because I am well aware of what she and her allies are capable of. They are, in a word, unstoppable - and Neo can attest to the fact that that is not a word I use lightly." He intoned, "as I'm certain you know by now, I'm a pragmatic man. I know what bets to make, when to fold my hand, and when to point two dozen rifles at the night's entertainment because he broke the rules." His grin turned to one that was straight-up taunting. "But I am also **well** aware that sometimes, despite the cold and harsh reality of our world, things simply do not go according to plan. So many wars have been won and lost to a superior enemy because of _one_ divine stroke of good or bad luck... I myself have pulled off the miraculous against impossible odds enough times to consider the option." He said, "as such, I prepare." A nod of the head. "Just in case." _  
_

 _So... Less Wilson Fisk, and more Hans Landa._ Torchwick was perfectly willing to work for the Legion, but just as willing to read the situation as it was, and not as he wanted to be, and subsequently abandon ship and drop hints to the League so they'd focus more on their enemies than him. "And you're telling me this because you know there's not a damn thing I can do about it."

Torchwick's smile remained unchanged. "Can? Will? Or both?" He asked, "because, let's face it, Mister Aldric: I'm starting to agree with Neo, there." He nodded to her over his shoulder. "You _are_ interesting. I would call you a wild card, even... Having weaseled your way into Miss Fall's good graces and for so long bamboozled her... Why, you even managed to pull the rug over us, up until you made your one mistake." He hummed, spinning on his heel and taking a few steps away. "It is such a wild nature... Such an inherent and growing skill in subterfuge... That I see the potential for perhaps a third winner in this little shadow war." He looked at Aldric from over his shoulder, what was visible of his face lit aglow by the lit end of his cigar, before he plucked it from his mouth. "So perhaps there would be a way for us both to win... No matter the outcome." He said, his face curled up into a victorious grin. "So what do you say?" Torchwick asked, making another turn to face Aldric.

Aldric would give him credit where it was due, Torchwick was good at this. The only time he felt as outclassed as he did now was when Ozpin had fooled his radar pulse and managed to sneak up on him. Torchwick was in a position where, no matter what happened, no matter who won - Aldric, him, or Cinder - he'd be taken care of. Clever, especially considering that, unless the terran was willing to outright kill Neo and Torchwick - which he was willing to bet the both of them knew he didn't want to do for more reasons than just the moral ones - he wasn't wrong. There wasn't anything he could do, here.

If he said no to Torchwick, he'd get sold out to Cinder in exchange for no doubts about the mob boss' loyalties to the Legion, and Aldric's loss of position in the Legion would likely also lead to Adam Taurus cutting ties with him as a precautionary measure, such that he wouldn't be operating alone against Cinder. And, though they didn't know this, provided Aldric survived the ensuing ceaseless attempts at his life, his only allies and only course of action would be to retreat to the Justice League and give them the RWBY SD card, so they at least still had _one_ chance and something of a source of information in the Legion; hell, with the way things were looking now, Aldric was starting to consider that option anyways.

But, if he said yes, he may still have his place in the Legion secure, but it would be even more precarious than it used to be, as two people _firmly_ outside of the Watchmen would be aware, perhaps not of exactly what he was doing, but that he was double crossing them. Aldric had no misconceptions that if he accepted the unspoken offer of alliance, he would beholden to them. While they would be limited by feasible options, it likely wouldn't be difficult for them to assume he had contacts, and important ones at that, in the League; and as such, while any requests made by Neo or Torchwick would by necessity be limited to what would not draw suspicion on him or them, they could still blackmail him into doing anything they wanted. And without the names of any of _Torchwick's_ government - or perhaps even Justice League! - contacts, she and Torchwick had him by the balls. The latter in a metaphorical sense, and the former, as clearly evidenced by the look of hunger in her eyes, a more literal sense.

In summation, no matter what he did, sooner or later he'd be fucked.

"From where I'm standing, the only one of us who would benefit from this would be you." He said, cautiously.

Torchwick hummed, "well, while such an arrangement would seem beneficial at first glance, I know better than most what happens when someone on a lower rung on the totem pole is put into a singularly beneficial relationship." He tapped his cane on the ground again, "it never lasts. Either he gets what he wants in the end and deposes the person in charge of him, or he dies trying - and in either case, his boss' gain is only temporary. " He shook his head, "no, in situations like these, I prefer a different solution... One you may have tapped into just a moment ago."

"Give your partners something in return." A pause, "like a business arrangement."

"And much like how you ceaselessly impress my gardener, so do you never cease to impress me." He hummed, "yes indeed. At the outset we can simply, mutually hold eachother's secrets, but as time goes on... Should we find ourselves in need of the other's help, we could provide it."

The part of Aldric that had thought it was a good idea to bite Pyrrha's sword was tempted to ask what exactly Torchwick could provide that could help him, but the part that had gotten endlessly excited at the prospect of getting a handful of Mercury's glass coins knew damn well and good what a powerful underworld connection like Torchwick could do. So too did he know why Torchwick want favors from Aldric - he was willing to bet, and rightly so, that Aldric could turn those favors in to far more legitimate sources, and potentially get things that the underworld couldn't.

"Fine." Aldric grunted, before he sighed. "Fine."

Torchwick's sneer turned to a genuine smile. "Oh good!" He said, clapping his hands together. "Now - as much as I do enjoy our time together, I do indeed have a robbery to finish planning." He nodded to the building next to them, and then to Neo. "I know how to get in touch with you." He hummed, "and I'm pretty certain one of us at least, will be seeing you again soon." And with that, and a tip of the hat, he began walking away; as he passed by Neo, he made another show of rolling his eyes, "oh fine. You've got until the car comes around."

Neo nodded gratefully, as Torchwick rounded the corner and out of sight. Now alone, Neo gave Aldric an amused look, resting her chin on her hand and arcing an eyebrow. Aldric knew that the whole song and dance he'd been giving her ever since he figured out she wanted in his pants was, at this point, thoroughly useless; so instead of adopting the facade, he merely dropped his shoulders and let the tension flood from his muscles, as he turned his head towards her. Yes, it didn't really make any difference in regards to him actually looking at her, or anyone really, but it got his point across. And, as much as she may terrify him, he did still have to deal with her; he dug this hole, it was time to lay in it.

After a few moments of silence, she made to straighten up, but found she was held in place by his semblance. A higher quirk of the eyebrow was her way of responding to it, to which Aldric said, "my fight against Nikos notwithstanding, I've gotten better." He let her go, and she sauntered up closer. "I don't blame you, but that doesn't mean I'm not pissed."

She nodded at that, shrugging. _The longer I know you, the more you surprise me, Mister Aldric._ She wrote, after slipping her scroll out of her pocket and tapping on its screen. _I'll let you in on a secret, consider it a cementation of our alliance, and a show of good faith: Cinder has no idea._ Aldric didn't respond, he just leaned against the wall, next to her. _I know her type, and I saw her earlier today. She wants to be there for the robbery tomorrow, see how Torchwick acts. He brought up our 'rendezvous', and I swear, if she had any less self control she would have gone as red as a tomato._

"And how does that indicate she doesn't know?" Aldric asked, "because every time I speak to her I get the opposite idea."

 _That's because you_ scare _her, Mister Aldric, as does she, you._ She said. _You've been playing our game for - how long did you say? Barely a year? Not even? No experience in that, no fighting experience, nothing of the sort, and the mountains you've climbed between then and now, she knows the potential she tapped into when she sank her claws into you, and I could tell from the way it took her just a little longer to respond than she usually does: When you weren't there the night we were apparently together, that was, if not the very first time period, then at least the first time she realized how little control she really has over you, and how much_ less _she'll have as you grow stronger._ She nodded her head to the side, before typing out, _I'll admit, I saw potential when we had our first fight, but there was always that little spot of doubt... And that evaporated when I got that text. **I** know what you're capable of, now, even more than **she** does, and that's how I can tell you that she's not only scared, she's right to be._

"I got my ass kicked by Pyrrha Nikos." But Neo didn't even type a response to that, she merely frowned, shook her head, and waved his statement away, as though it were irrelevant.

As she continued typing, the tone with which she was 'speaking' made it occur to Aldric that maybe Neo herself was taking a page out of her boss' book, and double dealing against _everyone_ by trying to win _him_ over, such that, even moreso than Torchwick, it didn't matter what happened. Unless she _died,_ she'd be taken care of. She worked for Torchwick, and no matter who won, so did he - but if Aldric was right, and she was trying to deal with him like he and Torchwick were dealing with eachother, that meant even if Torchwick somehow _lost,_ then she'd still be fine: Aldric was her backup. And, if her words were any indication, she had more than a sneaking suspicion that Aldric may find a way to come out on top over _everyone,_ and if that was the case, then she'd _still_ be fine, because even if her interest wasn't fully reciprocated, she was willing to bet her actual life on Aldric being too unwilling to compromise his morals to the point where he'd just _let_ someone die if he had the ability to stop it.

Worse was that even with one murder and another by proxy on his soul, as well as the inevitable participation in anywhere from dozens to thousands of deaths, Aldric wasn't sure if she was wrong. Maybe it was some sort of insane, twisted version of stockholm syndrome, or maybe it was because, of everyone he'd met so far, Neopolitan was the only one who had her head on straight, knew what she was doing at any given moment, and acted as though she had nothing to hide, but she _was_ starting to grow on him.

 _Only one person I've ever seen has positioned yourself like you do - and he just walked around the corner, thinking I might try and not take 'no' for an answer._ A beat, as she let that sink in, before she added, _\- still not an impossibility, mind you. ;)_ And her own expression matched that which she'd typed out, a wink and a smug sneer she made no effort at all to hide. _And like he said: He knows what sides to bet on, and you're looking like a surer and surer bet, the more we learn about you._

"You'll forgive me if that doesn't comfort me." Aldric deadpanned.

She nodded, _you're racking up a lot of experience, but you're still new to this, so_ _I'll give you that one._ She leaned in close, examining him. _Bu~ut, I can **also** tell that you probably just made your first body, so I won't give it long until you change your tune. _

"Again..." But she interrupted him with a wave of her hand.

 _Oh shush, if you're worried about her, I already said she has no idea. I've seen a **lot** of people after their first kills, I've seen the people who can't hold it in at all and the people who can hide it so well that it's almost impossible to tell. You're about halfway between the two, leaning to the other side, but Cinder? She surrounds herself with killers, and I'm pretty sure actually hasn't yet killed, herself. So she hasn't ever seen the look or burned it into her memory. _ She grinned, before adding, _and though I will admit to a curiosity as to whether or not that body had something to do with our little midnight rendezvous, I suppose at the moment it doesn't matter. I'll get the gory details some other time... Instead I'll point out that I definitely noticed how you avoided answering Mr. Torchwick's question._ She paused a few moments, tilting her head to the side, as though listening for something. _But the car's almost here, so let's wrap this up before you start answering to 'Goud' again._

 _Whoever you work for, be it yourself, or Cinder in your own way, or even if it's those who Cinder works against, you have a powerful ally now, just as duplicitous as you, and **very** interested in what it is you've accomplished in your short time. _

She then lowered the phone and leaned in close to him, standing on the edge of her toes and bringing her mouth inches from his ear. _"So don't... Mess... Up."_ And after a quick peck on his cheek, she spun on her heel and skipped away, sliding her scroll into her pocket and snatching her umbrella off of the ground.

Aldric stood there, leaned against the building that would, in its own way, kickstart the next year and everything afterwards. He didn't move for hours, silently staring at the ground, a frown on his face as his mind became a whirlwind of information and thoughts. First it was Ozpin and Qrow, then it was Adam Taurus, tentative as that was, and now it was Roman Torchwick, which could be argued as both more, and less, tentative than Taurus' hand.

For fuck's sake, he was building an army. But only a third of it had anything approaching loyalty for him, another third all but promised to betray him once their common enemy was gone, and the last one made it clear that the moment he showed weakness, they wouldn't hesitate to eat him alive.

 _Fuck... How does it go?_ Aldric thought, leaning his head back. _I must be spending every day pretending to act like I'm falsely letting on that I'm not not unbetraying someone I don't not purport to allegedly not work for, but really do._ Eat your fucking heart out, Revolver Ocelot, he had a _lifetime_ of practice to make sure he did that every day and never had an aneurysm; Aldric only had six months of trials-by-fire.

He wasn't just losing control of this anymore, he'd gone and _lost_ control entirely. He'd barely managed to stabilize it enough to keep moving forward as he'd originally intended, but one bad move, one mistake, and that was it. He needed a fallback now more than ever.

But he only had _one._

He let out a _long,_ exhausted sigh, and nodded to himself. "Tomorrow."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I'm going to be up late tonight, so this one will be fast._

 _To summarize:  
I passed the entrance exam (whodathunkit),  
I actually had a match with Pyrrha in so doing (she kicked the ever-living shit out of me),  
I've added Torchwick to the Watchmen (Holy Fucking Shit),  
I think Neo may be so confident in me that she's double dealing **everyone** in the event that I win (Jesus Fucking Christ),  
The dust store robbery that'll get Ruby Rose into Beacon is happening tonight (And so it begins)._

 _Aaand... I'm about to do something really fucking stupid._

 _Welp, let's hope I don't fuck this one up._

 _I think something this monumentally stupid calls for a song._

 _So sing it with me:_

 _We're off to see the Wizard..._

* * *

 _The wonderful wizard of Oz..._

He spent the rest of the day preparing, and waited until it was midnight on the dot before he went out. That night, he had his mask, glasses, and shemagh all secured to his head, and a single destination in mind. He took off through the cold night air like a bullet fired from a gun. It was actually further than he initially expected, taking him twenty minutes to get there at nearly mach-speeds, and he didn't land until ten minutes after he arrived - he had to scout the place out _thoroughly_ to make sure nothing surprised him.

 _We hear he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was._

Fortunately for his first visit to Beacon, all of the huntsman teaching there, both retired and active, were catching up on their sleep, likely in preparation for the tidal wave of students they were about to be slammed with. There wasn't a single man or woman patrolling the grounds, and most importantly: Ozpin wasn't in his office. That may not have been comforting, considering the last time Aldric 'saw' him, but at least this time Aldric had been able to locate him, bunked with the rest of the teachers in their quarters.

 _If ever a wonderful wiz there was, the Wizard of Oz is one because -_

So after he checked the grounds and the quarters five times, once even focusing his radar so closely that he could discern individual atoms in the air, and gaining confidence that there wasn't anyone patrolling the school, Aldric, with a deep breath, settled in for the long haul, and came in for a landing. There were cameras everywhere, and befitting of the importance of the building and its martial structure, there were hardly, if any, blindspots where it mattered, so Aldric didn't even bother trying to hide from them - thus why he took on the disguise. He'd probably have to abandon his beloved longcoat for something smaller after this, at least until he was out of Beacon, but he had convinced himself - or at least was praying _very hard -_ that it would be worth it.

 _Because, because, because, because, becaaaaause..._

The building was powered down for the night, so Aldric had to unlock and open the doors with a swipe of his hand - after making sure they weren't connected to any security systems, of course. He closed them behind him, and with his hands in his pockets and a general Rorschach-esque air, strode further inside. He walked through the cavernous, dark, and silent lobby, and past the front desk, to the elevators. The one in the center was his goal - it was the only one that went as far up as he wanted, _and,_ his radar clued him into, also went down.

 _Of all of the wonderful things he does._

After resisting a mountainous urge to actually go down and see if he couldn't find what all the League had recovered from his crash site, Aldric jabbed a finger into the 'up' button. The trip up was smooth and, aside from the light groan and grind of the cables, completely silent. He was deposited into Ozpin's wide office, and spent a moment to marvel at how he wasn't deafened by all of the gears tirelessly turning all around him. Once he was done, he walked right in, to Ozpin's desk. Aside from how dark the office was, it looked just like Aldric had seen it so many times before, its touch-screen powered down, silent, and void of anything atop it.

Aldric changed that.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, bulky, brown paper bag. On its upward-facing side was written, in big white letters, _'CHECK EMAIL B4 OPENING'._ Aldric hesitated for a moment, staring at the beg, knowing this was his last chance to back out, his last chance to try and keep going at this alone, to keep his single greatest trump card close to his chest.

He shook his head. _"Down went Alice after it."_ He turned to face the desk, and tossed the bag on it with a light thump, that single act seeming to take all of his strength. Stowing his hand in his pocket again, he turned to the corner of the room - where he saw an unhidden security camera.

With firm, purposeful motions, he pointed at the brown paper bag, then at the camera, and then tapped on his wrist, as though he were wearing a watch. He then pulled out his scroll and slid it open; it woke up to his messaging app, already open and a draft waiting on him. Still making eye contact with the camera, Aldric tapped 'send', and then snapped the scroll in half, stowed the broken pieces in his inner pocket, and then his hand in his waist pocket, and then promptly began walking right out.

 _Never once considering how in the world she was to get out again._

* * *

 _From: PrivatePyleWhatAreYouTryingToDoToMyBelovedCorps-(a)-ScarlettMailCCT_

 _To:OzpinHeadMast-(a)-BeaconCCT  
_

 _Subject: The Scientific Method; Or - how YOUR LIFE can be saved by the miracles of post-modern thought!_

 _Message:_

 _I think you're close, but you're not asking the **right** question. ____Since an assumption that Earth is either A) Somewhere out there in this very universe; or B) In another universe entirely, is irrelevant due primarily to the fact that, barring an act of God, I won't return there or you won't visit there, I think the more prudent question would be to ask__ why do humans exist on two separate worlds, with more similarities between them than differences?_

 _I'm not sure quite how you people do it, but mine boiled the pursuit of knowledge down to an ironclad method.  
First, we ask a question, which I've done. _

_Then, we do research, figure out what we know.  
What we know without a doubt is that humans exist simultaneously in two different locations. We know that humans and terrans both speak remarkably similar languages, with familiar grammar rules, the only difference between the two being the way it is written, and that can be boiled down to merely a locational difference. Despite that, the way we represent our numbers is completely identical. _

_We know that, in many areas, our technology mirrors eachother, and in others we are either behind or ahead of the other. We know that terrans and humans share many concepts with eachother, despite ostensibly having never met **once** before I was brought here to exchange said ideas; to the point that even many of our religions either share elements and ideals, or are functionally identical.  
And finally, we know that humans and terrans have aura, despite only one planet having any sort of evolutionary imperative for the generation and use of such a thing._

 _Expanding on that, we know that aura is tied intrinsically to Dust, in so much that the latter is often required in some capacity to awaken or empower the former. Once awakened, is capable of things that bend, or even break, the laws of physics as we know them. Aura-users can craft realistic illusions, create clones of themselves, heal themselves, achieve relativistic speeds, manipulate the physical world without the application of physical force, and read and influence minds, with new and unprecedented abilities sprouting up at such a consistent rate it would be simpler to say 'constantly'; to say nothing of the Maidens. And that finally, it is possible for skilled aura users to sense other users._

 _With our research done, we then construct a hypothesis._

 _In this case: Humans exist in two different places, and share so many concepts and ideas primarily due to the influence of Dust._

 _From here, we test this with an experiment.  
In this case, the experiment would be one world, in some way, making contact with the other._

 _This has empirically happened twice, and conjecturally: Thrice._

 _The empirical evidence we have of our worlds interacting is first in myself. The first conjectural evidence we would have would be if we, due to the similarities between the Maidens and myself, assume that the original Master was indeed a terran and thus from Earth._

 _As for the second empirical evidence of contact, I have no doubt you discovered a package in your office alongside this message.  
Open the box, and inside you will find terran technology. The small black brick with a wire running out of it is something I modified myself, so as to ensure the device can safely be connected to Remnant power grids and regain its charge. The large slate in the green sleeve is known as a 'tablet computer', think of it like you would a large scroll. On one end you will find port you will plug the smaller end of the wire into should it ever need a full charge. On the other is a headphone jack, which will be useless to you - I am yet unsure if your analog headphones would work with my technology, and I only have one pair of terran headphones, which I will keep, hopefully for obvious reasons. _

_On its side is the important parts. Orient the tablet such that the headphone jack is on top, that is the upright position. Once upright, on the tablet's right-hand side are three buttons, the one closest to the top is the power button._

 _And while not relevant at this very moment, this will be useful later: On the left-hand side of the tablet, closer to the bottom, is a small hatch that can be pried open. Inside that is a card that stores the data you'll be accessing here in a moment. To remove it, merely press on the card until you hear it click, and then let go - it will slide far enough out that you can pull it the rest of the way.  
_

 _Hold the power button until the screen lights up, and once the computer inside is finished booting up, you will find that it functions similarly to scrolls. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to unlock the device; the code is 0-6-3-6.  
I have purged most of the data except for what you will need right now, anything left that I don't explicitly mention here was left on accident, call it a gift if you wish. If at a later date you require or desire the less relevant data I possess, I can see about arranging a delivery. At the bottom right-hand corner of the screen you will see several icons, select the one labeled 'camera roll', with a picture of a camera in front of a picture frame over it. _

_Before you follow the next instructions, I will preface this by saying I am not a programmer. Everything I've learned since I got to Remnant has been self taught, and I haven't yet figured out how to make terran tech and human tech interface. Resultantly: The files you will find on this device originated from Earth, and years before I arrived here, at that._

 _There will only be one folder, labeled 'Video', and in that folder, only five files. Four are relevant, but I included the one labeled 'WOR' for posterity and transparency's sake. Select the one at the bottom of the list labeled 'Volume One'._ _ _Choosing to view 'Volume Two', 'Volume Three', and 'Volume Four' can be done at your own discretion afterwords, but for the moment, only the first file is required._ Everything following this will be written under the assumption that you will have followed all directions thus far written, and have finished the file labeled 'Volume One'.  
_

 _..._

 _Now that you're finished, I will once again repeat: That file, everything you just saw, came from **Earth.** From one of **my** people.  
And if I'm right, then those beginning few minutes - in which you met Little Red Riding Hood and invited her to your school - either have already happened, or will happen in mere days, at the absolute latest.  
_

 _I believe this - and the rest of the files I included - to be evidence of further contact between my world and yours, and perhaps even explanatory of a few questions we still have lingering about how the White Witch located Earth and was able to pull terrans from it. On Earth, we believed this to be a work of fiction, and whether we exist concurrently in the same universe, or in two different realities altogether, that supposition clearly wasn't correct, and this ties into the final steps of the method:_

 _Analyze the data and draw conclusions, and I believe these files can allow us to do just that, with far greater accuracy than we can without._

 _Common religious belief on Remnant is that people were born **from** Dust, and that it has as many physical properties as metaphysical ones, and due to Dust's intrinsic relationship with Aura, and humanity's relationship with both of them, I believe we can conclude that on some level this is true: That Dust led to humanity's evolution, and, as an aside, the absence of it on Earth could potentially explain the stark lack of terran faunus. _

_With this conclusion, we can move forward to understanding how it is we share so many concepts: The very Dust we were born from bred the **same** species in two different environments. It controlled most of the variables **of** said birth, and from it, the people of Remnant drew most, and if not, all of their current scientific and technological breakthroughs, starting with the utilization of our Aura. One could take this to imply and indicate that Dust not only birthed our species, but similarly a great many of our scientific concepts, and perhaps even our very concept of society as we know, understand, and experience it. _

_To wit: All of these shared ideas and concepts exist in two very different environments **specifically** because they existed in the one thing our species invariably have in common: Dust. _

_The question of 'then where did Dust get those ideas' can be left for a later date, as it may be anywhere from theological to perhaps even extraterrestrial in nature._

 _Back to point, there is no better proof of the above than the files I just had you watch.  
Here we must make just one assumption, but considering out previous correspondence and indeed empirical evidence, this assumption wouldn't be an outlandish one to make._

 _Since we believe - or at least theorize and are assuming - that the original Master was a terran, that thusly means it is possible to awaken Aura on Earth, albeit it is difficult, due to the vast difference in quantities of Dust between our planets. Since it happened once, that means it isn't impossible for it to happen a second time - and I believe, in this case, it very well **did** happen again. _

_The 'creator' of this 'show' awoke his aura, and whereas what is left when **my** powers seal themselves up is a telekinetic ability, his could have been one of foresight. The exact machinations of this foresight (my leading theories are tachyonic literacy or the ability to read Dust itself) are semantics, as they both lead to the same conclusion: He saw the future, and since such an ability would lead itself to functional omniscience, it doesn't become difficult to conclude he saw the futures of Remnant and Earth. _

_Exactly why he chose to make a literal show out of it, we may never know. Perhaps he saw the futures of Earth and Remnant were both linked and sought to warn the terrans of what it was he saw in the only way we would accept the information at face value: As a form of fiction. Or perhaps he didn't understand exactly what was happening, and merely attributed it all to the creative muse. Perhaps both at the same time, perhaps it is somewhere in the middle._

 _But, if we accept that he awoke his aura, then something else falls into place: The White Witch discovered Earth because another Aura-user, of strength and power reminiscent - and perhaps greater than - the four Maidens and the original Master, awoke his power, acting as (if you'll forgive the term) a beacon of sorts, one only those powerful enough could sense. The White Witch took this information, and Ancient Dust, to create an easier method of observing and studying my planet, and eventually discovered and executed a way to physically reach into it and pull out a small population of terrans, leading to the accident that crashed my plane and left me the sole surviving terran on Remnant, and everything that happened afterwards - also explaining why the events depicted in the files I sent will differ in ways either small or huge, from what we have experienced now: The future changed because he looked into it._

 _To summarize:  
Whether or not we share a universe, our worlds are empirically and conjecturally linked, and this link is why humans exist in such identical ways, despite the vast distance that separates us._

 _Now, as I am certain you will ask: Why am I giving this to you?  
I could say that it's because I trust you, and while therein does lay some truth, a vast majority of that truth instead lies in that it's because I've come to the conclusion that failing to do so would be tantamount to supporting the enemy more than I already am. _

_On my world we have a saying, that with great power must also come great responsibility. It means that if you have the power to do something, to improve a life, it is your moral obligation to bear whatever burden you must and do so. If you don't, and something adverse happens as a result, it happened because you failed to intervene; but the inverse is also true: If you have power, and tried your best, and something still happened, you can take some small solace in the idea that you at least **tried.** _

_That's what I'm doing here: Trying.  
With the nature of my work, I could be made and killed at any given moment - verily, I've come closer in the last few weeks than I have since I first contacted you - and if I die without giving you the information I have, then every single life that is lost is on my shoulders, as a result. But if I instead give you this information, and **then** I die, at the very least someone can take on my work and use that information for the betterment of mankind. Even if the future has already changed so as to be unrecognizable, and that information is only useful as reference material, that doesn't diminish its value, but rather changes the way it is valuable. _

_While I work in the dark, Ozbourne, and use it in my own way, you, who work in the light, can use it in **your** own way._

 _And, while I have every confidence that you are smart enough to realize this, I do feel it still needs to be said: Beyond Crowley, whom I would only include due to him already being in the know, what you have cannot be allowed to spread too far._

 _I personally would say **at all** , but considering the weight of it, and indeed what I'm doing right now, I would instead say: To anyone with whom you don't trust your very existence, or the **entire** success of your plan.  
_

 _It **has** to be eyes only. There is only **one** other copy in the world of the data you have - and I specifically keep it stored in a medium that is removed from devices that can read it, and on my person at all times. If it spreads, the damage wouldn't be catastrophic, it would be downright apocalyptic - especially if we operate under the assumption that those files serve as a warning, and that both of our worlds are in some sort of danger._

 _And finally, as I know it will be brought up:  
Yes. This means I lied to you on at least two occasions, and indeed could have tried to spare Her, if not of the encounter entirely, then at least during said encounter. Indeed it's arguable that my actions left Her in a worse state than she would have, without me. _

_I make no excuses, I only offer up this as an explanation. More than once I found myself in a discussion as to the ethics of our deployment of the first and second atomic bombs during World War 2, and my argument never shifted, in that, while the heinous nature isn't in question, there do exist 'necessary' evils.  
To wit: While I know, understand, and accept, that the act of taking a life is in and of itself evil no matter the context, if taking said life saves more than would be lost by sparing it, then ending that life becomes a necessary evil.  
_

 _I affirmed this belief when I voluntarily chose to work with Lady In Red, under the understanding that I could do more good by staining my soul and taking evil unto me, than I could by deliberately avoiding it in service of seeking a moral high ground._

 _To that effect: With what you knew at the start of the day, and what you will know once you finish going over my files, try to imagine only what would have happened if I had prevented Lady In Red from taking Her powers entirely. Even if you ignore the fact that such an act may have rendered my contacting you impossible - or at the very least incredibly difficult - and the risk to my own life it would create, I am certain that her plan to attack and destroy Beacon would have resulted in far more casualties and lives lost, as she would have forced it to continue for as long as it took her to hunt Her down and steal Her abilities. Following that, the fear and negative emotions such a tremendous loss of life would create, would cause a domino effect across all of Remnant, making the Grimm more powerful and more violent, resulting in even more lives lost, and around and around the circle goes, until it ends at perhaps a greater ease with which she could topple other academies and kingdoms._

 _And that's **just** if I rescued Her. Say I killed or otherwise removed Cresset from play (As an aside, I believe I have secured his alliance as well, but I would hold him at a greater length than Red Bull, due to the former's opportunistic inclinations) - a power vacuum and a gang war would be the result. People would die, and she would use the chaos to more easily steal Vale's Dust - likely with less skilled gangs, who thusly would end up killing more during the process. And, of course, the Grimm would feed off of the despair such losses of life would generate.  
If I made or make any **hugely** major changes that may give us gains in the short run, we could very well find that those gains outweigh what it costs us down the line. _

_So, you can understand why I didn't initially give you two the information I have. I wasn't then - and honestly am still not - fully sure the benefits gained by sharing this information with you would outweigh what interacting with the very fabric of time would inevitably cost us; but as I said, I feel it is my duty to share with you this information, such that it does not die with me in the event of my death.  
And whatever damage it may do to your image of me, I also had to be sure, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that those events truly were indicative of the future, and not merely a **potential** outcome among many. Thus, why - among others - I had to allow our battle with Her to take place.  
_

 _You said you read about the Manhattan project, and perhaps that will summarize the 'why' of this nicely: What I just gave you is the information equivalent to a nuclear bomb. Anyone with it has to be **precisely** careful in the way they use it, up to and including the way they would **consider** using it - because once it is used, the war they're fighting ceases to be recognizable, for better or for worse. _

_Anecdotally, what you may not know about that project is, initially, the numbers pointed to the bomb (among the weakest of its kind, as technology has advanced) being capable of lighting our entire atmosphere on fire - obviously killing every single living thing on Earth - if detonated.  
People often like to follow that up with, 'and they did it anyway', and that is indeed a valid lesson to be taught: Sometimes the situation is dire enough that extreme force and a sudden, drastic, and irrevocable change to everything as we know it, is warranted in the effort to fix it. _

_But what few know and fewer point out is that the man who was the driving force for the science behind the bomb, was confronted with these numbers. His response to them was to command the scientists who got the numbers to check them again, and then check a third time. He said that if they didn't change at all, he would do what he had to to ensure the project was abandoned and buried forever, because defeat was a preferable outcome to **that.**_

 _I hope you understand what I'm implying.  
_

 _-Nathan Drake_


	27. Wham!

_AN:  
For those of you that celebrate it, consider this my Christmas present: A wham episode!  
And for those of you who don't, a convivial Monday in December to you, Mr. Pool!_

* * *

Chapter 26

* * *

 _For the Record._

 _You know, it's probably not important, doesn't really mean much, but uh - I gave the Justice League a copy of RWBY, and entered a philosophical pseudo-debate as to the benefits and drawbacks of the Manhattan project.  
_

 _Yeah._

 _Here's the rub: Torchwick is a lot more of_ _ _a dangerously genre savvy magnificent bastard than the show ever got to give him credit for.  
How so?  
Oh, well, it's simple, really: He's some kind of unholy trinity between Wilson Fisk (contacts everywhere, in both the criminal and government worlds), Whitey Bulger (dropping a lot of information to the feds in exchange for breathing room and functional impunity in regards to his enterprises), and Hans Landa (a clear willingness to jump ship and bat for the other team if he feels the need).__

 _In other words, my worst fucking nightmare. Like me, he's batting for the League **and** the Legion, but unlike me, he isn't doing so with the intention of subverting one group for the betterment of the other, but rather with the intention of seeming loyal to both, such that he can very well stick with whoever wins. _

_I know I've made **jokes** about that inadvertently being what may happen to me, but for chrissakes they were **jokes!** _

_It reminds of Catch 22. The old man (I forget if he was named) claimed he was a fascist when Mussolini led his country, but once he was deposed, he was anti-fascist. But then when the Nazis conquered the place, he was full-on pro-German. Heil Hitler. But then, the US came in, wrecking shit, and he subsequently became the most 'America, Fuck Yeah!' guy in Europe._

 _Whoever won, or was winning, he voted for, and gave his loyalty to. Whoever lost, or was losing, he hated. There wasn't a bandwagon he **wouldn't** jump.  
Torchwick feels much the same, but instead of simply being there on the sidelines, he's an active participant in the goings-on, and is playing the game in a way that makes his loyalties to each side seem as if he's working for them, when in reality he's only loyal to himself._

 _And apparently he thinks that because I managed to (and, in a way, still am) keep all of my clandestine goings-on a secret from Cinder **and** him for so long, that I may very well be a player on his, or Cinder's level. To that end, he proposed an alliance of sorts: We'll keep eachother's secrets, and provide help and resources if we need it.  
_

 _In other words: The Watchmen now include me, Qrow, Ozpin, Adam Taurus, and Roman fucking Torchwick - and through all of them I have an army that could probably succeed where all others have failed: Invade Russia in the winter.  
_

 _Jokes aside, I'm in one hell of a pickle, Rick, because not only am I pretty sure whatever 'help' he asks for is of the 'further stain my soul' variety, but the very instant I show any kind of weakness, Torchwick could decide to sell me out.  
Wonderful.  
Though it does occur to me that I can turn that right the fuck around on him, once Ruby Rose starts kicking his ass, only instead of tearing him a new one, I can show loyalty and support (to a certain limit), and that may win some from him, instead.  
Food for thought.  
_

 _And then there's Neo, which can be summarized as: She thinks even more than Torchwick that I may be a major player - on Salem or Ozpin's level, and she's double-dealing on **everyone** by all but throwing herself at me under the belief that I may champion over everyone, and keep her taken care of when I do.  
I've discussed her and I to death though, and beyond that, not much has changed; you (whoever you are) will be the first (well, second) to know when it does. Moving on._

 _Considering the thin ice I've been walking on and all of the stuff I've done and clear and present risks to my life in the last few days alone, I decided I needed to lay all my cards out on the table, so I gave Ozpin a copy of my RWBY card, and a means with with to view it.  
Time will only fucking tell whether or not that was a good or a bad move; I expect a response soon - the dust store robbery that puts Ruby Rose in Ozpin's sights will happen tonight, and that'll prove to him what all I have isn't BS._

 _I'm hoping, at least, he'll take the same Doc Brown stance I have, in regards to fucking with time. He told me that he had read about the Manhattan Project from what he recovered from the airplane, so I used the whole 'set the world on fire and they did it anyway' thing to impress upon him what it was we were dealing with, here, and how we had to deal with it._

 _I like to think he's smart enough to figure it out on his own... But his people don't have nukes, mine do, so I felt it prudent to make the point, just in case.  
They also don't have superheroes (not like ours), so I used the Spiderman mantra too, but that was more to explain why it took me so long to bring this up and why I - among other things - didn't save Amber when I could have._

 _And then... Pretty much exactly when I thought I'd get it (the very next night), I got his response.  
Apparently I put the pants-shittingly terrible fear of God into him, so much so that he wants to meet.  
As in, face to face.  
_

 _The good news is that, that probably means, like yesterday, I'll have done so much and been up so late that day, that I'll be so exhausted when I get done that I'll actually have a good night's sleep.  
The bad news is that I'll actually have to be up so damn late in order to do so._

 _Oh, and, you know: I've got to have a pow-wow with the guy who fooled my Radar Pulse, which means I can't rely on him being as alone as he implies he'll be._

 _Welp: If I don't make another entry, you'll at least know I **proooooooobably** fucked it up.  
Hopefully I'll leave as big a smear on the rooftop as possible, and ruin at least **one** more person's day._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

 _To:  
_ _ _PrivatePyleWhatAreYouTryingToDoToMyBelovedCorps_ -(a)-ScarletMailCCT; _____CC:CrowBar-(a)-SignalCCT____

 _From:_ _ _OzpinHeadMast-(a)-BeaconCCT__

 _ _ _Subject: RE: The Scientific Method; Or - how YOUR LIFE can be saved by the miracles of post-modern thought!___

 _ _ _Message:___

 _ _ _ _ _ _Mister Drake, I do very much appreciate not only your placing this level of trust in me, but also the great risk you are taking in placing said trust.______

 _ _ _ _ _ _As predicted by your 'Prophet', and ascertained by you: I did indeed make contact with Little Red Riding Hood, the very day you left me this message, in fact.______

 _ _ _ _ _ _I must admit, I wasn't sure at all what to think of the implications of what you sent me when I first saw them, as they are staggering; and following my apparently pre-ordained meeting, I know even less what to think. Very few times would I ever fully admit to being out of my league, and I do believe that this will have to be one of them.______

 _ _ _I believe, Mister Drake,___ _ _ _ _ _ _especially following these developments,___ it may be time to follow your example and lay all of our cards on the table, as it were. As well, I do also believe that, much like how you left nothing but your discovery to chance and left me these things in purely a physical medium, I think my response must also be done physically. Suffice to say there are pieces to the narrative, questions that, much like how Crowley and I didn't quite reach in our last correspondence, you have just barely missed reaching yourself, in this one.___

 _ _ _I, as I assume, do you, remember the place in which we first met, face-to-face. I will be there for one hour, every night at midnight, for as long as it takes for you to make contact.___

 _ _ _-Ozbourne___

* * *

Aldric waited until the Sunday before Goud would have to pack everything up and ship out to Beacon, to follow up on Ozpin's offer.

Two of the _longest_ days in his life.

When the time came, he was so nervous that it took him forty five minutes just to lace up one boot. It was eleven thirty by the time he'd gotten fully decked out in his Nathan Drake disguise. True to his word, Ozpin arrived at Mogar's precisely at midnight, again materializing out of nowhere, in regards to his Radar. But, be it because he was - appropriately - paranoid, or because he'd been blindsided enough the last week, Aldric waited until the last minute to scope the place out, and when no one else arrived, at 12:59, Aldric took a single, steadying breath, and came in for a landing.

If Ozpin was at all put off at how long it took Aldric to arrive, he didn't show it, merely looking down at Aldric with a light frown, and a flash of something behind his glasses that Aldric couldn't identify. It almost looked like guilt, or even regret.

"Mister Drake." He nodded, turning to face him, the both of them framed by the harsh green light of the neon sign looming above them.

 _"Ozpin."_ Aldric rasped.

The edge of the headmaster's lips twitched in a brief grin, "still suffering from laryngitis, I see."

 _"I've been busy."_

"Quite busy, it seems." Ozpin nodded, "both Adam Taurus and Roman Torchwick... You are proving to be worth your weight in gold, young man." He said, "I regret less and less each day convincing Qrow not to incapacitate you and take you in, that night."

 _"Still tried."_

"And yet here we stand." Ozpin turned again, to face Beacon, off in the distance. "I can't tell you how many times I looked over what it was you gave me. I spent much of that first day doing nothing but committing them to memory..." A beat passed, "and, I admit, fiddling with your technology. Seeing what little you left, the symbols of your heroes, the records of their deeds. It is the first of its kind I have had the chance to study... It appears that the survivors of that crash absconded with nearly everything of digital value, before leaving."

 _"Had a good reason."_ Aldric responded, stepping up next to Ozpin, his hands in his pockets, as opposed to Ozpin, who held them respectfully behind his ramrod-straight back.

"Of that, I have no doubt." Said Ozpin, with a solemn nod. "Have you any luck in accessing your powers?" He asked, briefly looking down at his guest.

 _"Some."_ Aldric said, _"Lady In Red wanted to recruit a telepath, intended to use her own abilities to spark mine, and test the new recruit's."_

"A telepath... Troubling, but a fitting replacement for your lost illusionist, from that point of view."

 _"Telepath's dead."_ Was all Aldric responded with.

That attracted Ozpin's undivided attention, though Aldric kept looking ahead. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mister Drake." He said, genuinely.

 _"Necessary evils."_ The beat that came next was the longest in Aldric's life, but he did amend his statement. _"But evil nonetheless. Haven't slept, see the telepath and Her in my good dreams."_

"And in the bad ones?"

 _"The White Witch has a crash survivor. Sometimes one, sometimes more. Gets back to Earth, invades."_

"That is what we aim to prevent, Mister Drake." Ozpin said, with conviction. "For what it's worth, Mister Drake, I would consider you a good man, despite your circumstances." He said, "and though it is true that sometimes good men must do bad things... That does not diminish their righteousness."

 _"Appreciate it."_ Aldric said, " _but made peace with it before I made the cadaver. Not here for that."_

Ozpin nodded, turning back forward. "Right." He said, "I understood the point you were making, in regards to those files and their metaphorical relation to your Manhattan Project... And while the idealist in me may wish for otherwise, the realist does at least agree that there are some things that mustn't be interfered with, lest we court catastrophe." He took in a deep breath, "I do hope to be able to save Beacon, even if it costs me my life, at the very least... But from what you've shown me, without an army on standby, that may be a fool's errand... And it worries me what may happen if we interfere with the Lady In Red's hijacking of Atlas' unmanned forces."

 _"World War Two."_

"I wonder if we may call it that, if the time ever came." Ozpin mused, "but yes. The tensions between our nations have only barely cooled... And nearly everything Atlas does, does nothing to assist that. Merging their huntsman with their military, investing more money into their military than the next few kingdoms' budgets combined, and flaunting the power and influence that buys at every chance... One bad move, and we could find ourselves falling headlong into another great war, and thus only serving to further the White Witch's plans." He explained, "interfering with Lady In Red's takeover, while it would allow us complete victory in the defense of Beacon and the Vale, it would only throw more fuel to the fire, internationally." He shook his head, "the various councils of three will not understand... They know not the war we wage in the shadows, they only see their people and their borders."

 _"Human nature."_ Aldric opined, with a shrug of the head. _"Same on Earth."_ It'd take an apocalypse to unite the terrans, and even then, Aldric wasn't sure on that bet.

"I suppose... But from what I've learned, the greatest threat posed to your terrans, is they themselves." He countered, "here, we face threats from within and without... And it is only in times of dire struggle, when the Grimm are tearing down their doors, that people truly begin to understand that." He said, sorrow in his voice. "Even I suffer from this... Many times I venture out to the ruins of cities and civilizations past, to remind myself of why I fight." He paused, "I commend you for that, Mister Drake. Your dedication, and how, so far as I've seen at least, you've never once lost sight of your goal."

 _"Hard to do when it's literally in my pocket."_

Ozpin snorted, "perhaps." He said, "the good news is that I know there are things in which I can realistically intervene, without causing too much damage and courting too great a disaster." He made a sweeping gesture with his hand, "the breach, would be an example." He said, "already now, I can begin showing some interest in tracing Grimm activity in abandoned development and extension projects... Leading eventually to my discovery of Torchwick's operations... Perhaps even granting you an opportunity to win his favor, in so doing."

 _"Dangerous game."_ Aldric warned, _"start too early, tip Lady In Red off, plan changes, information is useless... Even with update from me."_

"I suppose there would be difficulties." Ozpin agreed, "but I do believe preventing, or at the very least majorly mitigating the damage of, the breach shall benefit us more than it could harm us."

 _"And your death?"_ Aldric asked, the chill in the air slowly becoming great enough that his breath left a light fog.

Ozpin hummed, "you seem to know as well as I that such a thing will only slow me down." He said, "serving, actually, as a perfect segue into why I called you here."

 _"Gonna tell me how you cheat death?"_

"I will... But if you will humor me, I've a very old story to tell."

Aldric shrugged, _"you're the headmaster."_

Ozpin took in a deep breath, "it was many centuries ago." He said, "so many past that first dozen that, to be frank, I have lost count on more than one occasion. It was before the time of grand kingdoms, I lived in a small, fledgling village with eyes on expansion. It had been around for awhile already, when I was born, but it was in such an ancient time that only the lucky, prosperous few could get such a meager education that they could read. Fortunately, I was one of those people... And it was in being taught reading that I first discovered my voracious desire, and endless respect, for knowledge.

"One morning I was called away by my father; unlike I, he hadn't a great education, only enough to successfully run a mining operation for stones and precious metals. He told me that morning that one of his workers had discovered a strange, sandy substance, that glowed when a person approached it, and was warm to the touch of the few people brave enough to do so." He nodded to the side, "it is with the benefit of hindsight that I can properly identify it as Dust, and what we would know today as Ancient Dust - the very same kind from which the White Witch drew the power to bring you here... But at the time, not only was it an unheard of substance, but it hadn't yet been discovered in any quantity at all, let alone large enough quantities to mine; and I say that, knowing full well and good that the amount of Dust my father found was so comparatively small to what we find in modern times, that the Schnee Dust Company would have declared it a bad investment, and not pursued a mining contract.

"But I?" He shook his head, humming as he sank into his memories. "I was enthralled. I thought that perhaps this would be how I could earn my place among the other great scholars of my time and my ancestry... I followed my father to his mine and took up as much of the Dust as we could retrieve; barely three buckets-full... But enough to sate my desires, and more than enough to place me on the road to where I am today. So, we loaded it all in the buckets, and returned to home, where I could study it." He said, with a wistful smile. "Our beautiful home... A poet later in our history would call it _'Urbs Aeterna',_ the Eternal City... And for good reason, too. It achieved its dreams of expanding, and it stands tall to this day, after more than twenty eight centuries of continuous history. Though, as I said, I knew it before all of that...

"I knew it when it was just _Roma."_

Aldric blinked, pursed his lips, and took in a long breath through his nose, before letting it out slowly, and looking up to the silver-haired headmaster, who himself was glancing down at Aldric, with a knowing, however wistful, smile.

Aldric's response, however, seemed to fall outside of Ozpin's prediction. _"Et tu,_ _Brute?"_ He rasped, _"had theory. Still have."_ He rasped. _"Actually two. First, that Lady In Red knows everything I'm doing. Is allowing subversive action as a method to obtain information would not be willing to give in other circumstances. That apparent victories in convincing her am on her side aren't at all."_ He looked back ahead. _"That she can read terran English._ You _can, apparently."_

"That is an unhealthy way to live, Mister Drake." Ozpin said, his frown settling into one of equal parts pity, regret, and sorrow.

 _"Haven't heard second theory."_ Said Aldric, _"but first takes precedence."_ He said, turning to face the headmaster fully. _"Anyone can name names. Can memorize countries. Make implication that they are Master or Maiden, to use magic as means of proving validity."_

"You seek a method of proving that you are wrong, and I am who I claim to be."

 _"Acknowledge that it is unhealthy. But am still alive. Is it paranoia if they are really out to get you?"_

Despite his earlier words, Ozpin did nod. "So I cannot use my magics to prove who I am, I cannot name things or concepts from Earth, and cannot refer to our earlier correspondences, as all three could feasibly be replicated by the Lady In Red." He grinned, "nor can I attempt to name things from the tablet you gave me, as you imply a fear that your allies could access it, and could perhaps have its information and be feigning ignorance." He nodded, "an interesting challenge."

 _"Am well aware of the way it sounds. But also am at war with a demi-goddess, a demoness, and their collective armies and resources."_ Aldric reiterated. _"Would rather sound insane and be alive, than the opposite."_ A pause, _"and will apologize... If this turns out to be needless difficulty."_

To which, Ozpin nodded. "No, I understand." He said, "you play a dangerous game, and have understandable fears and quirks developed by your experiences. Truly, I would have been more worried had you accepted my words at face value." He looked back into the distance, to Beacon. "Fortunately, I do have a means of proving my own validity to you. Of, perhaps, earning your trust." He trailed off, but Aldric's silence prompted him to continue. "I implied during our first meeting and in subsequent correspondences that we had discovered your air ship's crash site, and had taken everything we could from it and stored it in our vault."

 _"Been wondering how. Burned everything we didn't take for that reason."_

Ozpin smiled, "burned what you had taken from their luggage, which we did find the evidence of, mister Drake. But not from the large section in the ship's belly."

 _The cargo hold._ Aldric would give himself and Ozpin some credit - the former for his luck and the latter for finding it. _That's why they didn't have any of our technology. No one ever drops their expensive electronics in their suitcases, they carry it with them in case it gets lost._ So there could have been a treasure trove of books and reference material in the plane's cargo hold that Aldric hadn't even considered looting, but comparatively few tablets and computers. There could be parts, but little else. " _Okay."_ He nodded. _"You want to show me to the vault, because if Lady In Red could get in so easily, she would have done so."_

"And I do feel that a small homecoming, as good as it can be, could be healthy for the both of us." Ozpin said, before holding his arm out. "Shall we?"

Aldric shook his head, _"will meet you there."_ And with a grunt, he launched himself into the sky, before zooming off to Beacon.

* * *

It did occur to Aldric that he was being difficult, but he worked under the assumption that the long game would be rendered far simpler if he did these things now. If he proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that his suspecting Cinder of knowing everything was just paranoia, it would open up opportunities to build better relationships and alliances with the Watchmen - be they allies by choice, like Ozpin and Qrow, or by opportunity, like Taurus and Torchwick - by simple virtue of not constantly working under the assumption that Cinder was a magnificent bastard and already had all of them on her payroll.

But, as he landed at Beacon for the second time in as many days, to find Ozpin waiting in front of Beacon Tower, Aldric would admit that the unintended benefit of being able to sift through what the Justice League recovered from his flight would do wonders for his psyche. It felt like it had been far too long since he had even looked at anything from Earth, let alone taken time to watch a terran movie or read a terran book; and if he really was just being paranoid, and Ozpin's earlier implication that he was from Earth was right, that too meant that Ozpin hadn't dropped his 'we're all aliens' theory just because he could. It meant that _Ozpin_ was the original Master, and perhaps he could assist Aldric in understanding and mastering his own abilities.

"Welcome back." Ozpin nodded, as he held his scroll up to the door behind him, and Beacon Tower opened up for them.

Aldric followed the headmaster through the building and towards the main elevator. _"How many alarms did I trip?"_

"Fewer than you would think." Ozpin responded, as they entered the elevator, and with a swipe of his scroll, it began descending.

The rest of the elevator ride was spent in silence, until they made it to the vault. Aldric couldn't help but give the place an awe-struck look over; it felt less like he was in some sort of nuclear bunker than it did he was in a cathedral. Long, pristine marble flooring, a fire-like warmth, enormous, looming pillars, an arched ceiling, and the ethereal green glow that pervaded the entire place.

The image was promptly ruined when Aldric spread his radar too far, and got an eyeful of the machinery shoved in the back. Two enormous pods that stuck out like a nun at a rock concert, with wires and pipes connecting the two to eachother, and to the ground and the wall. Inside, however, was what elicited a long, regretful sigh from the fighter. Inside one of the pods was an unconscious woman, barely any older than him, covered in scorch marks, bandages, and three long, raw-looking gashes spreading from one end of her face, over each eye, and to the other end in a macabre display. Were it not for the horrendous, still swollen red scars, Amber might have looked peaceful as she slept, but as it was now she only appeared to be in pain, barely kept in check by the technological tomb she had been stuffed in.

It served as a stark reminder of the effect Aldric was indeed having on this world, and, it seemed, his reticence and stillness was noticed by the headmaster, who spoke, "it isn't your fault, young man."

 _"Beg to differ."_ Aldric responded, shaking his head. _"Made those scars. Almost killed her."_ He nodded forward, _"let's keep moving."_ Though by this point, there entire reason for coming here was moot: Only Ozpin could do it. Aldric was more here to see the haul from the airplane.

Maybe they'd taken the alcohol he'd left behind?

A man could dream, he was honestly just glad he'd gotten away with, and still had, his stash of oxycodone, safely tucked away in his suitcases for Beacon. _Never_ knew when he'd need it.

Regardless of dreams, the reality came back into focus as Aldric constricted his radar to a much smaller area, and followed Ozpin. They made it through half of the vault before taking a left turn into a closet-like room. Though he called it a 'room', knowing full well that this one room looked to be as big as his house, back home. Inside, it was remarkably well organized - something Aldric had a sneaking suspicion might have had to do with the riding-crop wielding teacher - with clear divisions based on the size of the books, and in the case of the food, drinks, and other items they had taken, by the type of item it was. But it was what was in the center of the room that stole Aldric's undivided attention.

Somehow, some way, the Justice League had not only recovered, but identified the importance of, the airplane's flight recorder, and had placed it on a pedestal in the center of the room.

He let out a long sigh, as he entered the room. _"All roads really do lead to_ _Rome."_ He nodded, _"alright."_ He said, reaching up and pulling the shemagh from his head, before wrapping it up and stuffing it in one of his coat's many pockets. "Okay." Next he unfastened the mask that covered the bottom portion of his face, and then finally he pried off his goggles, before stowing those away too. "I have a _shitload_ of questions, but top among them -" He turned to Ozpin, and pointed at the orange device before him. "How did you know to grab _that_ specifically?"

Ozpin's response was delayed, as he was given his first good look at the prices Aldric had paid to fight in his war. An equal mixture of regret and pity seemed to flash through his eyes, worsening when it then dawned on him that the person in front of him was the same one infiltrating his school - meaning that in addition to the visible injuries on his face, he was missing an arm on top of that.

But if Ozpin had anything to say beyond his expression, he didn't say it, instead going with, "we were... Very thorough, Mister Drake." He nodded, slowly regaining his light drawl. "Indeed, we _found_ it by accident, only after we had finished deconstructing the entire ship."

"Is that supposed to mean the parts and the fuel are somewhere around here?"

"Just across the way." Ozpin responded, nodding behind him. "Along with a detailed account of exactly how it was we took it apart... Should it ever be prudent to put it back together." He then nodded back to the flight recorder, as Aldric dropped his hand. "When we discovered the sheer amount of damage that one item could take without reflecting said damage, we surmised it had to have been the ship's black box."

Aldric hummed, turning back to face it, noting how it appeared to have been opened. "You guys crack into it?" He rumbled.

Ozpin nodded, "having Ironwood on our side proved to be beneficial in more ways than we initially predicted. Thousands of Atlas' best computer technicians and engineers, focused on interfacing with one device." He frowned, "poor thing didn't last a month."

"A favor, then." Aldric requested, placing his hands in his pockets. "I don't need all of it... But I would like the crash data. The recording of the pilots as it went down." Maybe it was morbid curiosity, maybe it was for posterity's sake, maybe it was because he still held out some infinitesimal hope that his father was still alive, maybe bumbling around in a village with a wicked case of amnesia, but the end result was the same: Aldric felt he needed to hear that data.

Ozpin seemed to understand, "of course. I can get it to you before you..." A pause, "well, I suppose your departure will only be temporary."

"My keeping _that_ a secret was before you outed yourself as a terran, Ozpin." Aldric reasoned. "And I'm not dropping the mask for the others. I think you're just different enough of a case that it's warranted." He turned to the headmaster, who was nodding. "So... Rome." He said, getting the conversation back on track. "Does everyone else know?"

"My allies always knew as much as I believed they could handle." Said Ozpin, "it was only after our failed attempt to reach to the stars, that I introduced them to the idea of other planets with life... And told them of mine." A pause, "you know..." His wistful grin returned, accompanied by a thousand-yard stare. "After every technological advancement I was here for... I always spared some time to wonder the hows, and wheres, and whens, of my original home. Little did I know just how great 'little' Rome became, and that where we would fail to touch our moon... My people would not... And when I retrieved the books and materials from your plane... To see how far you came, and how fast in such a short time... I believe there is a great deal our two species could learn from eachother."

"Like how to travel to other planets." Aldric prodded.

Ozpin nodded, "now that I've revealed to you my little secret... A part of it, at least, I feel it prudent to backtrack a bit and tell you that that 'ancient dust'... It had a different name, for a while. We called it _Roman_ Dust... Remnant's entire supply was what I brought with me from Earth, and what diluted populations I was able to make, afterwards."

Aldric nodded, "so the second I dropped the name, you didn't even need me to start saying Earth, you knew."

"I appreciated much more your telling us, it meant more than us prompting you." Ozpin said. "Unfortunately, the name didn't stick... Having to describe what Rome was each time... And later on, when I discovered that I hadn't merely left home, but abandoned it altogether, having to describe that it was from another world entirely... The meaning and intent was far more easily conveyed with the name it has now." A beat, "especially to those who knew.

"But to continue my story... You may be more familiar with it than you realize, however your arrival, and now my learning that it has merely been three thousand years back home, has added new facets to it." He began, getting back on track as he reached behind a bookshelf, and pulled out two folding chairs that, much like his very first appearance, hadn't been there in the first place. "To begin with the obvious: I am what you have termed the 'Original' Master." He said, handing Aldric the magic chair -

The _Magic Chair._

All of Aldric's thoughts ground to a halt as his focus and his radar snapped wide open, and in the span of a second, he'd searched the entire room, until he found it. The chair that he did once, and still, claimed had saved his fucking life. Almost indistinguishable from the others it was surrounded by, except for the grass stains, Grimm-damaged upholstery, light fading from exposure to the fire, and the heavily worn pockets from having been stuffed with everything he'd deemed worthy of keeping with him at all times. It seemed like so long ago, but it all came rushing back to him about as fast as he picked up the chair and pulled it towards him.

Ozpin gave him a curious frown as he saw the chair zoom through the air, but he seemed to recognize that it was the chair that had been deliberately moved and lived in, so he didn't ask questions as Aldric took it instead of the one he'd been offered. For the first time since he'd stepped foot on the aviator, Aldric had an actual, full-on genuine smile on his face, and a feeling of irrational safety. As if Salem herself could pop into the room, and Aldric would survive.

He had his _chair._

After the two sat down, and Aldric had his moment, Ozpin continued. "And while some things were embellished through legend... The general idea is at least true." He said, "but there is context very few know, and that context actually plays into my altered theories." He folded his hands in his lap, as Aldric let his rest on the Magic Chair's armrest; it was wholly uncomfortable, but the unbridled power it had over his psyche was healing far more damage than it was causing to his back.

"If I had to guess..." Aldric drawled, "you think you might have been shot through time _and_ space?" He surmised.

Ozpin nodded, "I have been alive for _far_ longer than twenty eight centuries." He said, "truly, I came to Remnant so early on in its history that many of its humans had only just left their caves and congregated into tribes. I was instantly aware of two things, upon my arrival: That I wasn't home, and that something had changed within me." He explained, "I studied the Roman Dust, as well as trained alongside the tribal humans to master my aura, and learned that my abilities were wholly alien compared to those of the people around me. I found that, through trial, error, and no small amount of willpower, I could replicate nearly any semblance I came across, whereas so many humans could only perform their one skill.

"Questioning why and how this was, was what led me to discover that mine was magic, and not merely a semblance." He said, "I was once told in regards to computers that they do what one tells them to, and not what they want them to. I would apply the same phrase to reality: It is something that does what it is told, and not what is wanted of it. But with my abilities... And yours..." He added, with a nod, "I found that I could _will_ reality. If I wanted fire, I made it. If I wanted water, I drew it. If I wanted health, I made it." He listed off, "it with a small amount of shame that I claim that the first true human settlement was due to my tireless efforts in mastering my abilities, awakening and training others, and fighting off the Grimm."

"Shame?" Aldric parroted back.

"Because with power, inevitably comes something to challenge it." Ozpin responded. "Many would flock to my safe haven, and many looked to me as a leader. I did often try to learn where I was and, after I did, how to return home, but I found that what little Roman Dust had survived my transition from Earth to Remnant, simply wasn't enough to do what I required of it. After ten years, I had accepted this place to be my new home, it perhaps it was for that reason fate decided to give me a shove." He explained, nodding. "After that tenth year, new arrivals came, one of whom carried with them an object I had never seen before... Something desperately old, and yet still to this day, more advanced than anything I have ever seen, but what was most important to me at the time was that it felt like I did. It had magic, much like mine."

"The silver-eyed man who carried it was more than willing to part with it - after all, I was his leader, and I was the man whom organized the village that would allow his wife and daughter to live in peace." He continued, "and it was then I began studying it, alongside my Roman Dust. It was through that that I learned I could use small portions - colonies, if you will - of Roman Dust, to change Remnant Dust into something halfway between the two. Less powerful than what came from Earth, but able to be reproduced. I could build more of that, and, I thought, perhaps rescue these people - take them from this hell and bring them home, to Rome, where it would be safe.

"Unfortunately..." He sighed, "my experiments caught the attention of a woman whom the phrase 'pure evil' cannot properly describe the depths of." Aldric nodded, knowing who it was he referred to. "She looked different, back then... Human." He said, "but her ambitions were still the same: To collect those relics and use them for her own gains. When she found me, she had already gathered two of them, intending upon me being her third... But clearly not prepared for the power I wielded.

"You see, Mister Drake... Salem does have a spark of magic within her. Our battles and mere exposure to the relics will, after a very long time, do that to a person... But she focused her skills on the creation and domination of the creatures of Grimm." He said, "and she used that spark to try and form some sort of kinship between the two of us... But I could see the hunger in her eyes and smell the rot on her soul, just as easily as I could sense the presence of the two relics she had with her. When I refused to give her mine, she left our haven...

"And returned the next day with more Grimm than I had ever seen up until that point. Enough fliers to blot out the sky, enough ground-walkers to cause an earthquake... But not her dragon. She hadn't that, quite yet... And perhaps that more than anything is why I still yet live." He explained, somberly. "The battle lasted for days, all of our aura-users fought tirelessly to give our civilians time to flee with everything they could carry... And never up until that day had I ever used as much power as I had then... But what truly tipped the balance wasn't me, but rather that silver-eyed man who had brought me the relic in the first place.

"His wife died in his arms, during the attack, and..." He frowned, "since then I have only seldom felt as much pain and weakness as I did that night. It was then I learned of his kind..." He straightened up, "warriors like him... Like Miss Rose, they have an ability unique unto themselves... That I still find myself wondering whether or not the development of this ability had been specifically because of my arrival on Remnant." He said, as an aside. "They can nullify magic in its entirety." He said, "all of our power is rendered useless in the face of a silver-eyed warrior who has mastered their abilities, and they can render Grimm completely unable to feed off of fear and emotions and sapping them of their strength. They can even weaken aura itself, making even the most powerful Huntsman trivial in comparison, and when he unleashed it that day, it nearly killed her, and left me unconscious for weeks, but the effect remained the same: She had to flee, and even though the tide turned, so did we.

"Reiccan would turn to be one of my most loyal lieutenants during my war against Salem. Though our haven was destroyed, we took it back and rebuilt it, and took the fight to her." He explained, "we spent _decades_ warring against her. During that time I recovered the missing relic, and Reiccan trained entire legions of warriors like him, giving birth to the legend, and indeed the earliest true Huntsman and Huntresses... But it did not last.

"Never had she been faced with an opponent so equal to her in strength, and so desperate was she to _win_ this war, that she began to abuse the relics she had. She tore into them, forcing them to give her their secrets instead of earning them as I would... And it was from them that she learned to summon Grimm, as well as dominate them, and then make one of her own."

 _She found a few Pieces of Eden, and they made her go from Talion stealing soldiers to Sauron_ making _them_. "The dragon."

"The dragon." Ozpin confirmed. "It wasn't immune to Reiccan's warriors, but its ability to generate more, and attract the rest... It cost _many_ of his warriors to freeze it that first time... But she had intended for that to begin with, as while his warriors were busy, she came with the rest of the force, to me." He explained, "now the creature your 'show' has shown you... That battle scarred the lands, and I do believe that never have more men and grimm died in one place, before or after..." He sighed, "and she claimed possession of a third relic, giving her more power than even I, as old and skilled as I was, commanded at the time... And in a move born out of desperation, I used the only things I had left: My relic, and my Dust."

"Boom." Aldric surmised.

"Quite." Ozpin nodded, "I wounded her... But what happened later... Terrans call it nuclear winter. The entire planet was bathed in ash for years, and while she was forced to retreat, without her gathered relics... The damage had been done. Millions of men and Grimm were dead, three of the four relics had been tainted by her evil." He paused, "and then... The brother gods themselves came to me."

Aldric frowned, "you spoke to God." He deadpanned.

"It sounds ridiculous when said aloud, but yes." Ozpin nodded, sticking to his guns. "They told me they were ashamed of me. A man of my power, and I had failed to stop Salem from abusing the relics as she had, from killing as many as she did, and indeed for killing as many as I had, in my desperation. I was, in turn, cursed." He said, "whenever I die, my soul seeks a new host to bond with. I bring with me all of my memories and powers, for better or worse, forever."

"Sounds familiar."

"It was indeed what I based the Maidens off of." Ozpin confirmed, "but I ensured not to have their souls pass, merely their powers... And you may surmise why."

"Who wants to be immortal?"

"Apt." Ozpin nodded, "especially after three centuries passed, and I never saw nor heard from Salem again... No doubt because she had yet to heal from my attack. Despair gripped me, and turned to depression, to isolation... I began to question why I continued to live. To continue to inevitably, invariably, steal lives. To continue to fight, if only for a species that wasn't truly my own, and would always move on, always forget those that fought for them." He sighed, "I will admit, for a time, I lost faith... Even becoming tempted to track down the relics I had hidden, to try to use them in an attempt to spurn the brother gods and end my eternity.

"But then." He grinned, his eyes lost in memory. "Something miraculous happened. Four women somehow did it... Simply by discovering some of my diluted Roman Dust, they traced everything back. Sought out storytellers and legends from generations past, trying to untangle the web that was my history with the human race, to figure out where it was I went, and they _did._ " He said, with a nod. "They found me in my cottage... The place I always returned to, every time I died and came back. They found me, isolated from everything... And they asked for only one thing: The truth.

"Initially I thought they would leave if I ignored them. After all, what would a few weeks - a month at the most - be to a man who had already lived for hundreds of years?" He shook his head, "but they didn't leave at all. They foraged and hunted for food, and every day they would knock on my door and ask me to tell them my story." He laughed, " _they_ broke _me,_ instead of the other way around. Four very mortal women broke one very _im_ mortal man.

"I told them everything as I am telling it to you now. Of Rome, of Earth, of my first safe haven and my war with Salem... And they took that victory and ran with it. They vowed to spend as much time as they had to, to convince me that the war against her and the Grimm was still worth fighting. They were at my cottage for five _years,_ and it felt like every day was spent on moral and philosophical debates. Truly, they taught me as much as I taught them... And I still remember it all as though it were mere moments ago." And as he spoke, Aldric _swore_ he could hear the sound of women's laughter, far enough away to be faint, but close enough to be distinct. "And..." Ozpin shook his head, "I'll be cursed again if they didn't _do_ it again. They convinced me that hope never died, and that the species was worth fighting for... Forever, if need be."

"So you made them Maidens." Aldric surmised, after Ozpin drifted off to silence.

The reincarnating headmaster nodded, "the power it took to perform such an act..." His grin turned mischevious, "scaring a young man on a rooftop, or pulling a few chairs out of thin air pale in comparison. I had only ever drawn on so much when I fought Salem." He let his grin fade away, "and as of late... I find myself wondering if I could ever do something so grandiose, ever again."

This prompted a frown from Aldric, "why?"

"I can feel it, Mister Drake. My power is fading. Perhaps even the gods can grow weak, perhaps they have grown tired of my existence. Perhaps a soul can only exist so long before its aura begins to fade, perhaps it is something nefarious..." He shook his head, "or it is all of those things or even none of them. I spend every day thinking on it... Even moreso now, that I see my abating power will most likely be the sole contributing factor to my next demise." He said, "though... I like to think, at least, that curses aside, the brother deities haven't lost their faith in me." He nodded to Aldric, "they did, after all, see fit to bring a second Master to Remnant."

Aldric shook his head, "please don't give me that 'he works in mysterious ways' stuff." Aldric said, "I believe in God - not yours, but one nonetheless - and even I get tired of hearing that after my puppy got hit by a car."

"Though this may not be what you want to hear, you remind me of me, when I was your age."

Aldric couldn't repress a grin at that, and he lolled his head in a circle on his shoulders, as though rolling his eyes. "I'll give you that." He said, "but what about the Maidens? Couldn't they serve the same purpose?"

"Not in the same capacity." Said Ozpin, "they are to you and I, what my mixed dust is to actual, genuine Roman Dust, straight from the well." He grinned, "and I believe your weapon is perfect proof of that."

Aldric blinked, "my weapon?"

"I was able to discern what it was, after viewing the recordings of your fights." Ozpin nodded, "you did well to hide it, but few things but nanites can make gauntlets look as viscous as yours." A pause, "and I remembered hearing from Qrow that one of the huntsman he had fought had used nanites to heal a wound he had taken to the arm."

Aldric rolled up his sleeve, briefly glancing at the black and red iron limb. "Yeah. One hell of a wound." He deadpanned.

"But do you know what I figured out?"

"Hm?"

"When I made the very same shield you did... It didn't work even remotely as well as yours does."

Huh? "What?" Aldric wasn't afraid to admit that had caught him off guard.

"Hard light is good, as far as weapons go... But the technology has not yet fully caught up with the concept." He said, "I created a near-perfect replica of your shield, and had Port shoot it. It shattered into dozens of pieces." He began, "I left it on overnight, the batteries in the nanites died within an hour, but most damning: I threw it, and it did not rebound."

Aldric would have argued that half of that was his using his semblance, but then he would have killed his own point: _Half_ of the shield tosses were his semblance. He only used that to aim and retrieve them, the rest - the actual rebounds - were all the shield; but according to Ozpin, that wasn't the case at all.

"So what are you trying to say?"

"That you are willing the universe." Ozpin responded. "My first hint was in hearing you speak... And my second was in the message you sent me, showing me how you thought." He leaned forward, "would I be correct in thinking that a vast majority of your accomplishments were predicated on your being able to visualize what it was you were trying to do? And to expand upon that a bit, to understand the science, or even merely have something of a scientific backing, of what it was you were trying?"

Aldric knew where this was going. "You think that my shield, and pretty much everything else on top of that, works the way it does because I'm using my Master abilities to _make_ it work that way." He said, "that I'm willing it to be."

"Leading me to my third, and most important hint: My own abilities work the same way." He said, "but whereas you have entire eras of science, mathematics, and even fiction to draw from..." He shook his head, "when I had to learn my abilities, I had only generalities." He held his hand in front of him, "fire." A flame came to life above his palm, "water." It turned to a liquid and coalesced into a half-sphere of water. "Ice." It froze solid, "stone." It crumbled to dirt, "I based all of my abilities off of what I knew... What I could see." It vanished, and he straightened back up. "As do you base your abilities off of what _you_ know... What _you_ see."

"You're implying that _you_ don't have access to science like I do." Aldric countered. "You live in an information age."

"Mister Drake, the free dissemination of information across the planet was a very recent invention, and very few will share their secrets with those outside of their borders." Ozpin responded. "So where you have had access to the entire repository of your species' scientific knowledge, I have had only what I could learn and what few secrets I could glean over a very long life." He nodded, "give it time to... Well, master your abilities... I do believe that you could grow to be stronger than I was at my height." He said, "and I would point at your weapons... And indeed, your battle with Amber, as all the proof you would need. Even with merely microscopic portions of your power, and then brief instances of access to the rest of the well, you battled one who knew her powers far longer and far better than you."

"There's a 'but' coming." Aldric surmised.

To which, Ozpin nodded. "I have no doubts that Salem either used all of her Roman Dust, or a great deal of her power, or both at once, to bring you and your ship here... And that she had to spend her supply of it because I, clearly, wouldn't have helped her... But now she has you. A Master that, so far as she knows, is affiliated with _her_ , and not me."

Aldric closed his eyes, pursing his lips. "You're saying that she knows how to get back to Earth, and that she'll want to use me to boost her power... Or maybe even the other way around - act as a backup battery to me - so she can get back to Earth and take more terrans."

"The damage she could do merely with a Maiden is unthinkable." Said Ozpin, "and with a Master, is terror-inducing. But both at the same time? And with an _army_ of the latter?" He shook his head, "it wouldn't _be_ a war, Mister Drake. It would be her saying 'I win' and her Masters making it so."

Aldric let out a long, exhausted sigh. "Are you trying to imply that you think I can kill her?" He asked, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

"On your own?" Ozpin shook his head, "as you are now, I do not think so. But with time to learn and increase your power... With allies at your side... Perhaps your _own_ Reiccan... Maybe you could." He said, "maybe you could end this war."

"Time, Professor." Said Aldric, "it's not our friend. Especially if you're on your way out." He said, "maybe I can get some kind of limited control over my powers. Maybe I can get myself strong enough to box with a Maiden who _isn't_ new to the game. But it all comes down to time." He said, "I have a year at best to go from Clark Kent to Superman, before it becomes time for Beacon to get sacked. And whether or not we win, that will inevitably be the point when the Lady In Red grabs me back up and takes me to the White Witch... And if she really wants me to..." He shook his head, "fuck, make a hyperspace bypass and get back to Earth, we'll all be screwed either way. Either I say no, have to fight her, and whether I live or die we've lost our man on the inside... Or I say yes to maintain my cover, pull more terrans to our side, ruin their lives, and pray I can figure out how to either keep them from getting their powers, or ensure they'll fight with me and not her." He grunted, "we don't have many options, here. Even claiming I'm not strong enough will only buy us a _little_ time." He was liking his 'nuke her' option more and more, but was also pretty sure Ozpin would come down _hard_ on giving Atlas the secrets to the atom, and perhaps even harder on trying to co-opt his power to get back home and steal one of their nukes.

But the professor smiled, "I told you once, Mister Drake, to not worry about things outside your control." He said, "I would instead focus on the here and now, and let tomorrow come as it will." Aldric could have said something along the lines of that being why Ozpin hadn't won yet, but he bit his tongue. "And besides... Mister Etiolate." He said, clapping his knees. "You may find that merely one year at one of the world's best Huntsman academies can do wonders for far more than your aura control."

Aldric rolled his head, though he, like Ozpin, could tell that this conversation had since hit its apex and was gearing down, so he felt he might as well make one retaliatory strike for all the bombs Ozpin had dropped on him tonight. "As much as I would love a year of not thinking, Professor, minor mistakes aside, agonizing over this is how I'm still alive and crotch-deep with the enemy."

Ozpin blinked at that, and Aldric almost lost it when he realized he'd tripped up the immortal wizard. "You -"

"The tri-haired assassin lady." Aldric deadpanned. "I don't get it either, and it's just as scary as it sounds." He turned to look over his shoulder, in the direction of the rows of bottles of alcohol. "I might want to steal a few of those."

Aware that the conversation was winding down, Ozpin shook his head. "You may be in a war, Mister Drake, but you are still a student and not yet at drinking age."

"Fuck you, I'm magic. I'll turn water to wine." Aldric responded, as he pulled out his mask, "and technically, since those are from my planet... And I'm the only body _and_ soul terran on Remnant, that makes all that stuff mine." He grinned and began reassembling the disguise. Once he was finished, he continued with, _"would say goodbye... But will be back tomorrow."_

Ozpin nodded, standing to his feet. "If you'll spare a moment longer, I can retrieve that data for you." He said, "we will make further plans after the initiation... I am certain that after tonight, the both of us need some time to think."

 _"Like you wouldn't believe."_


	28. Arrival

Chapter 27

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _About to leave for the airship to Beacon._

 _Jesus Christ, what a night._

 _In short: Ozpin is the original Master, he's from Earth - from ANCIENT FUCKING **ROME** no less! _

_Jesus, the only thing that would have made more sense than 'All roads lead to Rome' would be if he told me he was from Nazi goddamn Germany... Because everything stupid in fiction has some sort of tie to Germany._

 _I bet Hitler snorted Dust - moving on!_

 _Salem **was** Talion (dominated the Grimm and added them to her army) and now **is** Sauron (skips the middle man and makes the Grimm her damn self), the god damn gods themselves cursed him with pseudo-immortality (should I stop saying 'god damn it' now that they're apparently real, and watching? Fuck no.), he's running out of magical power, he thinks that I could turn out to be stronger than him because of some fucked up 'pen is mightier than the sword' logic, and he more or less implied that he's one hundred percent certain that, with him or without him, I can - at least with Ruby Rose's help - kill Salem and be done with it. _

_Jesus **Christ,** did I miss anything?_

 _Wait, I did!_

 _Turns out the Power Glove doesn't really work like I thought it did.  
Or... It does, since I liked to joke and say it was so good it was magic.  
As it turns out: It is. _

_He more or less validated **everything** I've been saying about the whole 'visualize it to do it' thing. _

_Magic works like it's a Green Lantern ring: If your will is strong enough to overpower the fucking laws of physics, you can feasibly do anything; and if you can visualize it, the result is even better. And because I've based pretty much my whole arsenal off of stuff from Earth, I've associated it all with those things, and have been unconsciously - and literally - working my magic on them... Functionally making them **exactly** what it is they were inspired by._

 _In other words: Because I based it off of Captain America's shield... **It fucking is.**_

 _And while that may beg the question - if I'm really walking around with a hunk of vibranium (the only one in the universe, now that I think about it... Neat.), why couldn't Pyrrha do anything to it? - I actually have something an answer, because I'm pretty sure at some point Magneto **tried** , but the metal was so - in a word - weird, that it took some dedicated focus to do, which is probably what tripped Pyrrha up.  
And if that doesn't float your boat, the goddamn thing is (technically) literally made of magic in the first place. So I'll say 'a wizard did it', laugh because I'm right, and move on.  
_

 _Anyways, expanding on the above, because I have all of these theoretical scientific concepts locked up in my head and stored on all of those hard drives, and because I've **long** since displayed the fact that I'm pretty much a walking talking repository of obscure facts, movie references, and pop-culture shit, Ozpin thinks I could very well be more powerful than he **ever** was. Again: Because the pen is mightier than the sword._

 _New plan: Master my Master Magic (say_ that _five times fast!), build a tesseract, which is basically an object of infinite mass and energy... Technically - and even if it isn't I think it is, which by the rules as laid out by Ozpin means it goddamn **will be -** and then blow the fucking thing up in Salem's face.  
Problem **SOLVED,** the end, go home.  
_

 _Ugh._

 _Last little bit on that:  
If I'm to understand all of what he said about the power glove correctly, then that means that it's more or less a focus for my powers. It, in a sense, creates the object, and I, in a manner of speaking, program it.  
If I can get a damn clear image of it in my head (Cap's shield), understand what it's **supposed** to do from the world I drew it from (Absolutely fucking indestructible, bounces everywhere, et al), maybe have a good understanding of the science of it, and then use the Power Glove to create its general shape... I will unconsciously use that hardlight construct as a focus, and turn it into whatever it is that had either inspired it, or I had intended it to be.  
Easiest example, obviously, being my shield. It's not a hunk of light, it's a hunk of vibranium.  
Another example: More than once I've made Wolverine claws. Conclusion: They weren't three sharpened daggers of light, but three adamantium blades. _

_Now that I've hopefully got the gears turning in your head, **realize** what I could do with this.  
My first thought goes to... Why not a lightsaber? That'd sure as hell break the mold, here on Remnant, and it's serve as a damn good opposite to the shield: Impregnable defense, and unstoppable offense. _

_God, I can only imagine the look on Cinder's face when we have our fight. Maybe I throw the shield at her, or some shit, and she blasts that thing away and I can't get it. She thinks I'm disarmed, and them - ZHOOM!  
Bright-ass blade of ionized plasma about the temperature of the sun.  
Aura or not, Master/Maiden or not, you're **not** getting away from a strike from that thing, untouched._

 _It **really** goddamn is a Green Lantern ring... But better.  
_ _ _And, silver lining: I've been doing this **myself** ever since I got the damn glove. So that should mean I should be able to do this without instruction from Ozpin.__

 _I'll have to do some tinkering whenever I'm not surrounded by people, and I'll definitely start looking through all of my archives to try and think up what other weapons from fiction I can create, and feasibly wield. Lightsabers, maybe a BFG 9000, Mjolnir, a Piece of Eden, an Iron Man suit - fuck, the **Nanosuit!** \- I need to figure out the limit of this thing... If there **is** one._

 _Or... Wait, no, I'd have to be smart about this, if I start pulling an arsenal out of fiction. A lot of them would have immediate drawbacks.  
_

 _Like, I (somehow) make an Iron Man suit? I don't know how to pilot that fucking thing!  
A Nanosuit? Those things symbiotically **bond** to their wearers - I'd never be able to take it off!  
BFG? I'd have **one** shot, and while it would be glorious, after that one shot, that's it, unless I could fuel it with my magic.  
Mjolnir? Only the worthy can wield it, and I do **not** want that question answered. I barely feel worthy of Cap's shield, let alone the third greatest physical symbol of heroism in modern comics. (Second being Cap's shield, and first being Superman's S.)  
A piece of Eden... May? Help? I think? But unless I had Altair's, I'd get brain aneurysms every time I tried using it... And Ozpin mentioned he was able to replicate every semblance he came across, with his magic. So with the cloning abilities, mind control, and pseudo-astral projection all knocked out, the only thing it could give me would be advanced scientific knowledge. So **maybe.**  
_

 _So really, of that list, only three things could potentially be usable for me: The BFG, the Piece of Eden, and the Lightsaber.  
And only one of those things has long term use as well: The lightsaber.  
And, you know, I'm kind of already a Jedi, by way of usage of a mostly undefined force that allows its user to exert its will over the universe, so... Fuck yeah, let's do it. I'll keep you posted._

 _Anyways, last bit of news: Ozpin had my plane's black box, and convinced Ironwood to abuse his power to get its data.  
Now I have it.  
Whenever I get an interface between my tech and Remnant tech working, I'll copy the file over, but until then, you'll have to deal with my shoddy transcript._

 _Ho boy._

* * *

 _The Final Minutes of Continental Flight Six Three Six_

 _[Recording Begins]_

 _(1) Maintaining altitude._

 _(2) Altitude steady._

 _(2) You see the trailer for the new Marvel movie?_

 _(1) Don, I love you to death, but there are two people in this cabin, right now. One of them watches comic book movies. It's not the guy speaking._

 _(2) You see, I'd be tempted to believe that, but I saw your locker._

 _(1) I'll have you know, I got that picture for my son._

 _(2) And if_ he _watches the movies, I guaran-goddamn-tee it that you've seen, maybe not all of them, but most of them.  
_

 _(1) Shut up and check our fuel._

 _(2) Fuel level's a bit high, but we expected it._

 _(2) Tell me you've at least seen Die Hard._

 _(1) It's not Christmas unless Hans Gruber gets thrown from Nakatomi Plaza._

 _(2) You know apparently that was pitched as a sequel to Predator?_

 _(1) No kidding?_

 _(2) Yup. Initial idea was: Arnold's guy would have retired to private security, and would have helped build Nakatomi's whole defense network. But then the robbery happens, and he'd have to fight through it and the guys in order to save the day._

 _(1) How the hell do you know any of this? You're either in this cabin, or asleep._

 _(2) How do you know that?_

 _(1) Your wife._

 _(2) Oh, well: Fu -_

 _(LAX) CF Six-Three-Six, LAX._

 _(1) Go ahead, LA._

 _(LAX) Yeah, satellite's showing a tropical storm developing right ahead of you. You'll hit it in approximately fifteen minutes, recommend you descend to thirty thousand feet._

 _(1) Uh, roger that, LAX, descending to thirty thousand feet, but where was this storm when we took off? Last update would have had clear skies through to Monday._

 _(2) Beginning descent._

 _(LAX) CF Six-Three-Six, this caught us by surprise as much as it is you._

 _(1) Clarify, LAX._

 _(LAX) It wasn't there ten minutes ago, CF Six-Three-Six. LAX Out._

 _(1) [A sigh is heard] Copy that, LAX. Keep us advised, CF Six-Three-Six out._

 _(2) Might want to let the folks know._

 _(1) Mhm. [Click] Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Got some bad weather brewing ahead of us, we're expecting some minor turbulence. Until we leave the storm, the fasten seat-belts sign will remain lit. [Click]_

 _(2) Holding steady at thirty thousand feet._

 _(2) Wonder who dropped the ball on this one._

 _(1) Thor's probably pissed._

 _(2) Fucking knew it._

 _(1) I think I can see it, actually. One o'clock.  
_

 _(2) 'Just' a storm? Holy crap, it's raining cats and dogs out there._

 _(1) LAX, CF Six-Three-Six, care to check your satellites again? This thing is looking severe._

 _(1) Check our fuel again, see if we can't go around it._

 _(LAX) CF Six-Three-Six, roger that, we're looking into it. Get you an update in two minutes._

 _(2) I dunno, man. We got a little extra fuel from the winds helping us out, but I don't think it would be enough to go around._

 _(2) GPS transponder's still working, for the worst case._

 _(LAX) CF Six-Three-Six, be advised: That storm is just getting worse. We have no explanation at this time but it's spreading far and it's spreading fast, your best bet is to go straight through._

 _(1) LAX, can we handle what something like_ that _can put out?  
_

 _(LAX) Until such a time as it develops hurricane-force winds, that's an affirmative._ _ _Better batten down the hatches, LAX out.  
__

 _ _(1) Roger that, CF Six-Three -__

 _ _(2) Holy shit, look at that!__

 _ _(Rumbling and shaking is heard)__

 _ _(1) LAX, be advised, this thing's dropping lightning. We've seen three strikes - four - in the last five seconds.__

 _ _(2) No - wait for the next lightning strike and look at twelve.__

 _ _(1) Standby, LAX.__

 _ _(1) Talk to me, what did you see? Hurricane?__

 _ _[The turbulence becomes more pronounced, almost constant]__

 _ _(2) Hold on... There! What the hell is that?__

 _ _(1) Let's not fuck around and find out. Divert course.__

 _ _(1) LAX, be advised, there's some sort of... Anomaly, in the storm. Diverting course.__

 _ _(2) The controls aren't responding.__

 _ _(LAX) CF Six-Three-Six, clarify. Did you say 'anomaly'?__

 _ _(1) Damn it - can we pull up?__

 _ _(2) Not in time!__

 _ _(1)-LAX, CF Six-Three-Six, roger, 'anomaly'. It appears to be a full sphere hovering at our approximate altitude. Be advised we are unable to divert course or ascend. Do you have our location?__

 _ _(LAX) Affirmative, Six-Three-Six, but be advised: We don't see what it is you're describing.__

 _ _(1) Be ready with any rescue crews, we have no idea what will happen when we hit this thing. We have no time to try troubleshooting procedures and an impact is unavoidable at this juncture. [Click] This is the captain: Brace for impact. [Click]__

 _ _(2) Here it comes!__

 _ _[Turbulence is joined by heavy rainfall]__

 _ _(1) Brace for impact. Brace for -__

 _ _[Turbulance and rainfall vanishes]__

 _ _(2) Whoa!__

 _ _[Alarms begin to sound]__

 _ _(1) We're dropping. LAX, be advised, we are rapidly losing altitude.__

 _ _(2) I've got control again!  
__

 _ _(1) Pull up - LAX, CF Six-Three-Six, we have regained vertical control and are attempting to stabilize our altitude.__

 _ _(2) It's fighting me Joe!__

 _ _(1) Fight harder - LAX, do you read?__

 _ _(2) [Struggling]__

 _ _(1) Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is -__

 _ _[A muffled thump, followed by a return of the turbulance]__

 _ _(2) Left engine's gone!__

 _ _(1) Captain Joseph Bailey of Continental Flight Six Three Six. We are in a rapid descent, losing control of our altitude. Our left engine has been damaged and we are going to crash. Anyone hearing this, please advise.__

 _ _(2) Twenty thousand feet!__

 _ _(1) Here come the clouds - Deb! Make sure they're all strapped in! - Mayday, mayday, mayday, anyone receiving me, please respond. This is Continental Flight Six Three Six, we have two hundred souls on board and are... Are...__

 _ _(2) Are those towers?! How did we get over land?  
__

 _ _(1) If those are towers that means there are people here. Someone has to be on a radio - I see a clearing, that's our best shot at landing this thing.__

 _ _(1) Mayday, mayday, mayday, we appear to have entered the airspace of an unidentified city. We can see mountains and large... Possibly stone towers. Anyone receiving this, be advised we -__

 _ _[Another thump, more alarms begin blaring]__

 _ _(2) Right engine!__

 _ _(1) - Are in an uncontrolled descent and are aiming for a clearing north on... Check: We have lost GPS navigation. We are flying blind. If anyone is receiving this, respond immediately, we are declaring an emergency. Is anyone -__

 _ _[A loud screech, like that of the cawing of a bird, is heard.]__

 _ _(2) JESUS!__

 _ _[A tremendous impact is heard, soon followed by the sound of air whistling, alarms blaring, and a multitude of screams.]__

 _ _(1) Be advised! We've just collided with a bird the same size as our plane! We are going down hard, we are in an out of control descent!__

 _ _(2) Oh fuck, oh fuck oh fuck!__

 _ _(1) [Click] Brace for impact! Brace for -__

 _ _[The words are drowned out by the sounds of glass shattering, branches snapping and scraping against a metal hull, a deafening explosion, a massive tearing sound of metal being sheered from metal, and alarms blaring.]__

 _ _...__

 _ _[Silence]__

 _ _[Recording Ends]__

* * *

 _ _It might not look like much, but I think this at least gives me a few clues as to the 'how' of things.__

 _ _The long and short of it being: Salem opened up a fucking wormhole, its mere presence fucked up the local environment, and going from one end of the universe to another, and to a planet with a completely different atmosphere to begin with, was too much stress for an airplane built by the lowest bidder.__

 _ _That may sound like I'm pulling something out of my ass, but I think the biggest hint there was when the Captain said 'sphere'. When everyone thinks wormholes, they think a circle - but Interstellar put it best. A circle is just a two dimensional representation of a wormhole, we live in a three dimensional world, and what is a circle in three dimensions?__

 _ _I'd question if that wormhole was still there or not, but considering Ozpin hasn't said 'oh, yeah, we found this strange-ass sphere floating in the air', or anything the sort, I'm willing to bet it was a one time deal.  
In the long run, this isn't very useful information, but at least that closes that chapter of the book.__

 _ _Oh, and as it turns out: Cubone wasn't the first Grimm to fuck my life up. It was actually Mothra!  
So if that oversized bird hadn't decided to shit on the first vehicle it saw, I may not be as alone as I am now (sorry Ozzy, but you're kind of only terran in spirit. Literally. The rest of you is human.).__

 _ _That's... Hm. That's great.__

 _ _Ugh...__

 _ _Final note: Cinder let me know about the robbery's almost-failure. She's more pissed at Torchwick than anything, and I've gotta admit, that's a good feeling: The Lady In Red **not** being angry at me.  
I mean, she still told me not to fuck up finding the Maiden, but I've got to take what I can get.__

 _ _It gives me an idea, but I'll wait until I see Ozpin next before I think on it too much.__

 _ _'Till next time.__

* * *

 _ _"Be advised -"__ Frantically cried a deep voice, desperation pouring out of his voice. _"_ _ _We've just collided with a bird the same size as our plane! We are going down hard, we are in an out of control descent!"__

 _"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!"_ Came a second voice, crying out in raw fear, as he saw the ground coming up at a speed entirely too fast to be healthy.

There was a clicking noise, as the first voice cried out, desperately trying to prepare the hundreds of souls in his plane for the sudden end, _"brace for impact! Brace for -"_ And with a loud crash, with the sound of thick tree branches and the thicker tree trunks snapping into pieces and tearing apart the plane's hull, the man's voice was snuffed out, leaving only the chaos of the landing before, finally, silence.

Aldric stood on the edge of the airship, looking out to the west, towards Emerald Forest, listening to the last few minutes of his last airplane ride for what felt like the thousandth time. He didn't know how many times he'd let this rattle around in his head, only that he'd listened to it once to write it down in his journal, again before we went to bed, several times during the wait for the airship, and now again when the forest came into view, prompting a wave of nostalgia. Not the pleasant kind, like playing a video game or seeing a movie one had really enjoyed as a kid, but a terrible kind that dredged up only bad memories and traumatic experiences.

Beyond 'closure', Aldric couldn't really explain why he had wanted the recording so badly. To that point, he couldn't even say what kind of closure it brought him. What was he hoping to expect, to hear his father rush into the captain's cabin and give him his last words? He knew that wasn't the case - his Dad had buckled him into the chair once the storm hit. He'd been too busy. Despite all of this, Aldric still felt the urge to have this, to lay it down and write it up, if only so he wouldn't go the rest of his life without knowing.

As he brooded, his scroll held up to his ear, his radar let him in on a few guests making their way towards him, one in a low-cut leather jacket, and the other tightly wrapped up in a red hood. The taller of the two was clearly measuring her steps, trying to be as quiet as possible so as to surprise her blind friend. Aldric let her have it, as he mentally prepared himself.

When she got within range, she sprang forward, slapping him on his left shoulder. "What's with the long face Bee -" But her mistake was in specifically slapping his _left_ shoulder, and as some small amount of vengeance, Aldric used his semblance to pop his arm off.

With a loud 'thud', his arm slid out of his sleeve and hit the deck. Aldric wasted no time in springing into action, _screaming_ in faux-pain as Yang's head recoiled, and her gaze snapped from Aldric, to his arm, and back to him. Her sister was slack-jawed, clearly on the edge of screaming herself, if only out of surprise at what all had happened.

"Uh - uh -" Yang sputtered.

Aldric continued screaming for another two seconds, before he bent down, scooped his arm up, snapped it back into place, and quieted down. "What's up, Yang?" He asked, his voice going back to Ash's normal joviality.

Yang's eyes were wide, as she processed what happened. After a moment, she blinked, shook the daze out of her head, and gave Aldric a playful shove. "You jerk!" She laughed, "why didn't you tell me you had a bad arm?!"

"I thought you would've seen it." Aldric deadpanned, before angling his ear over to Ruby. "Who's this I hear?"

Yang smirked, "what, your super-awesome blind senses can't tell?" She asked, as Ruby took her cue to approach.

"Only when I'm fighting." Aldric lied.

Yang gave a sidewards nod of the head, "you met her before. This is my sister."

Aldric blinked, turning to face the silver-eyed huntress in training. "You the one with that 'fuck you' scythe?"

Ruby nodded, "yeah." She said, gaining back some of her moxy, "it's also a -"

"If you're going to say 'gun'... I remember." Aldric patted on his chest, "your one shot broke more ribs than the entire fight with the loud one." He nodded in Yang's direction, "you're the chick that made me invest in body armor."

Yang blinked, "you weren't wearing armor for our fight?"

Ruby was actually the first to point out the hypocrisy when she said, "neither were you..."

"Yeah - but that's how I fight!" Yang said, planting her fists on her hips and frowning dramatically.

"Also of note -" Said Aldric, as he stored the scroll in his coat and rested both of his hands on top of his white cane, leaning on it. "She's not wearing armor, either." He nodded to the shortest of the trio.

Ruby sputtered, "it's a combat skirt!" Before she looked down, "I think it looks cool..." She mumbled, moodily.

"You're trying to defend your choice of attire to the guy literally wearing a coat that is also a cape." Aldric said, arcing an eyebrow and grinning down at her; this prompted her to give him a once-over, as if noticing the overcoat for the first time. "And besides, I learned to stop judging people on the way they looked."

Ruby looked back up, "how?"

He slid his glasses off, "I stopped looking!" He said, with a wide, cartoonish grin.

The young huntress-in-training's eyes went as wide as dinner plates, "you got into the academy and you're _blind?"_

"He got into the academy single handedly." Yang said, grinning victoriously as she dropped her hands.

"Lady, if it didn't feel weird suddenly having and then not having, and then having again, tactile sensation in my left arm, I'd throw it at you." Aldric slid the sunglasses back on, hiding his lack of eyes. "And you're one to talk, little... Lady." Aldric said.

Ruby seemed to realize all of a sudden that she hadn't told him her name, and she nodded to the side, an apologetic smile on her face. "It's Ruby."

"Nice to meet you I'm Ash - but you're one to talk." He leaned forward, giving her an exxagerated frown. "How old are you?"

"I'm -"

"Isn't it rude to ask a lady her age, Beebee?"

"Well then how old are _you,_ Yang?"

She grinned again, puffing out her chest and declaring, "seven -" before she blinked, and shrank back down,"hey!" But the damage had already been done, Ruby was masking her giggles behind her hand, whereas Aldric was outright guffawing.

"Shame, Yang." Aldric reached forward and poked her on the forehead.

Yang growled, before it turned to a feral grin. "Just wait until we start sparring classes! You won't see me coming!"

"You're right. That just means it'll be twice as bad when I kick your ass."

"Beebee, there are ladies present! Cut it with the language!"

"Sorry Ruby." Aldric then counted down from three.

Once he hit one, "hey!" Said an indignant Yang, to Ruby's continued giggles.

"How long have you two known eachother?" Ruby asked, after Yang ceased her attempts to throttle Aldric. "You're like an old married couple."

"Oh please, he couldn't handle me." Yang scoffed.

Aldric hissed, "I dunno..." He lifted his hand and counted off, "beat you... Got shot by your sister... Gave that Pyrrha chick a longer fight than anyone else in the tournament -"

"By biting her sword!"

"Wait, what?" Ruby looked between the two, "you did what?"

"It's called 'Refuge In Audacity', Yang."

"You bit someone's sword?"

"It's called stupid!" Though despite her argument, she was grinning from ear to ear.

"How did you bite someone's sword?"

"Is it _really_ stupid if it worked?"

"Yang, I think you just used me as an excuse."

"I dunno! _Did_ it work?" Yang leaned forward, "who won that fight again?"

"I'm going to tear someone's heart out and eat it in front of you two."

"I mean..." Said Aldric, his cool smile in stark contrast to Yang's confrontational one. "In the grand scheme of things... A certain someone didn't last two minutes against her... So that still makes me better."

Yang seethed for a moment, before taking in a deep breath, and turned to her sister. "Use salt."

Ruby blinked, "wait, wha -"

"Yeah." Aldric nodded, "I'd recommend some ketchup, too. Make the meal seem less bloody than it is."

"So you two really were listening?!"

Aldric simply smiled, and Yang gave her sister a one-armed hug. Ruby pouted for a moment, before turning to Aldric, "so... What's your shield made out of?"

"Hard light." Aldric asked, "and I'm just that good."

Ruby blinked, "how did -"

"Everyone asks."

Yang grinned, "I didn't."

"Because you were too busy being beaten with it."

"Oh that's it - c'mere you!" And Yang lunged forward, only to be interrupted by the timely intervention of a certain Goodwitch giving her opening speech to the rookie huntsmen.

Both of them turned to the television screen and watched Glynda's speech. Aldric used this chance to slip out his scroll and snap a picture of Ruby; he had a role to play, after all. He opened up the messaging app, clicking on the contact labeled 'Hot Stuff'.

 _Hey, Hot Stuff. You mentioned that a chick in a red hood and a huntress interrupted your op yesterday. Wouldn't happen to look like this, would she?  
[Attachment: LittleRedRidingHood{.}JPG]_

The response was almost immediate.

 _-Where are you?_

 _Lady, there are two places in this world I **could** be. Next to you, fearing whatever it is you've cooked up to make you or I stronger, or doing my job. Take a **wild** guess._

 _-She can't be older than fifteen. How would she be on the ship to Beacon?_

 _Ozpin's the superstitious type, right?_ Aldric typed, _here comes some random teenager who more or less singlehandedly foiled a whole entire robbery... And would you look at that: Silver eyes! Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? For chrissakes, there's this one guy on this ship who has no aura, period. I'm pretty sure Ozpin lives his life by the phrase: Oh this'll be hilarious.  
_

 _\- I didn't notice her eye color... I'd ask how **you** know about that legend enough to take note, but I know enough about you to know that it would be a moot point. Instead I'll ask, how close can you get to her?_

Aldric grinned, "alright you two. I've got a lady friend in Mistral." A fire lit up in Yang's eyes, her teeth bared in a one-sided grin, while Ruby turned to face him with curiosity. "And she's the _uber_ jealous type. So who wants to help me piss her off?"

"Beebee, we're in public. I'm flattered, but _no."_

Ruby's face went beet red once the implication dawned on her, "Yang!"

"Funny, but nothing so risque. I may be blind but not everyone else is." He waved his scroll, "let me just take a picture. Both to piss her off and to let her know I'm doing fine in Vale."

Both of them seemed to be satisfied with one half of the answer - Yang more than happy to help Aldric cause some mischief, Ruby ever-pleased to help someone out in general. They squeezed in next to him on either side, and with the help of Yang aiming the camera, and Aldric giving Ruby a one-armed hug and providing a middle finger, they snapped the picture. Ruby sputtered about a bit and begged for a 'nicer' one, not wanting to give off a bad impression; any attempts from Yang to tell her that it was kind of the point remained futile, and as a very different blonde slowly stumbled his way over to them, she acquiesced and they took a better picture.

Once they separated, Yang took a step back and ended up bumping into Jaune Arc, that proving to be the final straw for the queasy rookie-Huntsman, who promptly bent over and heaved.

As Yang reacted about as well as Aldric expected of her, he attached the first picture and sent it off.

 _ **This** close.  
[Attachment: Squad{.}JPG]_

"Ash?" Ruby voiced, as Jaune and Yang quarreled - mostly consisting of Yang yelling and Jaune cowering, trying not to get sick again.

"Hm?"

"How can you see the screen?" If it had been Yang, Aldric would have thought it was a dig, but Ruby asked with enough genuity that it caught him off guard for a moment.

He shrugged, "a wizard did it." He said, cracking a grin. "Trade secret. I could tell you, but -" He gave her a faux-serious look, one eye wider than the other, and an eyebrow arced. "Then I'd have to kill ya."

Ruby stifled a laugh, not fully satisfied with her answer, but willing to let it go for now. She gave Aldric a nod, before blinking and then sputtering for a moment, before narrating the action as a means of temporary goodbye, before sliding away to pry Yang off of Jaune, who appeared to be three seconds away from getting blasted to chunks by Yang's gauntlets.

As Ruby dragged Yang away to cool her sister's head, Aldric held his metal arm forward, "c'mon, angry lady's gone now."

Jaune looked up, seeing Aldric's hand there. "Uh..." He said, grasping it, and letting Aldric help him up. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Aldric patted his stomach, "I used to have wicked bad car sickness."

Jaune brightened up a bit, though he was still hunched over, clenching his stomach. "How'd you get rid of it?"

"I made the mistake of telling my Dad that I was pretty sure it was because I read so much. He shoved me in a car and drove for six hours, told me we wouldn't go home until I read the whole book." Aldric grinned, "didn't help at all, but I got my proverbial sea legs _really_ fucking fast." He gave Jaune a pat on the shoulder, "Ash."

Jaune gagged, before weakly giving out, "Jaune."

"Well, Johnny-boy, here's a bit of sage advice: Vomit on your _own_ shoes, and if you can't -" He pointed in the direction the sisters had gone, _"do not_ vomit on hers."

Jaune chuckled, "I'll keep that in mind." He said, as Aldric's scroll vibrated, and the ship lurched to a halt.

Aldric gave him a nod, "welp, good luck man. Probably see eachother again soon."

Jaune gave him a nod too, and the two parted ways, Aldric pulling out his scroll.

 _-Be **very** careful around her. You may know the legends, but I know the truth: If she awakens her abilities, she could hinder our own or nullify them entirely. Make sure you report on her especially; she may not be a Maiden candidate, but she could be trouble regardless._

 _10/4. Operation: Big Bad Wolf is ago.  
PS: Your partially magical ass got into a fight with a fifteen year old. I got into a (kindof) beam struggle with a goddess. **One** of us won.  
Hint: It wasn't you.  
_

She didn't dignify that with a response, and Aldric didn't blame her.

He stuffed his scroll back in his pocket and joined the stragglers heading out of the airship, swinging his white cane back and forth. He recognized most of the crowd as they streamed outside, and even caught the tail end of a few events he recognized from the show, but for the most part just kept walking, content to get involved only if something brought him into it.

Like, for instance, when Cardin Winchester spotted him and came jogging over, "hey, Goud!"

Aldric pursed his lips, orienting his ear in Cardin's direction and waiting for the burly teen to reach him before saying, "dude, call me Ash, please oh pretty please." He said, continuing on forward. "How's it go... Cardin, right?"

The guy nodded, "yeah." He said, "so what're your thoughts?"

Aldric gave him a blank look. "Well, currently it's on whether or not the people in power will figure out that I'm an Atlesian spy." He deadpanned, "but they were for a while on what would happen if you blew up a tesseract." Ozpin had said that his 'boom' during his fight with Salem had started a nuclear winter, so his 'nuke it' option was seeming less viable, but if he could build a tesseract, or any object of a higher dimension than three, he would possess an object of functionally infinite mass and energy, the problem could solve itself - the only issue would be what happened when one detonated such an object.

He predicted Cardin's response, "why?"

To which, Aldric shrugged. "Keep the mind occupied." And from thinking about any combination of bodies he'd made, bodies he'd make, things he'd seen, or things he _would_ see. "I assume you meant about anything else, though?" He asked, as they passed by the first three quarters of RWBY, right at the end of their initial meeting.

Cardin nodded, "yeah. About the initiation." He said. "What do you think they'll put us through, after what they did in the exam?"

Aldric shrugged, "I prefer to roll with the punches, Cardin." He said, "making plans hasn't historically worked out for me. They never survive first contact with the enemy."

The burnt-orange haired warrior nodded, "very true... But I don't think you're someone to not think of _something."_ He said, flashing his perfect teeth.

"Oh, of course, but that doesn't change the fact." He said, "are you asking because you are hoping I shall join your team, as you intimated in the exam?" He asked, airily.

Cardin snorted, "if you weren't blind, Ash, I'd think you see right through me." He said, "yeah. My team will be the best, and I want the best for it."

"Makes sense." Aldric would admit to some curiosity as to who he'd get dropped with, if he'd recognize them or if he'd meet someone new. "Though I'd prefer to take my chances with..." He shrugged, "chance. Roll the dice and see where I get dropped and with who, without resorting to backroom politics. I rather detest the grand game." He said, running his free hand through his hair, as the two approached the main hall, which was already hustling and bustling with the rookie huntsmen and huntresses.

Cardin shook his head, "Gotta agree with you there." He said, "huntsman should be out there, taking the fight to the Grimm, not stuck behind city walls, begging for coin and campaigning for votes."

Aldric bit his tongue, not saying anything about the fact that Cardin was sort of doing exactly that with this networking he was getting up to. Instead, he said, "I don't disagree." He said, "but something to consider when taking the fight to the Grimm is the resources with which we have to work." He pointed out, as he noticed Yang and Pyrrha sliding into the main hall, though not necessarily together. "We could clear three cities worth of territory in a day, but if we didn't have the numbers, the resources, weapons, or defenses to keep it under control, or the people to settle it with... What point would there be to putting the lives at risk?"

His conversation partner rolled his eyes, "and you think our time would be better spent sitting behind our walls and praying?"

"I think our time would be better spent learning how to secure and defend what we have. Expanding comes later - when exactly _is_ 'later' is part of our job." Aldric opined, "we take stock of our resources, from manpower to colonists, to weapons and technology. Go too early, or without the proper preparation and, well..." He shrugged, "you get Mountain Glenn."

Cardin frowned at this, but shook his head. "Something like that happens, we just kill the Grimm."

"And after that?" Aldric asked, growing bored of this conversation. "We fix that problem but the Huntsman die, and we have less, and the Grimm outnumber us even worse. Then the Grimm inevitably try again and we lose more resources than we will gain in refusing to budge." Aldric explained, "war is ebb and flow, Cardin. We have to pick our battles." Case in point: Aldric picked now to give Cardin a light bow, before he took his leave.

His relative solitude lasted all of five minutes, until another familiar face came around.

"Ash." Pyrrha greeted him, after having spent the last five minutes shuffling around the main hall, a forlorn frown on her face. "It is good to see you. You left the exam so fast... I was wondering if something hadn't come up."

"Oh hey, lady, how's it going?" Aldric said, turning to Pyrrha and letting both of his hands rest on the top of his cane. "Good to see you too. Heard you beat our mutual friend's ass pretty good." He grinned.

She rubbed her arm timidly, "she gave a good fight." She said, deflecting the attention.

"Oh yeah?" Aldric's grin turned sinister, "I remember what your definition of a 'good fight' is... And she literally has two hunks of metal on her wrists. So if you tell me she _really_ gave you a 'good fight', I call..." He hummed, "well, something very vulgar and impolite." Somehow, Pyrrha had done it: By merely being there, her timid, not-yet-people-person self, she had gotten Aldric to hold back on the profanity.

"I..." She nodded to the side, acquiescing. "Don't disagree." She said, "did everything turn out okay?"

Aldric chuckled, "oh, not at all. I'm part of a crime syndicate now, we're getting ready to drop a big ass bomb on Vale." He then nodded to the side, "and I'm pretty sure it won't matter if I drop the soap or not, it'll probably happen eventually."

Pyrrha stifled a chuckle behind her gloved hand, "I think..." She paused, "you may find it more wise to not advertise the fact." She said, it being clear to Aldric that that had been her second choice; she leaned in close and put on an expression of exaggerated concern. "It may make your mission more difficult." She said in a low tone of false admonishment, as though she were a mother teaching a child.

"She's learning!" Aldric said in a singsong tone, as Ozpin took the stage.

Aldric zoned out for most of the speech, instead taking the time to use his radar to scout out Beacon. As much as it rotted his soul, he knew that it would only help his standing with the Legion if he gave good reports, just as the opposite would also be true: If he gave bad, faulty, or too infrequent reports, his loyalties could readily and easily be questioned. What Aldric was grappling with would be the frequency of these reports and the amount and accuracy of the content. Would he drop a message once a day? A week? Would he give _everything,_ or stagger the approach? Giving micro-drops of some information, and expanding on that as time went? All things to consider, and another as well: Exactly how in the loop should Ozpin be? He'd already worked out a plan for his information drops to the Watchmen, up to and including sending reports to Taurus and Torchwick, but with the revelation that Ozpin was _the_ Master, and that he was - or at least had been - a terran, did that mean he should have a higher quantity of, and more unfiltered information?

As the opening speech wound down, Aldric assumed that would be something he'd bring up tomorrow tonight. Once everything was done, Goodwitch bade everyone to go and find their assigned lockers and store their weapons. Aldric bit back the urge to make a crack about his arm being a weapon, instead simply being glad he'd planned ahead for this, with the chainsaw and the spare, hidden Power Glove canisters. Though he would admit, the hidden, 'unregistered' weapons were kind of a moot point, considering the far more open exchange of information between him and Ozpin.

He and Pyrrha made idle chit-chat as they made their way to the locker rooms; Aldric actually started to wonder midway through whether or not his interacting with her wasn't having some kind of drastic change, before he remembered when he'd tried to reconcile time travel movies like Back to the Future and Looper, and instead just gave up and went with it, adding it to the list of things he'd have to talk to Ozpin about. When he found his locker and stowed his handgun and the shield in it, he spared a moment to consider Ozpin's words from the night before. If Ozpin was to be believed, the great red, white, and blue disc he was staring at wasn't at all made of hardlight like he'd thought, it was the actual, real effing deal, vibranium shield. This thing was iconic, legendary even, it was like Superman's 'S', or or the bat signal, - it was one of those few things even people who weren't a fan of the medium or the franchise could recognize.

 _The most versatile substance on the planet, and they made a frisbee out of it._ He thought, with a light, wistful grin.

Though it made Aldric think again on the nature of his being here. Despite what Ozpin had said by way of explaining it, it didn't put to rest Aldric's ever-present fears that he may be in a coma, and this entire world had been constructed by his mind pulling on everything he loved and enjoyed during his life, as a means of keeping him level while he recovered. But as always, he figured that if he was right, there was nothing he could do about it and he may as well enjoy the ride and have a wicked story to tell later, and maybe be the subject of a psychology paper when he woke up; and if he was wrong, it would only behoove him to continue putting forth his best effort for the plan.

He would admit, though: If this really was _the_ shield, like Ozpin suggested, Aldric felt just a bit safer now than he had before. This legendary disc had seen a lot of shit in its time, arguably far more than Remnant could ever do to it. Provided he wasn't stupid with it, it would serve him _well._ But despite this, the thought did crop up that, if he was accepting Ozpin as correct, and that this really was the iconic item it was, that meant, much like the Superman logo he had mentioned earlier, it was a _symbol,_ and not necessarily of what Aldric was doing, now. It was a symbol of good and righteousness, whereas Aldric had used it to aid in murder and terrorism.

It made him wonder if he was worthy of it. At least when he'd believed it was just an approximation, he'd felt somewhat justified in using it. It _wasn't_ the real deal, he was just paying tribute, as it were. Almost as a joke, but now? Now it just _felt_ different, like it had a legacy that Aldric wasn't living up to.

But, his thoughts were cut off when Yang came back around, jumping towards him and planting her hands on his shoulders, as though she were going to leap-frog over him.

"What's got you so down, Beebee?" She said, landing and leaning forward, her face less than a foot to the side of his.

Aldric snorted and shut the locker, "it's not often I'm not without that shield." He said, raising his scroll and pressing it to the locker's keypad. "And it's been a while since I've actually seen it."

Yang seemed to notice he wasn't giving everything up, but also knew that this was a situation that wouldn't be helped by letting him brood. "Oh, I've got bad news for you, dude. The paint's been blasted all off, it looks like it's been in a sand blaster."

"Or you spent an hour working out your frustrations." Aldric deadpanned, as his scroll chimed, letting know it was done syncing with the locker. "Are these things really rocket powered?"

"Don't have things like that in 'back-asswards' Mistral?" Yang grinned, letting go of Aldric as he picked the cane up off of the wall next to the locker, and let Yang lead them out.

"You know, I could probably drop this cane and navigate by your voice alone." Aldric said.

"Aww -"

"It's so loud and obnoxious that my blind ass could hear it from the other end of campus."

"I take back my 'aww'."

Aldric rolled his head about, "you can't resist my manly charms, Xiao Long."

"You're skinnier than me!" Yang scoffed, as they exited the building - Aldric sensing Pyrrha eying them as they left, frowning after them.

"So is Pyrrha, but we _both_ kicked your ass." Aldric led.

Being mentioned seemed to be what was needed, as she took the cue to jog up close to them, "did I hear my name?" She intoned.

"Oh there you are!" Yang said, revolving on her foot and marching backwards, while Aldric continued forward, swinging his cane to and fro.

"Say the word, lady, and I'll kick the loud one out." Aldric said, giving Yang a poke in the thigh with the cane. "Probably appreciate it, my ears always ring when she leaves." He sensed the only member of RWBY he had yet to personally interact with spotting all three of them as she left the locker room, though the gears turning in her head were quickly distracted when she was accosted by Jaune; anything after that Aldric didn't see, as the two left his resting radar range.

Pyrrha smiled, "that's not necessary, Ash."

"Oh please, of course it's necessary." Yang said, turning back to facing the way they marched, as Pyrrha came around to Aldric's right, "see, if I make him mad enough, eventually he'll throw down. And maybe without that shield it'll be a fair fight!"

"Bitch, I could put you down with my right arm tied behind my back."

Pyrrha frowned, "isn't that your -"

"Don't spoil it!" But it was too late, his attempt at subterfuge had been ruined.

"Nice try, Beebee! But the invincible girl over there can't lie!"

Pyrrha rolled her eyes, as the trio made it closer to the main hall where they'd be sleeping that night. "Yang... May I ask why you call him Beebee?" She wondered.

Yang looked thrilled, but Aldric shut it down, "nonono - hell no! That story does not need to -"

But as expected, she didn't even acknowledge it. "We met in a bar. He was working security for his sugar mama and she wanted some entertainment and told him to fight me." She said, "thus: Bar Boy."

Surprising Aldric, though, was Pyrrha showcasing a small amount of adaptation to the environment the louder two had constructed around her, "I assume he won, though." She let it build, before baiting the blonde one with: "After all... You didn't last very long in _our_ fight."

Yang's mouth spread in a wide 'o' of surprise, as she pointed over at the redhead, "did - did you just insult me?!" She gasped.

"I'm impressed lady."

"You two are a poor influence, I admit." Pyrrha said, a wide, thin smile on her face, and a brief distant look glazing over her eyes, before she raised her gaze to meet Yang's purple orbs. "But it feels good, I don't often get the chance to laugh like I do with you two."

Yang's response was immediate, "uh, excuse me - I haven't actually heard you laugh _once."_ She pointed out, "it's always -" And she raised her hand, covering her mouth and mimicking Pyrrha's stifled giggles.

Aldric built off of her with, "I want it noted that by the time I'll have finished speaking she'll be _fighting_ the urge to do just that."

True to form, Pyrrha's expression had morphed into one of barely-suppressed amusement, as she tried to keep herself from smiling, by saying, "oh, so you could see that?"

Yang and Aldric's laughter stopped dead, as the two slowly turned to look at their new friend, expressions aghast. Aldric even lowered his glasses, revealing the wide, dark pits that would have been his eyes. Pyrrha remained as stoic as she could, trying to keep herself from smiling.

 _"Damn,_ lady!" Aldric finally cursed, raising his free hand to his chest, "right here." He chuckled, before turning to Yang, "I have a new best friend. You've been replaced." He said, immediately turning it around.

"Oh - oh! Oh! Okay! Okay!" And Yang leapt on top of Aldric, digging her knuckles into his thick head of hair, the three of them laughing. "Say that again, Beebee! _Say it agaaaaaain!"_


	29. Gem Sweater

Chapter 28

* * *

The first-year rookies wasted the rest of the day either exploring the area around Beacon's main hall, or in the hall itself, claiming sleeping bags and pieces of real estate. Aldric kept himself right in the center of the hall, keeping the exits and windows equidistant on all sides, to sate the paranoid parts of him. He inadvertently ended up functioning as the dividing line between the male and female halves of the hall, but didn't pay it any mind, spending most of the day furtherly networking with the few people he'd met thus far, as well as having an encounter or two with some people who recognized him from the Vale exams.

One of whom, rounded out his collection of encounters with the show's namesake.

Dinner rolled around, Yang ran off to see some of her other friends, Pyrrha stuck to him like glue, being the only person she kind of knew in the whole building, and then Weiss slid into position right in front of him. Pyrrha's eyes popped up, recognizing Wiess by sight, but Aldric, playing the blind man, simply kept picking at his food.

She cleared her throat, and Pyrrha gave him a light prod, causing him to look up. "Hm?" He grunted, leaning towards Pyrrha.

"Good evening." Weiss said, formally.

Aldric straightened back up, now looking at Weiss, "uh, Hi." He chirped, "how's it goin'?"

"Hello." Pyrrha nodded, her own formality matching Wiess'.

"I believe I recognize you... Pyrrha." Weiss said, cautiously, nodding to Pyrrha. "From one of my father's international tournaments, yes?"

To which, Pyrrha nodded. "It has been some time." She said.

"You know her?" Aldric rumbled.

"I met her once." Pyrrha nodded, "at a tournament I participated in. This is Weiss Schnee."

"You're Weiss Schnee?" Aldric practically screeched, though his voice barely reached past the three of them, "what the flaming f-" But Pyrrha displayed an uncanny knowledge of how it was he spoke, giving him a subtle kick from under the table to stave off the profanity, "-french toast are you doing in Vale?"

If Weiss noticed his narrowly avoided 'fuck', or was wondering what French toast was, she didn't voice it. Instead she responded with, "I felt that attending an academy in another country could only foster good relations between my home and this one." She said, a professional air to her response. "Would you happen to be the blind fighter from the exam?" She asked.

"Man -" Aldric reached up, "and here I thought I was -" But when he attempted to slip off his glasses and freak Weiss out, he found they weren't budging, and it didn't take but a fraction of a second to realize that the parts resisting his force specifically were its metal frames, and he managed to transition quickly into pushing them back up the bridge of his nose. "- being subtle about it. What with the dark glasses and the white cane." He said, nodding to the cane leaning next to him; though he did file this away for later - Pyrrha was far more well versed in his aptly named 'grand game' than she was with her people skills, an interesting discovery. "Name's Goud, but that's not groovy, so call me Ash." He said, with a smile and a nod.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Ash." Weiss said, "I saw both of your fights after the marathon." She said, before nodding to Pyrrha, "as I did all of yours, Pyrrha. You both did remarkably, and your battle together was quite something to behold."

Aldric felt like he was talking to a state senator. "I dunno, I got quite a few shiners in my bits." He nodded to Pyrrha, "and she beat me into the ground."

"Thank you, Weiss, having your attention is quite a feat... But I fear you're being modest, Ash. Few lasted against me quite as long as you did."

Weiss agreed, "indeed. I think you would have gone much further, had you not been matched up against Pyrrha Nikos so early."

Alright, Aldric couldn't let that one slide - if he didn't say something, they both would probably wonder why, in some way. "First _and_ last name -" He looked over at Pyrrha, "are you famous back home, or something?"

Pyrrha steeled herself at this, slowly nodding. "I did very well during my pre-academy years..." She said, Aldric noticing the grip on her fork tightening, as she no-doubt expected some amount of hero worship from him. "It was part of the reason how I got selected for Mister Schnee's tournament."

Weiss smiled politely, "now who's being modest, Pyrrha? You're the _Invincible Girl!_ You had a free ride anywhere you wanted!"

"And here I thought Yang was just poking fun at you." Aldric set down his fork and turned to face Pyrrha, raising his hand and pointing at her, all fingers splayed out; he drew on his roots from back home and laid his accent on _thick._ "Okay girlfriend, I got this buddy back home, right? His name be Antoine, he been rottin' in a cell fo' comin' on two years now." He noticed her trying not to smile, and it only made him smile even wider, "you gotta pull some strings, girl. Get my buddy outta jail." He raised his fist, "free Antoine - that's what we was all shoutin' when he got put up." Here, though, he lost control and trailed off into laughter, shaking his head and turning back to his food. "I couldn't keep it together." He said, picking up his fork. "So what can we do ya for, Weiss?"

"I'm merely hoping to make acquaintance with my fellow students." Weiss said, only now starting to eat her own food.

 _Whenever a public figure says the phrase 'I'm merely', everything that follows is false._ To prove this, Aldric merely had to point out that Weiss was talking to Pyrrha Nikos - no explanation needed - and him, who apparently had already begun building something of a reputation. If he'd give Cardin anything, the dude was open about it, though that very well could just be because he didn't have the capacity for subtlety.

"Well, welcome to dinner!" Aldric said, briefly raising his hands, "so -" He indicated himself, "I did it because my boss offered to fund the whole thing." He cast a glance to Weiss, "she did it _totally_ for international relations." He gave Pyrrha a brief glance, "why'd _you_ hop the border?"

"I felt a change of scenery from what I have known would be good for me." She said, with a smile.

Aldric shrugged, "seems legit." He dug at the last dregs of his meal, resisting the urge to make a drug joke in regards to Weiss' hookup in the Dust trade. "So I kind of had a premature ejection from the tournament, thanks to her here." He nodded to Pyrrha, "and I've been told on no uncertain terms that -" He raised his voice to a facsimile of hers, "oh, I achieved victory, but by no means does that diminish the accomplishments of my classmates." He noticed her pursing her lips in an attempt to not smile, but the lack of bodily harm told him she was okay with the digs, likely already knowing where he was going. "But how far did you go?" He nodded to the snow-haired rookie.

She smiled, and if it hadn't already been ramrod straight and perfect to begin with, Aldric was pretty sure she would have straightened up a bit, "I made it to the finals." She said, with no small amount of pride in her posh tone. "But my aura levels were insufficient to continue any further than I did, so I hadn't the honor or the opportunity to test myself against the other finalists." She said, "but I learned where my strengths and weaknesses lay, and know from where I should build."

 _Captain! The snide buildup is reaching critical levels!_ Aldric nodded, _deploy countermeasures!_ "So what you're saying is you could _totally_ take one of us in a fight." That got him another kick, but Weiss took it in stride.

"I would definitely relish the chance to pit my skills against yours, Ash, and yours too, Pyrrha."

 _The snide is going back down to safe levels! That was a close one._ Aldric made a mistake and snorted loudly, but at the strange looks he got, he merely shook his head and waved it off. "Thought of something stupid." He said, trying not to smile too wide. "So uh -" He cleared his throat, "what do you think we can expect for tomorrow?" He said, trying to recover, and pointedly not thinking about how he'd made fun of Cardin for doing this earlier in the day.

"Likely something that will test our combat and survival skills." Weiss said, reservedly. "Perhaps in the Emerald Forest. Wild lands, a high Grimm population, ancient ruins."

 _Plane crash site. A mass grave. Cubone's non-corpse somewhere. Mothra's burned self somewhere else. The **exploded** ruins._ Aldric nodded to the side, "makes sense."

"I have heard Beacon's initiations are often symbolic in nature." Said Pyrrha, "but fun, nonetheless. I would think something of a scavenger hunt."

"That is a good observation, Pyrrha." Said Weiss.

But Aldric's two cents was, "search for one thing in a giant forest." Aldric nodded, "an almost literal needle in a huge, vast, green haystack. I can dig it."

The trio continued on until the sun fell and their food was gone; Weiss excused herself to return to the sleeping areas and gather her sleepwear. After the two pitched their dinner trash, Aldric gave Pyrrha a look, "so what was with the ah -" He elbowed her, and then flicked at his glasses. "Yeah?"

Pyrrha nodded, a frown on her face "Weiss is a far more experienced player in the political half of a huntsman or huntresses' life, than you or even I." She said, a bit of remorse in her voice. "We must be careful to tread lightly around her and others like her, people with influence and power. Risking any sort of slight or offense could do damage to our careers even years down the line."

"And is that spoken from experience, eh? _Miss_ Nikos?" He gave her playful shove.

To which she gave him an apologetic smile, "I apologize for the subterfuge, Ash... But one of the reasons I left Mistral was because everyone knew me." She said, "this was... Sort of going to be a fresh start."

Was this moving fast? Or was it because she hadn't any other choice? Either way, Aldric kept up the act. "So you coming to talk to me was one hell of a leap of faith, then."

She nodded, "I'd seen your fights and they struck a chord in me... Made me decide to try a bit earlier than I'd intended."

 _Well I'd stolen the idea from you in the first place, kind of._ Aldric nodded to the side, "Welp - I'm sorry to disappoint." He chuckled, turning to her and extending a hand, "good luck in the morning?"

Pyrrha smiled, and nodded. "Yes." She said, shaking his hand. "Good luck in the morning."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _And my collection is complete!_

 _Kind of..._

 _Met the last bit of the RWBY team, met half of JNPR, ran into Cardinal again._

 _God damn, I'm really here, aren't I?_

 _Initiation's tomorrow, it does occur to me that Ozpin's a far more experienced player than I am, he may use this as an opportunity to play a game with me.  
If only because I'm certain he's the kind of guy to get his kicks where he can, and fucking with me **because** he can would, admittedly, be funny.  
_

 _I suppose we'll know once the teams get picked, though._

 _Side note: I would love nothing more than to try and build the lightsaber tonight... But I'm kind of surrounded by every rookie student, I would reveal 'unregistered' weapons, and, you know - I'd probably scare the pants off of everyone in here if, in the middle of the night, whole room got woken up with a loud **ZHOOM!**_

 _It's **definitely** happening - I've thought about everything I remember from Star Wars lore the last few days too much to not do anything with it - but it'll probably take a bit of time._

 _'Till next time._

* * *

 _From: AdrianBrittReidVeight{a}ScarlettMailCCT_

 _To: xXCFallXx{a}ScaleMessengerCCT_

 _Subject: Contact_

 _Hey, Hot Stuff._

 _Made it in, no risk to my cover as of yet._

 _Will work first to establish myself before taking any massive risks; some progress already made. Don't ask me how to explain it, but apparently Goud already built a small reputation for himself, lasting for 'so long' [read: Five minutes? Ish?] against Pyrrha Nikos. Looked her up, she's a badass from Mistral. Also made contact again w/Yang Xiao Long, had to alter Goud's story just a bit to fit with her recognition of me (was working 'Miss Ember's' security as a summer job, when we first met.), and also had brief contact w/Weiss fucking Schnee._

 _Might (?) have made a mistake or two - she's a business woman/politician, and that's not a game I play often. (Neo's the only experience I have, but I'll stop right there. Making those jokes would be too easy.); but I think I recovered it well enough. She's networking like a motherfucker, saw Goud's fights and believes the hype. Will see about pursuing further ( **Don't Tell Neo** )._

 _Haven't seen Silver Eyed chick (Name of Ruby Rose, possible familial relationship to Yang Xiao Long, but no direct confirmation) since I sent that picture, that dude I mentioned (No aura, 'this'll be hilarious') vomited on Xiao Long's shoes. Stupid Shit._

 _Have the initiation tomorrow, will keep you posted on team assignments._

 _Side note: We passed over Emerald Forest on the way in. No sign of my plane crash; is safe to assume that Ozpin picked it clean and removed all evidence.  
 **Potential** (?) problem, if they figure out how to read Earth English, and figure out that there are a few names I didn't cross off of the manifest, they may conclude that there are survivors. _

_Bad news: they'll look for them.  
Good news: They may assume there's more than one._

 _So, six in one hand, half a dozen in the other._

 _-MisterMasterptlk_

* * *

For the first time in several days, Aldric actually got some sleep. There were some minor instances of eyeless Maidens trying to choke him out, but for the most part he slept and he slept well. He awoke alongside everyone else and, as was becoming the custom, was accosted and traded insults with Yang, and chatted with Pyrrha over breakfast. Ruby stopped by for a little while, unable to locate her sister, and that conversation was mostly dominated by the three of them swapping conversations about their weapons.

Once breakfast was out, the rookies filed out to the locker room and retrieved their weapons and played witness to some events to the show. Jaune, Weiss, and Pyrrha's first encounter went about as he expected it to, the only difference coming afterwords.

"Ash!" Weiss said, waiting a moment as he swung his cane and navigated out of the locker room.

"That's my name!" Aldric said, airily, "how goes things..." He frowned, "is that Weiss?"

She nodded, "to your right." She said, matching her pace as he passed her by. "Did you sleep well?"

Aldric's knee-jerk was 'no, I'm still alive', just to see her reaction, but he could sense Pyrrha a few paces behind them, so he decided he'd avoid pissing people off. "Well, I woke up." He said, with a nod, "so I count that as a win."

"Doorway just ahead - have you, perhaps, put any thought into your teams?"

"Far more than you may think." Aldric said, a wide smile on his face. "I'm looking forward to seeing who I get put up with." He was willing to bet quite a bit of money that Ozpin would fuck with him and put him in a group of straight men, to counteract his funny man, and probably as a means of subtle torture - oh, so you want to spy on my school? Well you'll have to suffer for it.

"Oh!" Weiss seemed as though she hadn't expected the answer, "and what did you come up with?"

"Well, I spent a long time thinking about it, but then I recalled some rather wise words someone once said to me, and decided to stop worrying about things I couldn't control." And he wasn't lying, either - his final conclusion had actually been that, if Ozpin didn't make any additions to the 'eye contact' rule, Aldric's position in Beacon could feasibly be _completely_ controlled by Ozpin, if only because technically Aldric wouldn't be making eye contact with anyone, because it would be the same insane troll logic that got Ruby and Jaune into the school: Oh, this'll be hilarious.

"I see." Weiss nodded, "perhaps you would consider joining a team with me? I think we would compliment eachother very well."

 _I respect the attempt, but that kind of stuff stopped working once the last one who tried started sticking knives wherever she could put them._ "I guess we'll see, won't we?" He shrugged, with a yawn. "I've long since become the type to roll the dice, see where they land, and improvise accordingly."

"I suppose great minds do think alike, then. You're not the first person to say that."

"So there's someone else as stupid as me?" Aldric grinned.

"I... Wouldn't go so far." She said, shaking her head. "Although your modesty is something to respect." She said, trying to recover.

Aldric let out a long, slow breath to avoid any inappropriate jokes; much as Ash was uncouth, there had to be a limit. "I guess we'll see." He said again.

The rest of the walk was spent in relative silence, and once they found the cliffs they and the rest of the class took their positions on the catapult plates. Once everyone was in place, and considering the importance of the context of the event, Aldric actually listened to the teachers' speech, as he secured his shield to his arm.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors." Ozpin began, pacing up and down the cliffside, eying down the many students assembled and ready. "And today..." He called out, "your final evaluation shall take place in the emerald forest." He said, coming to a halt next to the prim and proper Goodwitch.

She picked up with, "we are certain you've heard many rumors regarding the assignment of your teams." She said, in her sharp voice. "Listen closely, as we will put an end to those rumors." She said, straightening her posture, "each of you will be given teammates... _Today."_

 _So far so good._ Aldric thought, his hands finding their way to his pockets, as he scanned over everyone present with his radar.

"Allow us to be clear when we say that these teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon." Ozpin warned, "so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well." He intoned, "that being said - rest assured that you can confidently know that the _first_ person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the next four years."

 _So the question_ really _is, should I point it out to him?_ Aldric wondered, as he sensed a few eyes turning towards him. _Fuck it._ "Uh, question -" Aldric raised his hand, "- I don't have eyes."

Goodwitch frowned at him, "that is not a question, young man."

Oh, so it was Jeopardy rules. "What _is_ I don't have eyes?" Aldric stowed his hand away again.

"I suppose we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it." Ozpin said, as Goodwitch kept up her poker face. "You did make it here, after all."

In other words: Aldric was right; Ozpin was getting ready to drop some kind of insane troll logic on him. This would be fun.

"Okay."

"If there is nothing else..." Ozpin raised his voice, "after you've partnered up, make your ways to the northern end of the forest." He instructed, "you can expect to meet opposition along the way... And must destroy _everything_ along your path... Do so, or I can guarantee you will die." He said, bluntly. "You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors _will_ not intervene.

"At the end of the path, you will find an abandoned temple containing several relics. Each pair must choose one, and return here." He explained, "we will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade accordingly." He gave a look around, "are there any questions?"

Aldric was too far away to hear Jaune without his semblance, bur he could read his lips well enough. "Um, yeah -"

"Good!" Ozpin grinned, "now get ready."

Aldric stayed exactly like he was, his hands in his pockets, shield on his right arm and pressed to his side, and his posture straight. In short order, people were launched, and more than a dozen went by, when it came Aldric's turn. With the way he stood, perfectly still, he was launched through the air and soared straight through it like a spear.

The only difference between this flight and those done under his power, was the lack of the latter. He soared straight through the air based on nothing but Sir Newton's laws, and as he reached the apex and began curving downwards, he removed his hand from his coat and readied his shield. As his arc towards the ground became more and more sharp, the shield protected him from the impacts from the branches. He slowed down remarkably fast, and with a pulse of his semblance, killed the rest of his momentum, allowing him to orient himself to the ground with a flip. He landed with a billow of his coat, and skidded forward for a foot before coming to a halt.

He nodded, stowing his hand back in his coat; he didn't need to expand his radar to search for the ruins - he remembered the general wheres of the forest well enough: The cliffs were to his back, so he had to go the other way. It felt odd, being here again - like everything had come full circle. So of course, as he trekked forward, he just _waited_ for the universe to give him a shove.

As it turned out, it instead opted for a brown and gray missile, heralded by, _"OH NO LOOK OUT!"_

His radar pulse snapped out further, and he saw the body belonging to the speaker hurtling straight for him. He sidestepped the rapidly approaching rookie, and with a nod to the side, he tossed his shield upwards. She hit the shield feet-first and careened towards the ground. Her momentum and the force of the impact were both absorbed the instant the shield flattened itself against the ground, stopping her so quickly and so suddenly that she needed a moment for it to register.

Once she was done, she hopped off the shield, expression one of amazement. "Whoa!" She said, scooping the shield up and brushing her footprints off of its multicolored surface. "Whoa, how'd you do that?" She snapped back to Aldric as he approached, handing him his shield with one hand, and running her hand over her tightly-shaved head with the other.

"Magic?" Aldric shrugged, accepting the shield and presenting his hand to her. "Name's Goud, not groovy enough, call me Ash." He said, with a nod.

"Oh!" She bounced on her feet, and thrust a bare, dark-skinned hand out, grasping his tightly. "Ecru!" She nodded, shaking his hand vigorously.

Aldric smiled politely as they let go of eachother, "so - shall we go?"

"Oh - yeah! Yeah!" She nodded and the two took off at a leisurely pace. "So -" He sensed her lean in close, "are you the blind guy?"

Aldric let his glasses slide down his nose, and he gave her a look. "So I'm told..." He said, winking, before he pushed them back up.

"Cool..." Ecru nodded, running her amber eyes over him, assessing him. "I saw you fight Pyrrha Nikos, you know." She said, "how do you do that? Even I didn't get close to her!"

"You made it to Pyrrha?"

"I was the runner up and I only lasted ninety seconds!" She somehow managed to puff out her chest with pride, and slump over in defeat, at the same time.

"Well - I couldn't see it." He grinned.

Ecru's grin returned, "we're going to get along, Ash." She nodded, "so - why a shield?" She asked, as the two circled around a titanic tree.

"Ups my defense... Serves as a good symbol... And I've been _told_ it looks good."

Ecru giggled, "well, that it may, but it doesn't hold a candle to my lovely lady." She said lovingly, pulling an iron baseball bat from her back, nuzzling it against her cheek and stroking it with her hand. "Blunt force trauma, high powered shotgun, and for when I really need to split a skull -"

"Like that Grimm's?"

"Huh?" Ecru spun around and saw a Beowolf charging them; the grin that stretched across her face was feral, but as she readied the bat and a port on its side opened up, she found that she had been outpaced - Aldric's shield zoomed past her, hitting a tree off to her side and bouncing straight for the Beowolf.

It impacted with a loud twang and chipped off part of its exoskeleton, and as the beowolf lurched forward and slid across the ground, it bounced again, now hurtling right for Ecru, who stood there, slackjawed and in awe. Aldric slid around her and thrust his hand forward, catching the shield and securing it to his arm. Ecru gave it a look, and then Aldric, before grinning and raising her bat high above her head - after a moment's preparation, there was a loud explosion, and it rocketed downwards, smashing the Beowolf's skull into pieces.

It dissipated to smoke momentarily, leaving Aldric to realize, _that's the first Grimm I've fought since Cubone..._ He nodded, _Holy shit that got easy._ He was ready to swear he could feel the scars on his chest prickling at the memories, but he was distracted by Ecru grabbing him by his sides and turning him to her.

 _"How?!"_ She asked, an infectious grin on her dark face, and a gleeful twinkle in her eyes.

"Keep asking me that, and I'll keep giving you the same answer." Aldric grinned, "a wizard did it." He waved a finger at her, as the two continued on. "We can't reveal our secrets, you know." He intoned.

Ecru scoffed and waved Aldric away derisively, "oh please. We're going to be an item for the next four years, don't give me that." She lolled her head to the side, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Aldric snorted, but shook his head. "Why ruin the surprise?" He asked, "besides - I've already shown you my semblance."

"Oh, yeah, semblances. That's what I was talking about." She straightened up, looking anywhere but Aldric, before grinning and giving him a shove on the arm. "So is this mystery that you draw power from how you're navigating without your cane?"

Aldric nodded, "it takes a bit of focus to see without my eyes, which is why I use the cane whenever I'm not fighting." He explained, "but out here? Where a Grimm can show up at any moment? Yeah." He nodded, "I'll burn the aura, but god help you if you want me to see further than..." He pulled out the white cane, flipped it a few times, and then thrust it forward at full extension, just a few feet ahead of him. "That far around me." He said, before collapsing the cane and stowing it back in his coat.

Ecru nodded, accepting that answer. "Makes sense, I guess." She said, "have you considered -"

"They're being made." Aldric cut her off, "but it'll be some time. It takes a lot more time than an arm."

As they continued speaking, they made their way through the forest, until coming across a long, and wide, clearing. At first glance, Aldric thought it was just any ordinary clearing, until his radar let him know what was under the dirt. Ozpin and the League had done a good job hiding it, even managing to plant new patches of grass, but the last time Aldric had been here, he'd dug a _huge_ pit in the ground, and burned a great deal of bodies in it. They could try to mask the damage all they wanted, but those bodies were still here.

 _I really did come full circle..._ Aldric thought, taking in a deep breath through his nose.

"Yeah, it's really peaceful out here." Said Ecru, looking straight up. "Almost makes you forget about the _giant_ Grimm circling up above us."

"The who-what in the where now?" Aldric hadn't so much as started extending his radar, than did the Grimm the dark-skinned rookie pointed out begin hurtling towards the ground.

When it landed and came within his range, Aldric's peaceful expression dropped. It was a gigantic nevermore that had landed here, but it wasn't just any nevermore. This one specifically was sporting a rough patch on one of its wings, bare of feathers - as though it had been _burned._

It was _Mothra._

The question Aldric had to ask now was if this was the Universe's peace offering, or rather an omen. Here was an almost literal, physical representation of not just everything he had once feared, but also of how weak he had once been and how strong he had grown between then and now, so was this the Universe letting him close this loose end? Or was it warning him that there was always a bigger fish, and that this was barely the tip of the iceberg?

Regardless, Aldric knew _one_ thing: This was, ostensibly, the reason why he was the only full-blooded terran on Remnant. So, "this has to die."

"Uh, I appreciate the enthusiasm, Ash, but that's a Nevermore."

"And you've got a rocket powered bat - as a matter of fact, let's put it to use. Ever heard of the fast-ball special?"

"Uh - yeah?" Ecru sounded nervous, as the Nevermore took in a deep breath, and let out a deafening caw.

"Just think of me as the ball!" Aldric said, tightening his grip on his shield, and then hopping into the air. "Go!"

Ecru caught on quickly enough, and with a mighty heave, swung her bat into the target provided by Aldric. With a loud explosion and the sound of ringing metal, her lovely lady hit his shield and launched him through the air. He thrust his shield forward in a Superman pose and rammed into the Nevermore's throat, cutting its shriek short and leaving it with little more than a gurgle. Aldric grabbed a fistfull of person-sized feathers as the Nevermore began thrashing about, and he swung himself onto its back as Ecru began strafing around it, laying into it with her shotgun, each blast sounding like a thunderclap, and each slug causing the Nevermore to flinch on impact.

Aldric grunted as he ambled onto the gigantic demonic raven's neck, and when he got into position, he raised his left arm high. The Nevermore's plumage may be thick, and straight-up blunt force trauma may not be enough to deal lasting damage, but that wasn't all Aldric had at his disposal. When this thing knew him, he'd merely had a knife and an axe.

But now?

He'd upgraded.

And with a loud bellow, that was soon drowned out by the sound of a revving engine, Aldric's left arm split into pieces and flipped outwards, revealing the chainsaw, whose teeth popped into existence and began spinning with furious anger. His chainsaw could be heard above his bellows and Ecru's shotgun blasts, and he slammed it into the Nevermore's neck, digging it as deep as he could.

The effect was immediate, the Nevermore cawed again, this time in great pain, and extended its mighty wings wide and began beating at the air with them; Ecru realized it was taking off and dashed forward, a blade springing out of one end of her bat, which she dug into the Grimm's talons just as it left the ground. Aldric continued sawing at its neck, jerking it back and forth, up and down, in every direction, as bits of plumage flew about in all directions, before, finally, blood joined it; and as he tore into its skin and dug closer and closer to its spine, Ecru used the bladed bat as a climbing axe, carving into the Nevermore with every strike as she climbed up its leg and to Aldric.

She reached him at the same time as Aldric felt his chainsaw grinding against something firm and unyielding, and as the Nevermore grew higher into the air. Ecru knelt down next to Aldric and spun her bat lengthwise, turning it to the shotgun, a bayonet jutting out from underneath its barrel. She planted the weapon in the pit of flesh Aldric had carved for himself. Before she could fire, however, the Nevermore dove, now hurtling straight back towards the ground at breakneck speeds.

Ecru was bucked from the Nevermore and fell off, but Aldric, with his chainsaw in its neck, was stuck fast, and he used this to lunge over to his partner and catch her by the forearm. Holding her tightly by the arm, Aldric looked up to the Nevermore's head, and then down to her, before nodding in its direction. She nodded once and tightened her hold on her shotgun, as Aldric swung her back and forth, building up his momentum before finally tossing her ahead; with a subtle application of his semblance, she flew exactly as far as she had to. She dug the bayonet into the creature's exoskeleton and was halted, and as she got into position, Aldric mounted its neck again and revved the chainsaw once.

She seemed to get the idea and racked her gun; Aldric revved the saw twice, and she shoved the barrel of her gun under the thing's white outer skull, trying to bypass it entirely. Then Aldric revved it three times and let it keep going in a further spray of viscera, now joined by the thunderclaps of her shotgun as she blasted away at the oversized bird's head.

The Nevermore tried one last time to throw its attackers from it, but the both of them had learned from the first attempt, and the both of them held on tight as it inverted itself in a full roll. Aldric could tell as the roof of the forest grew closer that the bird intended to grind them off, so he kept cutting through its surprisingly dense spine, until finally - pop. He carved straight through it, and all the resistance practically vanished as the loud saw started tearing through its spinal cord.

This proved to be the final straw, and Mothra vanished in a huge cloud of smoke, leaving a triumphantly laughing Aldric, and a grinning Ecru.

The latter lasted all of two seconds before she realized the both of them were airborne again, and the ground was coming up even faster than before.

"Uh - Ash we're airborne again!"

Ash's response as more laughter.

"The ground is coming up fast!"

His laughter grew a tad maniacal, and he straightened himself out - zooming towards the ground even faster than his companion.

"You mad bastard!" He heard fade off as he careened through the trees.

This landing was just a bit rougher than the day's first, but he stuck it all the same. He heard Ecru's screams as she came flying in right after him, and he let his laughter die down as he revolved on one foot, and held up his shield, both legs braced for the impact. Ecru crashed through the roof of the forest, her hip slamming into Aldric's shield and her entire body stopping fast; Aldric followed this up by swinging his free arm around and cupping her legs before gravity could try and win over her. The bridal carry lasted a moment before Aldric lowered her to the ground, but her stance turned to be unsteady, her legs almost failed her, the adrenaline still thundering through her system as it tried to drain away.

Aldric merely raised up his chainsaw and gave it one final rev, unable to let the opportunity pass him by. "Groovy."

"I -" Ecru struggled, "you -" She shook her head, and gave him a few strikes with her bat, " _just what was that?"_ She demanded, each word accentuated with another hit with the bat on his shield.

"Are you telling me that wasn't just a _little_ fun?"

"Ash, I don't like heights." She grumbled, smoothing out her gray tunic.

"And yet..." Aldric said, letting the blades vanish and the saw flip back into his forearm, revealing his hand once again. "You still ran _right_ in there when it started taking off." He grinned, noticing that as he wiped the sweat from his brow, no Grimm blood came with it - in fact, despite the visceral display, it had all seemed to vanish alongside Mothra; no wonder people hardly knew anything about the Grimm.

"Well that was because someone hopped on top of that thing like a maniac!" Ecru practically shrieked, running her hand over her shaved head, "I mean - who rides a Grimm!?"

Right on cue, an ursa came thundering on by, with a few familiar faces hanging on for dear life. The two shared a moment of silence as they let the whole thing register, and no sooner had Aldric raised a finger, did Ecru shove the flat end of her bat into his stomach.

"Not a word." Though he could tell she was fighting back a grin.

After a few minutes of silence, only broken by the leaves, grass, and twigs being crunched underfoot as they kept on through the forest, she spoke again. "So..." She began, "did you notice that it had burns on one of its wings?"

"I'm blind."

"Yes."

"I thought I noticed something, but I was moving kind of fast." He said, pantomiming her baseball swing. "Lovely Lady packs one hell of a punch."

"You're damn right she does!" Ecru gave the bat another loving stroke, "that's 'cause she's my Lovely Lady!" She cooed, as the ruins with their objective came within range. "But, really - I've never seen a Grimm with burns before."

"Have you seen a Grimm before?"

"A few, but that was the biggest."

"I bet there's a reason." Aldric said, with a shrug, as they arrived at the ruins, finding a surprising number of the chess pieces already missing.

"I guess these are it?" Ecru hummed, as they approached. She leaned forward, looking at the pieces with a frown on her face.

"Looks like it." Aldric said, swiping a pair of black pawns, noting that they were the only two remaining, and tossing one to Ecru. "That was fun."

She caught it without looking, "but... Was that really it?" She asked, straightening up and turning to Aldric.

Aldric shrugged, "get the stuff and get home. We're only half done, you realize."

Then suddenly, "damn it Beebee!"

Aldric didn't break eye contact with Ecru, "I will give you three thousand Lien right now if you let me borrow that bat."

But Ecru didn't respond fast enough, Yang came flying through the air, trying to tackle Aldric to the ground as her faunus partner came strolling out of the woods. The blonde fireball dug her knuckles into Aldric's skull as he braced himself on an empty pedestal to keep his balance.

"How dare you get here first!" Yang growled, "and who's this?" She shot a faux-glare at Ecru, who blinked in confusion. "How is it you're finding so many women?!" She slid off of Aldric's back and grabbed both sides of his face, "am I not enough for you?!"

"Bitch, you're _too_ much for me, that's why I took _her."_ Aldric said, pushing Yang off of him. "Ecru, Yang, Yang, Ecru." He introduced, before eying Blake, "oh hey, you."

"Hello." She said, with a reserved nod.

"Wait, you know her too?" Yang demanded, throwing her gaze back and forth from him, to Blake. "Holy crap, Beebee, when will you be satisfied?" She demanded, a grin on her face.

"Well, considering how severely outnumbered I am, I think I'll... _Not_ answer that how I could, and instead make my leave." There was actually a plan behind that - if he was going to be up late talking to Ozpin tonight, he wouldn't want to get stuck in their Nevermore or the Dark Stalker fight. "Ready to go?" He asked, nodding to Ecru.

"You're abandoning me, Beebee? I'm hurt." Yang said, holding her hand above her heart.

"Oh, just tell me when you want to spar. We'll work out the tension in the ring." He said, as he and his partner began strolling back to the cliffs.

"I'll hold you to that!"

"It was nice meeting you!" Ecru called back, before turning right back to Aldric. "So how long have you two been a thing?"

He burst out into laughter.

* * *

Returning to the cliffs ended up being far easier a task than venturing out from them, only having to deal with a few beowolves on the way. Climbing back up turned out to be fun, with Ecru having thought that when Aldric offered to give her a boost, he meant helping her get a handhold on the wall - not using his shield as a launch platform and throwing her clear over the edge of the cliff. The sheer surprise of the act nearly made her unable to stick the landing, but Aldric helped her out with his semblance, as he flew up to join her.

Ozpin and Goodwitch were waiting for them, and after offering congratulations and recording which relics they obtained, the two were directed back to the main hall, where they remained until well after dinner. The last of the stragglers came in, and Ozpin took the stage to begin announcing teams. Aldric recognized several, and didn't many others, until he finally heard his name.

"Gout Etiolate, Ecru Lily, Myrtle Lake, and Srebro Lemarac." He announced, as the four called came to the stage. "You four secured the black pawns, and shall form team GEMS." He said, turning to the group as they took the stage, "with mister Etiolate, as your leader." He said, giving them each a nod, and a brief, almost imperceptible wink, to Aldric.

Aldric merely kept up his own grin, bowing in thanks. The rest of the ceremony went about as he expected, and once they were released, GEMS left the hall as one, making for the dorms. Ecru, Aldric had already met, she was busy fawning over Myrtle, a mousy woman, barely half a foot taller than Neo, making grandiose claims of having fought three ursa on the back of a bucking Nevermore - and Ecru was eating it all up, a fire in her amber eyes. Walking on Aldric's left was the last of his new team, the third female of the group and likely last for what Aldric could already tell would be all the women needed for an endless barrage of teasing from Yang. Srebro, a _giant_ of a woman - almost seven feet tall, clad in armor enough to make her appear to Aldric closer to Wonder Woman than anything else, were it not for the baggy clothes she had on underneath the armor, and the tightly bound dreadlocks flowing off of her head. She remained dead silent throughout the whole ordeal, merely smiling and listening to Ecru and Myrtle as they swapped battle stories from the day.

A fact of which Goud _had_ to point out. "Okay ladies - you two have had your fun, but the third member of our troupe has remained so quiet it's worrying." He said, over the sounds of their talking and his cane clacking on the ground.

Both of the warrior women to his right seemed to realize this only as he said it, and as one they converged on the dark-haired, silver-named member of the team, who, despite her size, managed to visibly shrink under the sudden attention and barrage of questions. Everything from where she came from, what schools she went to, what her weapon was, to what Grimm had she killed. She answered them meekly, completely overwhelmed, and making Aldric feel a little bad for a while, up until she managed to turn their attention onto him in a way so subtle that Aldric had found himself blindsided by the two so quickly he hadn't even realized it had happened until his ears were ringing in a way only Yang had ever accomplished before.

He had to admit: It felt kind of good, not thinking, like this. The conversations they were having were hardly even relevant about anything - mostly focused on what had happened earlier in the day, to lead them to acquire the pieces they did. That the biggest issue plaguing those in his inner circle was what arose when they found their dorm - next door to the only other teams he'd interacted with, he noticed - and discovered that it was smaller than they'd hoped, and spending until well after sundown arranging the beds such that everyone had a corner of the room to claim. When she finished dragging her bed into the corner, the chocolate-skinned firecracker decided she'd 'test' exactly how blind Aldric was when he wasn't fighting, and gave a clear indication she'd go until she was satisfied.

But gave up fast after Aldric let a full can of soda nail him in the back of the head.

"The good news..." He opined, pressing his hand on the welt forming on the back of his head, "is that it's not like the vision centers of my brain are getting any use." He said, more to diffuse the situation - as Myrtle seemed ready to throttle Ecru like Homer would Bart - than anything else, it hadn't even hurt.

Mounted on Ecru's back, one arm wrapped around her throat and the other pushing her head forward, Myrtle gave him an incredulous look from over Ecru's shoulder. "You're sure?"

"Well, if you _want_ to knock her the fuck out." Aldric raised his hands in a shrugging motion, "it's not like I'll be a witness." He said, grinning, before he undid the clasps on his armor and slid it off, letting it rest against his nightstand.

Myrtle accepted that, and dropped her sleeper hold on Ecru, who didn't even seem perturbed, instead looking down at the mousey woman with awe, "I didn't even see you! How'd you do that?!"

Myrtle merely grinned and reached up to pat Ecru on the head, "don't wrestle with the short ones, Ecru." She said, retreating to her corner of the room, "I knocked out guys bigger than Srebro." She seemed disturbingly proud of that.

They descended into more idle chit-chat - or, more accurately, Ecru and Myrtle set the standard for the nights to come and kept building off of eachother, while Srebro retreated to her corner of the room and listened intently, and Aldric collapsed onto his mattress, sans armor, and noting that this was one of the _rare_ times that he wasn't wearing either of his gauntlets, letting his arms be bare. His arms, however, weren't all that were bare - flopping down onto the bed as he had done made his shirt ride up his back, and Srebro's involuntary gasp when she saw his missing arm, and the multitude of scars on the visible portion of his back, attracted everyone's attention first to her, and then to him.

"Whoa, Ash."

"Huh? Did the eggs hatch?" Aldric grunted, not yet aware of why everyone was looking at him, only that they were. "I didn't do it." He yawned, righting himself and sliding his sunglasses off his face and onto the nightstand next to him, and rubbing at his eyes, wondering how long he'd have to stay up in order to sneak out of the dorm while everyone was asleep, and meet Ozpin.

"Clearly -" Said Ecru, sitting down on her bed, "an arm, your eyes, and a spiderweb of scars on your back. What _happened?"_

All eyes on him, Aldric shrugged, "played stupid games, won stupid prizes." He said, twisting the black and red arm out of its socket and planting it on the ground next to his armor. "It's really not that interesting of a story." He'd only got - or lost - them by fighting _God._.. ess.

Myrtle shook her head, "all scars have a story, Goud." She said, "and it is clear to me that we here in this room may be the first to have ever seen _the_ Goud Etiolate as you are now... Not the fighter who battled Pyrrha Nikos, but the very mortal student." She crossed her legs on the bed and brushed her blue hair out of her face, nodding to him. "Please, we're gonna be a team for the next four years, and perhaps far longer than that."

The others seemed to agree with her sentiments, and it made him grunt in defeat, as well as note that, technically, she wasn't wrong - no one had seen _Goud_ like they were seeing him now; but Nebo Aldric, on the other hand... "I got a summer job working security for some lady. Grimm attack -" He chopped at his arm and sliced at his eyes, "- got the lady out, fast enough, but I wasn't so lucky." He yawned.

"Have you still phantom pains?" Myrtle pressed, eyes briefly rolling over his mechanical arm, her expression one of concern.

Aldric shook his head, "not since I got the robo-limb."

"And what about your eyes?" Srebro quietly squeaked from her corner of the room.

"Should be getting some new ones, but it'll be a while."

"Did you at least _get_ the Grimm that did it?" Ecru demanded, haughtily.

Aldric nodded to the side, "I dunno, you tell me." He grinned.

Ecru blinked, but it was Myrtle who called out - "The Nevermore! That was what took your limbs?!"

Aldric nodded, "set the fucker on fire before he flew off." He said, "but I've got a better question."

"Okay." Myrtle nodded.

Aldric pointed a knife hand at the door to their bathroom, "there's only _one_ shower stall in there."

All of the attention was successfully deflected off of him.


	30. This Is Not A Drill

_AN  
I know it's wicked stupid early for an update, but I had a job interview today and I got it offered on the spot, so I'm a little excited.  
_Just a little.  
Which is only good news for you guys, considering the **shit** that's about to go down.  
So let's get started, shall we?

* * *

Chapter 29

* * *

It took three hours for everyone to finally calm down and fall asleep, after which Aldric had to quietly throw on some light gear and sneak out of the dorm; he had been worried he might have woken up Myrtle, who shifted in her sleep as he clicked his arm back into place, but she remained still for the few minutes he waited and watched, filling him with confidence enough to sneak out of the dorm.

Even though he'd already been here once before, now that he'd been here during the day, while it was alive, Aldric would say beyond the shadow of a doubt that the difference between Beacon at night and Beacon at day was, appropriately, as clear as night and day. During the day it was noisy and full of life, like a small city, but during the night, it was cold, and dead silent, the only noise being distant gusts of wind.

Aldric, hands in his coat, walked across Beacon's grounds, his dark overcoat absorbing enough of the light that remained at night to make him look almost like an animated shadow. He arrived at Beacon Tower after a few minutes of walking - noting with his Radar that the lights in Ozpin's office were still on. It took the elevator a few minutes to slide down the building to the ground floor, and then a few minutes more to take Aldric up, and when Aldric entered Ozpin's office, he found the headmaster there, waiting for him, looking out of its main window, down at the academy he led.

"Mister Drake." Said Ozpin, giving Aldric a nod from over his shoulder. "Or should I call you mister Etiolate?"

"Neither are my real name, so whatever floats your boat, Ozbourne." Aldric responded, as he walked up to Ozpin's desk, and took a seat.

"Very well." Said Ozpin, as he too took a seat. "I don't recall whether I said it or not, but I do feel a small amount of congratulations are in order. Making it into my school is no small task."

"Well according to everyone in the know, I'm a _god."_ Aldric stressed, "so it sounds to me like you're congratulating Superman on lifting a heavy object." He said, scratching at his scalp and stifling a yawn.

"Regardless... I must admit, considering who I had seen you interacting with, I almost expected fate to drop you in with team JNPR." Ozpin said, with a none-too-subtle smile. "Five man teams, while rare, aren't exactly unheard of."

Aldric would have rolled his eyes, if he had any. "I stopped questioning why the universe did things to me when I managed to get into a beam struggle with Her and win." He deadpanned, "at this point I roll with the punches. I was just as surprised I met people I didn't know, as I wasn't." He admitted.

Ozpin nodded, "I will be honest in saying I had considered... Giving you a push, as it were... But we each have our own games to play, and having two Mistrali students on one team, I fear what your Lady In Red may have thought upon learning it."

Aldric shrugged, "it may make the _how_ of getting to know the two teams require a bit more creativity, but I've already got a few ins, so to speak, and some ideas... I've just got to learn to juggle the time with my team and the other ones."

Ozpin nodded, "alienating your allies is never something a wise move." He said, "but I suppose we aren't here to talk about such things, are we?"

"We need a plan." Aldric grunted, "time may not be on our side, but we can give it a push here and there. You already said you wanted to do something about the breach?"

"Yes." Said Ozpin, "I was wondering what thoughts you had on the subject."

Aldric rubbed his eyes again, "sorry, a successive string of long days and long nights." He said, before waving it away. "I think the big factor is his being there in the first place. White Fang is good, but without a damn good leader, they don't really make decisions on their own; and since I need to build his loyalty with me in the first place... My idea was to wait until Little Red Riding Hood started her investigation of him, and warn him about it. Not enough to prevent things, but to let him know I have his back... Until the Breach."

Ozpin lowered his gaze in thought, "you intend to warn Cresset and remove his presence entirely."

"I do that, and the Fang's first instinct will be to take a hostage. That'll piss off the rest of Red Hood's team and they'll go on the offensive, tear through the Fang to get to her, and make their retreat."

"But that would run the risk of _Lady_ In Red wondering why you didn't have your proverbial finger on the pulse, in regards to what Red Hood's team was up to." Ozpin pointed out.

"But keep in mind, by that point they'll for the most part _be_ here." Aldric reminded him, "all I have to do is just hint at an awareness that they're doing _something,_ but not necessarily _what_ it is they're doing, as they're keeping it on the low-down, and I can't show any kind of favoritism without destabilizing my standing with my team or the other one." He explained, "the idea being trading specialized and thorough information on just one team, for a general idea of what everyone's doing, without specifics." He shrugged, "the entire reason I'm here is to judge who will be Her likely replacement, to begin with. Everything else is secondary." He leaned back in his chair, "and in regards to that, there are things I can't hold back on without drawing suspicion. So I'll be fully honest on that bit - all signs point to Pyrrha."

Ozpin hummed in agreement, "from information sources both second hand and first, I would have to agree." He said, "but them having such a clear image of what it is we do could be rather detrimental." He warned.

" 'Them' having a clear image of what you're doing is the reason I'm here, Ozz-man." Aldric shot back, "and if we avoid the breach, I have to give them something, and it has to be good. Thus -" He indicated the outside, vaguely in the direction of the dorms. "- a name. Good reports on candidates. Her location. Do that and I gain favor with both parties, and we have a better foothold from which to defend... Bringing me to something I've been thinking on for a _lot_ longer than just the time you and I have put our cards on the table."

"The attack on Beacon."

"I'll be straight with you: Goud has to die there." Aldric said, bluntly. "Not just because his death may galvanize people more effectively, but my acting as him was always meant to be a temporary act. I'm going to bring the same thing up to Lady In Red when the time comes - that when she gets the missing half of her powers, Goud, not Pyrrha, will be the one to step up to bat." He took in a deep breath, "and I'm going to do my damnedest to kill her, right then and there." Ozpin frowned, no doubt thinking of the repercussions of such an act. "It'll throw one _hell_ of a monkey wrench into the White Witch's plans, may allow us to keep ahold of Beacon if we do it right, and it won't damage my standing with the White Witch. Best case, she'll view it as Lady In Red's failure, worst case, she'll track me down just to figure out why - and I can use Red Hood as my scapegoat.

"But in any case, I'm too valuable a player to her, and she'll want to track me down, meaning even without Lady In Red in play, I'll make it to, and make contact with, the White Witch." He let out a long sigh, "I just have to keep them thinking they're in control... Meaning I can't too alter too heavily their buildup. The breach may be fine - we already know they can adapt to that, but doing so as we intend _will_ put them on the defensive. But Beacon has to go... Mostly according to plan, else they could change it and we'll lose our advantage."

Ozpin hummed, folding his fingers together. "Those are very serious plans, Mister Drake." He intoned, "I see the potential, of dealing such a staggering blow... But the risks are equally enormous. Especially with your proposed idea to let the battle for my school go unabated."

Aldric nodded, "we've already agreed that the school is a risk that needs to be taken. Preventing it causes far more problems than it would solve - the only way we can believably do it would be by winning it, which is what I'm proposing." He began, "and to do so, I believe, would hinge around my killing Lady In Red, and then using my connections in our growing army to get them to fall back, after I get proof of her demise."

"But that in and of itself also carries a _massive_ inherent risk, you do realize." Ozpin prodded.

"The risk gets lowered when we keep in mind that Lady In Red is one _proud_ woman, and she'll want to fight me all out. We haven't fought seriously, not _once."_ He said, "and I'll emphasize to her that it will need to be a spectacle. With my reputation now as one with a _hell_ of a lot of potential, and what I believe later may be a reputation as one of Beacon's strongest, and she _still_ tore him down? She won't want to pass up that opportunity to drum up fear and despair, to empower and attract the Grimm. So I'll have an excuse to be going lethal, and if I lose - she won't strike a killing blow, instead making it _appear_ that I'll have died... And if I'm able to drum up any sort of friendship with Red Hood, and she manifests her powers... If I damage the Lady In Red enough, Red _Hood_ may have a far greater chance to kill her."

"That does predicate itself upon your being able to create a meaningful relationship with miss 'Hood'." Ozpin pointed out, though his tone suggested he wasn't necessarily against the idea.

"I've seen and interacted with each member of her team, have something of a friendship with her sister, have an acquaintanceship with the faunus, and 'White' showed me earlier that she has a _serious_ interest in some sort of... Political-business combination alliance with me." Aldric explained, "and Red mostly just wants to be accepted and have friends. So I have an _in_ on each part of the team, they'll all take me in if I make myself available to them. I just have to be receptive to White, a sparring partner to Yellow, unbigoted to Black, and just _there_ for Red." He listed out, "and the other team is arguably even easier, I've done a good deal of the legwork already by making contact with half of them. If I help their leader grow in potential, I could grow to be accepted by all of them."

"You do have a great deal of this thought out, but you are very clinical in your approach, mister Drake. You do not seem to be taking in the human element."

"Have you _seen_ me interacting with these people? There's 'Nathan Drake', and then there's Goud Etiolate."

"Point taken." Ozpin nodded to the side, "but this all is also predicated on your being strong enough _to_ fight and kill Lady In Red." Ozpin pointed out, "have you made any progress at all, beyond your unintentional displays?"

Aldric shook his head, "haven't had the _time,_ not before, during, or after my fight with Her, and especially not since Lady In Red cracked it open for a few minutes in Dira." He said, "I assume you have a plan?"

Ozpin nodded, "I hope you can last on little sleep, Mister Drake." He said, "because you appear to be failing Professor Oobleck's class, and will need remedial teaching at least once a week."

"Why couldn't you give me a match teacher to piss off?" Aldric asked, "I could make that work like you wouldn't believe." He rubbed at his eyes, trying to think this out.

"Unfortunately, I had to make this plan based off of Goud's transcripts. Perhaps due to your very nature, history being your weak subject would be appropriate." Ozpin apologized.

Aldric nodded, "I'll give you that." He said, "would we be starting today?"

To which, Ozpin shook his head, "as much as we may be working within the confines of time, I do believe exhausting you any further than you already are would be a poor decision." He said, "I would prefer to give you the time to adapt to Beacon before putting you through this."

"I'm fighting a war, Ozpin." Aldric deadpanned, "behind enemy lines. I don't need to learn how to tank a pillar of fire, or replicate other semblances like you said you can do." He said, making it a point to let Ozpin know that that, specifically, hadn't been forgotten - that was a skill Aldric felt he could get _unlimited_ mileage out of.

Ozpin shook his head, "a war fighter you may be, Mister Drake, but so too are you still a child... Indeed whose life has been metaphorically stolen from him. I appreciate and even admire your dedication to this... But I feel as though you would _only_ benefit from some... Time off, as it were."

Aldric wouldn't deny that the thought was appealing, but he felt he had to try at least one more time. "Every day we don't make productive is a day lost, Ozpin." Aldric stressed, "I can deal with some lost sleep... But for this plan to work, what I _can't_ deal with - what ostensibly the entire planet can't deal with - is letting the exponential growth I've had these last six months _tank_ for safety's sake."

Ozpin grew a wistful smile, "and the more we speak, the more you remind me of myself, when I was in your shoes." He said. "this is what I shall do." He stood to his feet, "humor me, please, and close your eyes."

"Said to the blind man." Aldric deadpanned, though he did acquiesce.

"I was referring to how it is you continue to see even without them."

"I figured." Aldric let his radar shrink, until, after a moment, he was as blind as he should be.

He heard Ozpin approaching him, "I know you can sense aura. That of yourself and others." He said, to which Aldric grunted in the affirmative. "What I shall allow you to do tonight is to feel deeper. To gain a taste and an understanding for why we must be so cautious... As well as a feeling for your power." Aldric heard a 'click', and was certain that the lights had been killed. "As I said earlier... Our abilities are different separate from dust. Distinct from a semblance. What you use in your day to day is merely what you can access at any given moment... Giving it the _appearance_ of a semblance... But we will call it a shell. And like a shell, it is merely a protective covering, to the valuables inside."

Aldric felt Ozpin place his hand on his good shoulder, "I shall be here to keep you safe... But I cannot visualize these things, or understand them, for you. I can only show you the door, it is up to you to learn how to open it." He said, "so what I want you to do is feel for your aura... Reach inwards with all of your senses, for that pleasant warmth, that burning that comes from drawing upon your aura."

Aldric envisioned what he always did when he drew on his aura, the ball of fire in his stomach. It had become so instinctual at this point that, where once Aldric had to focus everything just to envision it, now he could be doing ten different things at once and still have the idea in his head. He felt his body begin to tingle as the power flowed through him.

"Now, I want you to press inwards. Think of the shell I described. Of your power at rest. I want you to break through this shell, to reach inwards... But I only want you to..."

Silence.

"To...?" Aldric drawled.

Nothing.

"Ozpin." He let go of the fire in his stomach and slowly began extending his radar, only to let it shoot open when he realized he wasn't in Ozpin's office anymore.

What _really_ surprised him, though, was when he opened his eyes, he actually _saw_ things. His hands shot up to his face and he felt at his eyelids, indeed feeling two fleshy globes where they should be; and around him he saw that he was standing in the middle of a long, abandoned highway - one side filled bumper to bumper with cars, some engines still idling and others left wide open, door alarms pinging lightly. He stood in the other side, which was barren and devoid of automobiles.

"What the fu -" But his words were drowned out by several sonic booms above him.

Aldric's head snapped upwards and he saw contrails etching through the sky; he didn't even have to trace them to their owners, as in the blink of an eye four more jets arced through the red, twilight sky. He watched the jets soar through the air, and when his eyes hit the horizon, he blinked, once in confusion, and a second time in shock - because he _recognized_ the city in the distance, its iconic skyline.

It was Los Angeles.

And it was _on fire._

It didn't take long to realize why, either - a closer look revealed what the jets were engaging: Thousands of Grimm flying through the air, tearing chunks out of buildings and in turn being shredded by volumes of gunfire. There were explosions rocking the skyscrapers and bullets tearing through the air, but one sound in particular managed to grace Aldric's ears: The sharp, loud beeps of the Emergency Alert System.

Aldric's head snapped to his left and he dashed over to one of the cars whose doors were wide open. He leaned inside, the keys were still in the ignition, and Aldric turned up the radio.

"Come on..." Aldric breathed, after a few moments of nothing but the tones and sirens of the EAS. "Come on _say something!_ What's going on?!" Where the hell even _was_ he? Was he high? Had something happened in Ozpin's office? Or - perhaps just as frightening - had he finally gone and woken up from RWBY? He could test _that_ at least - if this were a dream, any kind of numbers or letters would change after looking at them. But when he looked at the radio, looked away, and then back at it, the time didn't change, so he wasn't dreaming, but what then was -

 _"We interrupt -"_ Began a robotic voice.

"Yes!"

 _"_ \- _our programming. This is a national emergency. Important instructions will soon follow."_

"Oh fuck you!" Aldric kicked the door of the car, as he took another look at the increasingly intense battle happening over the horizon.

 _"This is an emergency action notification. All broadcast stations and cable systems shall transmit this emergency action notification message."_

"Yes, I fucking get it - come on!"

" _This cable system has interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to broadcast this emergency action notification at the request of the White House, to participate in the Emergency Alert System."_

"NO SHIT!" Aldric started rifling through the car, looking through all the nooks and crannies, for anything that could get him information faster than the bot on the radio.

 _"Do not use your telephone. The telephone line should be kept open for emergency use."_

"How about what the fuck's going on thirty miles that way?!" Aldric demanded, slamming shut a glove compartment and hopping into the back seat.

 _"This is not a test."_ Now it was just fucking with him, and went back to beeping.

 _"Approximately three minutes ago, NORAD detected signs of an imminent wormhole opening in the city of Los Angeles."_ Aldric stopped everything he was doing, _"this wormhole is considerably larger than the first that caused the disappearance of Continental Flight Six Three Six, and the one that signaled the opening attack two months later."_ Said the machine, in its uncanny valley tones. _"It is predicted that more of the creatures known as Grimm will flood from this wormhole than have come or have been created until this point._

 _"As a result, the President has declared the full evacuation of all armed forces from the contested areas and any civilian presences in the surrounding counties, in preparation for an imminent nuclear strike."_

"Ex-fucking- _SCUSE ME!?"_

 _"This nuclear strike is expected to hit within the next five to ten minutes. If you cannot evacuate or it is unsafe to do so, please seek immediate shelter in the most secure location available to you. Please standby for more important information and more instructions."_ The EAS went back to beeping.

"Holy fuck!" Aldric shouted, scrambling out of the car and hopping onto the median, looking down at the city about to be wiped off the face of the Earth, seeing a veritable fleet of attack and transport helicopters fleeing the city. Soon, a new noise began to overpower the distant war and the close radio: That of an engine.

A _lot_ of engines.

Dozens, hundreds - thousands! A veritable cavalcade of vehicles all tearing up the asphault under the helicopters and jets, and hurtling towards him. They were military in design, and they were booking it - as though trying to outrun the end of the world. The humvee at the head of the pack flashed its lights and as it reached Aldric, pulled over to the side, letting the others pass it on by.

The back door swung open, and a soldier leaned out, one head on his scorched helmet. _"GET THE FUCK IN KID - WE GOTTA MOVE!"_ Aldric had a lot of questions, but the authority with which the man screamed shoved those questions to the side about as quickly as Aldric leapt into the humvee.

 _"HE'S IN - HAUL ASS!"_ The soldier screamed, turning to Aldric.

 _Wait -_ Aldric turned to the soldier, "what's the date?!" If he was even remotely correct about what was going on, if even one of the dozens of ideas flying through his head was right, he needed to know what day it was, he needed to know the date.

"What?!" The soldier shouted, over the roar of the humvee's engine.

 _"The goddamn date! What day is it?!"_

"End of the world kid - who cares?!"

" _TELL ME!"_

"God damn it - here!" The driver tossed a cell phone into the backseat, which Aldric grabbed and turned on.

"Did you hit your fucking head or something, kid? What were you doing out here?!" The soldier next to him demanded, as Aldric burned the date into his memory.

"I -"

 _"INCOMING!"_ Shouted the driver, as he slammed his foot on the accelerator, not a second before a ball of fire streaked through the sky above them. _"DUCK AND COVER!"_ He screamed.

The soldier didn't hesitate, grabbing Aldric's arms and bending him over, clapping one hand and his ribs over Aldric's ears, and the other over his eyes. Despite this, Aldric still heard what came next. A deafening, constant clap of thunder with no end and no crescendo, the sound of an entire planet being lit on fire, the screams of oxygen being lit ablaze at a temperature exceeding that of the sun. The humvee's engine died and it coasted along the highway alongside the others - the driver having to weave in and out between tanks and humvees that had chosen to stop.

The extra distance didn't do them any good - when the shockwave hit, it hit them like a rocket. Aldric didn't have the good fortune to die when he was thrown back and forth by the sudden and titanic force slamming into the humvee and sending it flying, and as such he experienced everything that came afterwards: The car tumbling through the air, the first bounce off of the ground, the second bounce, the lateral rotation that got added to the mix when they slammed into another stalled humvee, the glass from the windows shattering and flying around in all directions.

It did occur to Aldric to pull on his semblance, but no sooner had he had the thought than did the humvee hit the ground again and them go rolling right over the side of the highway. Aldric was thrown from the vehicle just a second before it wrapped itself around a tree, but that didn't save him from hitting the tree too - whereupon he felt his leg snap instantly, and his skull crack when he slid down and hit the ground.

Aldric screamed in pain until his voice went hoarse. He didn't know how long it took him to get to his feet, or, when he did, how long it took him to laboriously limp back up to the highway. He looked to the west, and was greeted by the red sky and the gigantic, dark mushroom cloud, covering and looming over what had been Los Angeles.

On the plus side, he didn't see any Grimm.

On the downside, that didn't stop what happened next.

From the cloud's apex expanded an enormous, opaque sphere - the surface of it reflective of everything around it, the fire, the cloud it appeared to be absorbing, everything, making it appear as though it were a gigantic spherical mirror. Out from this sphere came Grimm - thousands of them, of all kinds, a veritable stream, almost appearing as though it were _literally_ raining Grimm. Some fell, some flew, some dove, but they all streamed out of the sphere, falling to the ground, and then taking off - sprinting in all directions, as though the nuclear devastation didn't affect them.

But humanity certainly wasn't the kind to let the results of just _one_ test be indicative of all results going forward. In order to ensure something was fact, they had to test it again, and like all good science, something had to explode at some point or another.

And in this case, the explosion came from three more missiles zooming through the air towards the sphere, one at the head of the pack, leading them by more than a mile, and the other two lagging behind, and surrounding them was a _fleet_ of unmanned drones. Aldric watched with morbid fascination as the lead missile was escorted by these drones, all of whom lit the sky with more missile and gunfire, tearing through any and all of the Grimm attempting to intercept the lead missile, as it carved through the sky, leaving its bright white plume of smoke trailing behind it.

Aldric wondered why they were working so hard to protect the lead missile and not the others, until he saw the drones break off in unison, when they reached the sphere, and the missile - it kept going. It hit the sphere and then phased inside, vanishing entirely. If it had done its job, Aldric couldn't tell - because two seconds later the other two arrived, and they detonated with enormous explosions. Aldric, staring right at them, went blind from the flash, and cried out in pain, but the pain didn't last long. The combined force of two nuclear missiles had double the effect of the first strike, and in the blink of an eye, Aldric felt a searing, burning pain pass over him, before all was numb.

 _"And then what happened, Mister Drake?"_ He heard faintly, as though spoken from miles away and from behind a blanket. _"Do you see anything else?"_

"Huh..." He groaned, suddenly feeling a chair beneath him. "What are... Huh?" He shook his head, and realized with a start, that he was back in Ozpin's office.

Standing in front of him, a pen and paper in his hands, Ozpin's silver-haired head snapped up, clearly having not expected the answer he got. "Mister Drake - are you awake?"

"Oh my..." Aldric groaned, "fffffffuck." He ran his hands through his shaggy hair, "did... Did you give me something?" He demanded, a confused frown forming on his head as Ozpin threw the pen and paper onto his desk, and knelt down in front of his guest.

Ozpin placed his hand on Aldric's forehead, "are you okay?" Ozpin stressed, "do you feel anything? Dizzy? Light headed? Thirsty? Hot, cold, anything like that?"

Aldric groaned, pushing Ozpin's hand away. "It feels like my head's in a vice." He stretched his radar pulse, finding himself exactly where he had been before his trip. "Did you spike me with something?"

"What do you remember?" Ozpin asked, a concerned expression on his face.

"I remember everything - I just got _nuked!"_ Aldric grunted, with a brief flick of the hand, as though Ozpin's question was stupid. "I'm just having trouble processing all of it... And you've avoided the question twice now, that worries me."

Ozpin let out a long sigh, shaking his head. "No, Mister Drake, I didn't drug you. Or influence you with my own abilities beyond using them to cap off your own." He said, "you let off an enormous amount of energy when you accessed it, just now, Mister Drake. I would think of it similar to something under very high pressure getting a crack in its casing - all of that pressure goes somewhere until it is either contained or equalized."

"And in this case, what -" Aldric breathed, " 'somewhere' is _Earth?!"_ He looked up to Ozpin, "where's the tablet?"

"I already checked, Mister Drake." Ozpin said, holding his hand up in a placative gesture, "you were describing everything you saw in a trance. When you mentioned the date, I checked the device you gave me, and they match up. Exactly as much time on Earth has passed as has passed since you arrived here - the date is the same on your device, as it was on the soldier's."

"Holy..." Aldric breathed, leaning back in his chair, finding himself in a cold sweat. "Holy fuck. That can't mean what I think it does." He said, his shoulders slumping.

Ozpin shook his head, "no, it cannot." He said, firmly. "We cannot risk making incorrect assumptions here, Mister Drake, we must only use facts. What I _know_ is that Salem does not have any of the relics, and as such she could not have used them to open _one_ portal on Earth - let alone three. She had to use the Ancient Dust to do so, and while powerful, the diluted dust I was able to create on Remnant doesn't have nearly the same potency as the Dust from Rome - and I know for a fact that all of that is gone." He nodded, "so she would have had to use most or _all_ of her supply just to open the first portal -"

"But you aren't considering..." Aldric interjected, "that there were four names on the manifest. Four bodies I never found - mine included - and you yourself said she _could_ get back if she had a Master - or a full-blooded terran Maiden - to help her." He argued, again pressing his hands to his head, taking a deep breath. "It isn't impossible to conclude that she compartmentalized the entire thing, or that another of her allies found another Master, and Cinder only thinks I'm the only one because I was the only one who made it to the crash site." He groaned, trying to free his head of the pressure that gripped it.

"That's conjecture, Mister Drake. All we know for certain is that there are four names, one of which is yours, leaving only three other _potential_ survivors."

Aldric shook his head, "four Masters and four Maidens. I am _not_ the only one that notices that, right?" He asked, looking up at Ozpin. "That's the kind of shit that makes me assume the worst."

"Mister Drake, I need you to take a deep breath, and calm down." Ozpin said, slowly raising, and lowering, his hand. "Getting worked up -"

"Ozpin the _game_ has _changed."_ Aldric stressed, getting to his feet, but finding his legs were like jelly, and nearly falling over, if Ozpin hadn't suddenly appeared in front of him and assisted him back into the chair. "If the date on my tablet is the same as the date on Earth, that means there are _Grimm_ on Earth _right now,_ and we just nuked a major city to stem the tide." Then it dawned on him, "oh _fuck."_ He sank his head into his hands, "and somewhere on Remnant just got blown to hell too." That was why the first missile had been protected, and why it had had such a lead: The sphere was a wormhole, and NORAD _knew_ this, and thought the best chance they had was to send a bomb _through_ there and hope it did the job.

"We don't _know_ that, Mister -"

"Do you people have a Richter Scale?" Aldric demanded, "can you measure earthquakes? Call up Ironwood - I'll bet you _money_ Atlas has that tech - and give it a few hours for the shockwaves to pass through. He'll be able to detect that shit."

"Aldric, be _quiet."_

Aldric blinked, head snapping up, "did you just -" But his next words fell silent, being nothing but air passing through his throat, soundlessly.

"Now, I understand the gravity of the situation we are finding ourselves in. My theory is that your _intense_ desire to return to the home you knew was felt by the 'pressure release', and your consciousness rode the waves until you made it back to Earth." He said, "and since you had the wherewithall to perform a lucidity test and to get the date and time, we know that this wasn't a dream, nor a vision of the future or the past. These are facts." He said, firmly, before waving his hand - Aldric feeling the slightest pressure fade from inside his throat. "Just as factual as that we know that Grimm are on Earth right now, and that at least two more wormholes have opened up, connecting our world to yours once again, and for the last several months, your military has been engaging the Grimm in a battle over that city." He said, calmly. "Those are the facts. That is all we know for absolute sure.

"Now, we can allow for the slightest bit of hope, in that we both know that opening such a portal would take _tremendous_ power - something I would be unable to do even if my powers weren't waning. Such power would thusly require a great deal of concentration, meaning that whoever had opened that portal was focusing on it entirely, and not his defenses. So we can hope with a modicum of evidence that perhaps the missile that went through the wormhole you saw open, destabilized it, meaning that the two trailing it could have wiped out the current Grimm presence on Earth." He paused, taking a breath, "and, if we assume that to be correct, we can thusly conclude that whomever it was that opened the wormhole, is either heavily injured, or, more likely, deceased, due to his proximity to the detonation's ground zero.

"Now, take a deep breath." He ordered, raising his hand and clenching his fist in front of his chest.

Aldric didn't want his mute button to get hit again, so with pursed lips, he took in a deep breath through his nose.

"And let it out." He opened his hand and lowered it.

Aldric exhaled.

"Now, I apologize for stealing your voice... And indeed taking information you had not given me the rights to, but at the moment you are in a vulnerable place, having just felt your powers and, to continue with the metaphor, released that pressure... You could have relapsed, so to speak, had you continued down the panicked and terror-filled road you were." Ozpin said, calmly. "Yes." He nodded, "this _does_ change things... But the fact of the matter is, until you yourself can make contact with Salem and confirm that she has any more Masters than you, we simply don't know what is going on."

Aldric groaned, "I just got my brain quantum entangled across the universe. I may or may not have possessed some random looter in California, in so doing. And you're trying to tell me what is or isn't possible." He deadpanned. "We have to assume the worst and prepare accordingly. Even if we operate under the assumption that one of the other survivors of my flight just died, that leaves three more - and even if we assume it was _two_ powering those portals, because of how much power it takes to do so, then that still leaves two unaccounted for." Aldric stressed. "That means at the end of the day, that white witch has, a Maiden -" He held up a finger, "two Masters _fully_ loyal to her cause." He held up a second finger, "a third one that has to play the part." A third finger, "and she herself is a demoness with a functionally unlimited army of Grimm to back up her 'spark' of magic.

"Even if I turn coat right now and openly work for you, you've lost so much of your power that you'll get stomped by the Lady In Red." He held up a hand, "I'm not by any means saying you're weak... But unless you're going to convince me that you managed to somehow make each of the Maidens as powerful as you were at your prime, that means you, right now, aren't even at a quarter of your full strength." He argued, "so on our side we, at our best, have a cruise missile -" He indicated Ozpin, "a nuke with no fissile material." He pointed at him, "a half-dead body waiting to let its power return to its other half." He nodded at the elevator, "and a silver-eyed whatever the term is who not only doesn't know what her powers are, but doesn't now how to use them." He ran his hands through his head again, "oh - and! Yeah, almost forgot -" He nodded, a sarcastic smile stretching across his face. "Any allies we may have had on Earth? We lost them with Los Angeles." He said, nodding. "Even if they figure out that, somehow, someway, what is to them, a fictional story, exists in their world, and as such they should ostensibly be able to trust the heroes of that story - they're human beings, Ozpin. They _won't,_ because our first contact consisted of us dumping a celestial bucket full of alien demons in the city of angels.

"We're outgunned, Ozpin, and that's with the best possible stacking of the deck. The _game_ has _changed."_ He stressed.

"So are you suggesting we _give up?"_ Ozpin demanded, crossing his hands in front of him.

Aldric's expression snapped to one of fury, "Don't you dare, Ozpin. That isn't what I'm -"

"Because I saw something else when I went looking for your name." Ozpin interjected, "the mind is a fickle thing, Mister Drake. We humans learn and understand things by association - and that means for every concept in our mind, there exists a way to link it to another, to another, to another, until you circle around to where you began. And tied to your very sense of identity was the idea, the 'plan' you've been so fervently pursuing these last six months. This 'Operation: Green Hornet' - and that name alone sent me down another road, eventually leading to something that is so important to you that I was, for a moment, astonished."

"Don't do it." Aldric shook his head.

"Heroes, Mister Drake." Ozpin nodded, pressing the attack. "You believe in them. You _want_ to believe in them -" Ozpin pointed at him, "it is why you wear that coat, so close to a cape as it is. It is why you chose the very armor you wear. It is how you decided which arm specifically to replace your lost limb with, and it is why you wield what you consider to be the greatest symbol of hope and heroism in the _world."_ Ozpin said, frowning down at Aldric. "Because while you may not believe you will ever live up to its legacy, while you _falsely_ believe that you cannot be a good man, you _do_ believe in heroes. You _do_ believe in the ideal. In the concept that an ordinary man can be given an extraordinary opportunity to do fantastic good, and that this man _will_ do so."

"Ozpin." Aldric frowned.

But he kept going, "you can lie to me, Mister Drake. You can lie to Qrow, you can lie to Cinder. You can lie to your team and you can lie to the students here whom I do _seriously_ question whether or not you view as human beings or as characters from behind a screen. You can even lie to yourself and say that you don't believe that heroes can exist as they do _unless_ it is in fiction, but you _know_ the truth." Ozpin declared, "you _believe_ in the symbol. The ideal. And you _know_ damn well and good that you do _truly_ believe that with the power you have obtained, you are obligated to answer a higher calling, and that you will, because above all else, you _want_ to believe. That no matter what happens - if this planet gets destroyed and you return to Earth to find it clean of humans entirely - that you will not stop fighting until you haven't a single breath in your body.

"Because despite the dark acts you have resigned yourself to. Despite the heinous evil you have volunteered to take onto yourself such that others' souls can remain unstained - to turn a phrase, be the man who plunges his hands into the filth, that others remain clean - _you believe."_ He stressed, holding his hand out in front of him, and an image of Captain America's shield wavering into view, staring him down.

"Are you done?" Aldric asked, turning his head from the image. "Or are you going to tell me how I intend to turn my shield into what it needs to be?"

"You would have to tell _me._ While what I _did_ see filled a great many gaps in both you and what rests in our vault, I didn't see _everything,_ Mister Drake. I respect you too much to look that deeply. This was not an outburst, but a lesson. I _am_ a teacher, after all, and I would rather you learn the lessons I had to in the safety of a school, as opposed to learning them the way I did: In the dangers of the field." Ozpin let the hovering image fade away. "And to be frank, I don't think you need to. I was able to ascertain that you intend to leave behind the shield as a representative of Goud's death, but also a symbol of what _he_ believed. I may not fully agree with the why of your plan, but I do agree with the spirit of it. I know, just as well as I have insisted you do, the power of a unifying symbol."

Aldric sighed, "I'm sorry." He grunted, "but this entire time I've been operating under the assumption that... If Earth was in any kind of danger, my actions here would prevent it... And instead, somewhere out there, a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam just dropped a nuke on itself." He said, his expression sullen, and more exhausted than the image he had put up the day previous.

"If you think that is a lot to take in, Mister Drake, consider that you have been raised with the reality of nuclear annihilation. I had to discover it from a book, as I was translating it." Ozpin said, resting his hands behind his back. "It is the only time I have ever spiked my cocoa with anything but ice." He said, before shaking his head. "This is, as you said, a game changer. It is a lot for the both of us to take in. Me, because I have been lax with my era of peace, and my enemies have taken advantage of it by slipping into a realm I cannot reach. You, because that is where you _lived._ It is the home you desperately strive and work towards returning to. Seeing it brought to war, by enemies so far separated from it... I understand the effect it is having on you. Perhaps better than anyone." He said, with an emphatic nod.

"I think it may be best for us to rest." Ozpin finally said, after a few minutes silence. "We will meet again on Sunday. Until then, I will send Ironwood a message first thing in the morning, to determine whether or not the bomb made it through and if it detonated here... And perhaps, if it did, we may hear from your end, as well." He said, tensing up as Aldric got to his feet, obviously ready to spring into action if Aldric lost his balance again. "And I will see if I can't get him to rush a -"

But Aldric shook his head, "if it's the eyes, I've got that covered." He said, steadying himself on his feet. "Having underworld connections has _some_ benefits." He breathed, raising his gaze to look Ozpin directly in the eye. "And you were wrong, about something."

Ozpin blinked, "oh?"

"The shield." Aldric said, patting down his coat, and then examining his bare, metal hand. "I don't think it's the greatest symbol of its kind. Maybe in the world it belongs to, but not from the one it hails from." He said, turning the hand towards Ozpin, and focusing as hard as he could, frowning deeply, as he filled his mind with one thing, and one thing only. "It will always be second, to a very different shield." And as he spoke, much like how Ozpin had conjured the image of Cap's shield, Aldric conjured an image a shield, of a different kind.

Instead of a perfect red white and blue circle, what hovered in front of Aldric's hand was a red and yellow inverted triangle, inside which was filled with a large, looping emblem. It was the emblem of Last Son of Krypton, of the Man of Steel. The kryptonian symbol for hope, the iconic logo of _the_ superhero.

"Cap does it good. And he is very close..." Aldric rumbled, barely above a whisper. "But _he_ did, and does, it best." The 'S' hovered in front of Aldric's cybernetic hand for a few moments, before it wavered, and finally, faded away, and Aldric dropped his hand, exhaustedly. "My world is at war, and I can guarantee you that as angry as they are at this new enemy... They are also terrified of it. _I_ am." He admitted, "it makes me wonder who needs that symbol more." He said, numbly.

"I would argue, Mister Drake, that what we all truly need is someone who believes in _it._ That belief is a power in and of itself. It can inspire the very same in others far more easily than you may think." Ozpin said, none-too-subtly.

An exhausted sigh, "goodnight, Ozpin." Aldric turned to leave.

Ozpin frowned, piteously. "Goodnight... Mister Aldric.


	31. The Status Quo Is Not God

_AN_

 _Much like with **that** twist in TCOS, I find myself surprised and relieved at how well received the last chapter's twist went. _

_Relieved in that I was worried it could burn the story down with it, and that everyone loved it.  
Surprised in that, though you all seem to have not seen it coming, you're all surprised I went there.  
I mean... I did say that I didn't want to tell the same story we could all find on Youtube, or RoosterTeeth's website. What'd you think I meant, Aldric would just poke and prod here and there? That it's the same story... But with a new guy? Fuck no, what we'll have going forward is going to be increasingly unrecognizable.  
For chrissakes - I just nuked Los Angeles **and** Remnant in the same chapter.  
I am **not** going to tell the same story we know and love... And I'm not done, either. As of publishing this chapter, I'm... Seven ahead of you all, in drafts.  
_

 _And in the **amazingly** appropriate words of Barry Seal (from American Made):  
We can stop now, if you want. 'Cause it just gets crazy from here._

* * *

Chapter 30

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I don't know how, I don't know why, but Salem has managed to invade Earth._

 _This changes everything. Before now, I always took solace in the idea that, no matter what happened here, Earth - my home, my friends, my Mom - they would all still be kicking even if I wasn't._

 _But now they're fighting Grimm._

 _I guaran-goddamn-tee it, that they'll eventually connect what happened to LA to that little production studio in Texas, if they haven't already.  
I didn't tell Ozpin this - though I think it's already crossed his mind - but this act may have lost us any chance at all of getting the terrans as allies, if we needed them. _

_They're **mad** now - for fuck's sake, the United States invaded, conquered, and locked down two whole countries over two buildings and a few thousand people.  
But this was **all** of Los Angeles - the west coast New York - and this wasn't some terrorist attack. Either you spin it as an alien or a demonic invasion - but it's still an invasion, and it managed to scare the White House so much that they wiped LA off of the map.  
_

 ** _GONE!_**

 _This won't just galvanize my country, or NATO - my entire planet will get in on this. This is an outside, existential threat, that they all but know will attack them again.  
This will piss off my entire **species,** and if they **ever** find a way to get to Remnant - which is an astoundingly real possibility, once it occurs to them that Dust exists on Earth and they start turning the entire planet inside out looking for it - they will take all that rage, all that anger, and all that fear... _

_And they'll heat it up until it fuses, and they'll drop it on Remnant. I fear they won't even ask for surrender, not with the threat they face._

 _I wonder if this may not be Salem's plan. To piss off Earth, to get the tension boiling on Remnant... And then open a permanent bridge between the two planets and pit them against eachother, and to use her Grimm to wipe out whatever's left when the dust settles... If she even needs to in the first place._

 _Remnant has quality, in the huntsman. Just **one** of them could probably tear through dozens of terran soldiers before they were overwhelmed, and through Atlas, they have advanced robotics and unmanned armies. Every **one** soldier from Remnant - be they a Huntsman or otherwise - could stack up to dozens of times their number on Earth.  
But Earth has quantity. Remnant is just four kingdoms cowering behind their walls, barely taking up a few percent of their planet's surface area. But Earth? The terrans have access to their **entire** planet. There are seven billion of us - while I hesitate to even say there is a tenth of that here on Remnant.  
_

 _And beyond the sheer numbers we have, the terrans also can pull resources from their entire planet - and even worse is that we have the technology, right now, to feasibly change the orbits of asteroids such that we could take **their** resources - whereas Remnant is limited solely to what is close to the cities and to what outposts they can defend, and that's not a lot... At all._

 _And then there's the obvious: Remnant doesn't have access to nuclear weapons.  
So even if their quality brings the advantage terran numbers has to zero (which is a great possibility), we can just turn right around and split the atom on their ass._

 _So if the United Nations and the Four Kingdoms went to war... It doesn't matter who would win - a lot of people would die. Millions - perhaps even billions._

 _We may very well kill eachother off, or bring our respective populations so abominably low, that Salem could just stroll right on in and finish the job._

 _Jesus fucking Christ... She's changed the game, here._

 _What the fuck do I even do?_

 _I can't believe I'm saying this - but I'd rather be getting the shit scared out of me by Neo, right now. At least **that** I can deal with._

 _Jesus._

 _Ozpin's going to use Ironwood to tap some geologist contacts, see if the bomb they launched made it through, and if it did, where it detonated. The theory we're running with is that it had to have taken two Masters to open and sustain the wormhole to Earth, and enough power from both of them that if the bomb made it through and exploded, they wouldn't have been prepared for it, and as such were probably annihilated._

 _Considering the five names on the manifest (myself included) that I could never match to bodies, that means Salem potentially still has two more Masters on her side, and the League's war got a whole lot harder.  
God forbid there was a **third** there with the ones keeping the portal open, whose sole job in life was to protect the first two in case the terrans somehow launched a counter attack. That would mean, aside from killing a shit ton of Grimm, the terrans wouldn't have done any lasting damage, whatsoever. _

_I can only hope that she was staging that invasion from her creepy ass castle, and that it got destroyed by the bomb, and she's on the backfoot as she relocates outside of the radiation hot-zone._

 _One could be so lucky, right?_

 _Also, this didn't occur until right about now, but it's been bugging the shit out of me, and it took up a lot more presence in my mind once Ozpin said I was basically in some sort of hyponitized trance, explaining everything I saw on Earth.  
I possessed a dude.  
Like... I found some random asshole on Earth, completely overwrote his free will, and took him over... And not once did I feel any kind of struggle from him. _

_Does that sound familiar?  
Because it almost sounds like what Ozpin's capable of.  
And that makes me wonder: Who the hell have I been speaking to, this entire time? Which Ozpin? The Wonderful Wizard? Or the silver-haired body he's possessing at the moment?  
If we were to refer to the reincarnating soul as the Wizard and the body he 'linked' as just, the Body... Have I **ever** spoken to the Body? Or has it **only** been the Wizard? _

_A lot of folks mentioned how Ozpin seemed 'different' in the opening ceremony - was that the Body? And if that's the case, why **only** then and not ever afterwards? Why have I never spoken to his Body? Why has he never come back around? What is the relationship between the two Ozpins? Is it as benevolent as he would make it seem? Or is there some kind of something going on, here? _

_I don't want to **not** trust Ozpin, but... This is concerning. It calls his nature into question, because if we disregard the 'prophet' theory I mentioned to him, and instead conclude that Earth and Remnant are still of two different universes (which has scientific basis, due to wormholes being capable of bridging two locations literally anywhere and anywhen), then we would have to look at things narratively, and from that standpoint, his reincarnation could be described as having thematic similarities to **demonic** possession... Foreshadowing and planting the idea that he's still around not because of some divine curse, but because he's so dead-fucking-set on **not dying** so he can win his war, that he's willing to keep himself alive by leaching the life from other people, and convincing them he's doing right by the world._

 _Throw a stone at a handful of sci-fi/fantasy stories, and that wouldn't describe the 'wise mentor' or the 'hero' - that would straight up be describing a stealth villain, essentially doing the opposite of what I'm doing: Being seen as a hero, such that he won't be suspected to be the opposite.  
_

 _Even Salem could be explained by this theory, as a once-hero who had to make the hard choices and was willing to be seen as a villain in order to more freely war against the larger threat. (And doesn't **that** sound familiar?!)_

 _Fuck, you use this theory and you could call Ozpin a power-mad alien invader bent on conquering a world, and Salem a fallen angel of sorts, willing to do anything and everything to ensure he doesn't win, even if it means destroying what it is he wants to win._

 _And even if you take Ozpin's idea about us being in the same universe at face value, and thusly have to believe in my 'prophet' theory as fact as well, that doesn't ruin this theory, merely makes it more complicated. As I said to Ozpin, the **best** way to make everyone believe in his vision and take its information at absolute face value would be to spin it as a work of fiction, and work it as such. If we believe him to be a seer, we don't know how much Oum saw, and he could very well still have been trying to work some sort of warning about Ozpin in there, by means of a 'plot' twist, as it were. We **just** don't know, all we can do are note thematic similarities.  
All that to say... **Might** I be on the wrong side?  
_

* * *

Aldric didn't sleep. He had one of those nights where he drifted in and out, but remained lucid enough throughout the entire ordeal that he wasn't even sure if he had or hadn't slept in the first place. His mind was ablaze with what he had seen and what had been discussed with Ozpin that night, how it had started so 'innocent', in a manner of speaking, and then had devolved into figuring out his world could very well be in the middle of, or on the precipice of, a war like it has never seen before.

And Aldric was sitting here, in a goddamn school, sleeping in a comfy bed, pretending like nothing was wrong. Yes, he knew - what could he realistically do? What was he really capable of that could solve _that_ problem? Sitting here and brooding over it wasn't going to solve anything, and risking his life forcing the full awakening of his powers without Ozpin's supervision would solve even less, but the point remained that he still felt as though he should be doing _something._ That he _could_ be doing something.

It was moments like this, when the universe showed him exactly how small he was, that he began to sincerely, truly, doubt everyone who was telling him how big of a player he was. He was just an idiot with a tin arm and a head full of too many comic books, and Roman Torchwick, Adam Taurus, Cinder Fall, if you believed Neo, Neopolitan herself - even Professor Ozpin! - they all believed he might be a major influential factor in the fate of the world. _Two_ worlds, now.

The idea baffled him. It made him question reality, once again trying to discern whether or not this was real, or if something had happened and he was in a hospital bed somewhere, pumped up full of drugs, stoned off his ass, and so deep into a coma that he wouldn't know which way was up.

But, as the sun came up and shined through the window and onto his sore eyes, Aldric pushed all of that as far down as he could. He shoved it as deep down into his mind as it would go, locking it away behind a door marked 'Nebo Aldric', such that it wouldn't interfere when he opened the one marked 'Goud Etiolate'. He had to drop the exhausted frown and pick up the goofy grin; he had to leave behind the growing cynicism - which Ozpin expressed doubt in - and pick up a stunning idealism. He had to set aside his droll amusement and adopt his acerbic wit.

Who knows: Maybe if he pretended to have a little fun, he may have a little.

Ecru certainly seemed to agree with the unspoken sentiment, because her scroll began sounding off at first light, with the loud, reverberating, harsh sound of an iron bar striking a metal can. She leapt out of her bed and snatched the scroll off of the nightstand, but instead of killing the alarm, she turned it up.

"Reveille, reveille!" She shouted, waving the scroll around, "wake up, GEMS!"

Aldric groaned loudly, pressing his hands against his face, but this turned out to be the wrong idea, as it gave her a target for her satanic wakeup ritual, and she _threw_ the scroll at him. It hit his chest with a loud 'thud' and he grunted, coughing, as he sat up.

"Holy fuck, I'm up!" Aldric chucked the scroll back at her, and she caught it with one hand, a grin on her dark face. "Stop with the artillery barrage!" And as he complained, Srebro swung her long legs out from her bed, and Myrtle sank deeper into her blankets, using them to cover her ears.

"Come on, you three!" Ecru gleefully called out over her continuing alarm, as though she hadn't just tried deafening the whole dorm. "Gotta get used to this!" She snapped her scroll shut, and the sounds died.

"Aren't I supposed to be the goddamn leader?" Aldric breathed, as he slipped out of bed, and tidied it up. "Can't I veto you waking us up _three hours_ before class?!"

The amazonian woman across from Aldric raised her hand after running it through her dark dreads, quietly intoning, "I vote yes."

"These are team building exercises, guys!" Ecru rolled her eyes, turning to notice Myrtle still in bed.

Aldric then watched with fascination as Ecru marched over to Myrtle's bed and flipped it end over end, as though its weight was nothing. Myrtle cried out in shock, before being buried by the mattress, squished against the ground. It appeared to shake and rumble for a moment before she sprouted up from between it and the wall, a feral grin on her face, as she used the wall as a springboard to launch herself at Ecru, leaping onto her like a spidermonkey. The two tussled and wrestled, slowly drifting towards the center of the room.

Aldric snapped his fingers to get Srebro's attention, as he twisted his metal arm into place. She gave him a look, and he pantomimed clobbering both of their heads together. Srebro, however, got wide eyes and shook her head vigorously, vehemently whispering 'no'. The two kept up a mostly silent argument for a moment, before Aldric shrugged, and with a roll of his shoulders, got to his feet.

It took three steps to get to the two of them, and only a single push of his semblance to separate them. Myrtle was left floating in the air, and Ecru was on the ground, albeit in an awkward, uncomfortable position. Aldric gave them each a dull look, ensuring that they each made eye contact with the dark pits in his head.

Then he grinned and bounced the both of them off of the ground, used his semblance to summon his white cane, and he smacked each of them on the head with it.

"Appreciate the enthusiasm girls, but how about we save it for team training?" He drawled, resting both of his hands on top of the white cane.

"Okay." Said Ecru, beaming.

"Yeah, sure." Myrtle responded, equally as jovially, as though the two hadn't just tried tearing eachothers' hair out.

When Ecru managed to secure her spot as 'first' in the bathroom, and Myrtle busied herself with fixing her bed, Aldric noticed Srebro tentatively come closer to him, as he pulled his uniform out of the nightstand next to his bed.

"How did you do that?" Srebro whispered, so quietly that, if he hadn't seen her lips move, Aldric wouldn't have even known she'd spoken in the first place.

Aldric grinned, and pointed at Myrtle, and then the door to the bathroom. "Those two?" He rumbled, barely loud enough to be heard by the amazonian next to him. "You and Myrtle had the initiation to see eachother in action, so Myrtle already has an idea of who and what you are. I wouldn't go so far as to say 'respect', but you've already at least proven your worth to her. And the same goes for me and Ecru, we fought next to eachother." He explained, "now we're all trying to figure out the power dynamics of the team." He indicated Srebro and himself, "you and I? I may be an idiot, but we're reasonable enough." He paused a moment, "unless, you know - the 'gentle giant' thing is an act, and you're just waiting to deck me, in which case... Nice." He grinned, and she shared it.

"Those two, though? I pegged them the moment Myrtle tried to one-up Ecru with that 'on the back of the nevermore' stuff. They're fighters, they respect power, so they threw down the moment they could. Determine who stands where, and how tall. I knew this, so I -" He pantomimed separating them with his hands, "- showed 'em who's top dog, and showed 'em I won't like in-fighting unless it's in a ring."

"You figured all of that out in a day?" Srebro gasped.

Aldric's grin turned wider, and he gave Srebro a nudge with his elbow, "a lot can happen in a day." He said, raising his voice to conversational levels, as they heard the shower turn on. "Just wait until we get into the ring. Then we'll really get to see who's top dog." He pointed at her specifically, "I'm almost willing to bet money that of all of us in here, you're the most dangerous."

He'd meant it partially as a joke, in reference to the quiet ones always being the most dangerous, but when Srebro _didn't answer,_ he would admit, he became curious. But she didn't give him the chance to go any further, as she retreated to her corner of the room. Aldric decided he'd let it drop for now - he had all year to drag depth out of these three. The next hour was spent in relative silence, as everyone's morning rituals were done, and they all found themselves dressed, and making way for the cafeteria.

The day's interest waned as it went on; besides the clear emphasis on public service and killing demons, Beacon reminded him of any average school, from back home. He played his role, and watched a few canon events roll on by in Port's class.

After Port's class came lunch, but as he left the classroom, he noticed two of his teammates stick around. Ecru went to speak to Port after Weiss, Myrtle walked right up to Port's desk and began soundlessly rifling through it until she found a small stack of papers, rolled them up, and stuffed them into her jacket. What floored Aldric was that no one noticed - not even _Port!_ Attention was, admittedly, focused on anything else - class was over and it was time for lunch - but still, she brazenly just _waltzed_ up to the desk and started stealing out of it. The fuck?

As a result of Ecru and Myrtle's little soujourn, and Srebro dashing off to their dorm to swap out her text and notebooks for the rest of the day, he was left alone to grab his food, but only momentarily, as a certain snow-haired heir found him when he got in line for food.

"Ash!" He heard Weiss greet, as she came up behind him.

 _Ah shit, and here I thought I'd get to know_ my _team today._ "Is that Weiss?" He tilted his ear in her direction.

"To your right." She said, with a nod, "do you know what you'll be eating today?" She asked, politely.

Aldric knew exactly what she was doing, but he decided to play along, he had to establish some kind of camaraderie with RWBY. So he shook his head, "no, actually. I have no idea what they're serving." He tapped his cane on the ground a few times, as though it were a staff. "Have a little problems with the eyes, you see." He grinned.

She smiled, "you're very brave, you know. Making light of your ailments." She said, "I could help you, if you wish?"

 _I wonder who's playing into who's hands, here. Me, for doing what she hopes I will? Or her, for doing exactly what I'm expecting her to._ He nodded, "by all means, my team seems to have abandoned me this afternoon."

Weiss let out a breath of air, "I wish I could say I had the same problem." She said, neutrally enough, though with an edge to her voice.

"Oh?" He said, "didn't you get matched up with Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long?" He asked, "I've met them a few times, you know." He nodded, "they can be a little rambunctious, I'll admit."

Weiss nodded, "I believe that would be an understatement." She muttered, "but it appears as though you know where I am coming from?"

"Oh, definitely. The blonde broke a few of my ribs, once, and her sister shot me and broke the rest. Back when I had eyes."

Weiss blinked, "she did _what?"_ She asked, aghast.

He nodded, a grin playing his features. "Just ask her about 'Beebee', she'll tell you the story in a heartbeat." He said,"rambunctious, aye, but they're pretty cool once you get to know 'em. Give 'em a little effort, and I think you'll be surprised what they give back in return."

"Great minds really do think alike, Ash." Weiss complimented, smoothly. "That would be the second time you've reiterated a point someone else has made." She said, with a pensive hum, "and I suppose that would be why I am here."

"Because I'm blatantly stealing from people?" And he wasn't wrong, either, it was arguable both ways, that he had and hadn't stolen Pyrrha's fighting style, Captain America's shield, kind of stole the Green Lantern's powers, Ozzymandias' morals, the Green Hornet's modus operandi, Ash Williams' name, and was actively making plans to steal a Jedi's lightsaber.

She grinned, as they reached the food trays, and she grabbed one for each of them. "Because much like Pyrrha, it's clear you're far more than a skilled fighter, Ash." She said, "I know there isn't much we can do in the way of changing our teams, but I was hoping, perhaps, the two of us could work together, in some form."

Actually, her mentioning this did give Aldric an idea. He was intending to put some serious time and effort into using his Power Glove to build a lightsaber, under Ozpin's idea that he was unconsciously using his magic to turn his once hardlight shield into the _real effing deal_ vibranium disk from Marvel Comics, and Aldric's understanding that he was using his Power Glove as a focus to do so. His idea was that, much like how he'd used the glove to create the shield's initial hardlight wireframe, and then had altered its settings to create something more accurate to his memories, he could do the same thing to create a lightsaber, and if it _worked,_ he'd need to be pretty damn good with a sword to avoid slicing his own limbs off.

His initial idea had been to ask Pyrrha to help him out, but Weiss coming here gave him another one. Pyrrha would no doubt be able to show him how to fight, and fight well, with a sword and shield, under the idea that Aldric would eventually find a situation where his fists wouldn't be effective, and his shield would have to shift from an offensive role to a purely defensive one, and the lightsaber could replace his fist. But with Weiss here, it occured to him that there may come a time when Aldric had only one or the other, and while if that 'one' was his shield, he'd be absolutely fine - he'd been operating with only it for a while now - but if that 'one' was the saber, then he'd be in trouble.

Weiss, however, had that exact combat style: One sword, and nothing else. While her combat style may be more evocative of fencing, instruction on the ability to defend, counter, and counter _strike_ with only his blade could be invaluable, even if the blade in question could cut through functionally anything. Weiss wanted to be on his good side because he had a reputation seconded only by Pyrrha, specifically because he'd fought her and given her a better fight than anyone else in the school, thus far, and she was, right here, asking if there wasn't some way to form some kind of alliance or friendship between the two.

So, Aldric's response was obvious. "Well, it's funny you should ask." He said, instantly obtaining her undivided attention, and a hesitant, kind smile. "I've been holding hopes recently to add to my arsenal." He grinned, "add a gaudy sword to match my gaudy shield." He got a light chuckle for his trouble, "but my problem is that I would have absolutely no idea how to use it, and, you know - it's not a good idea to use a lethal weapon with no training." He did know that lightsabers in canon had low-power settings that wouldn't maim or kill, but he still would much rather lower that risk by receiving training. "And as I'm trying to figure out how to execute my blind swordsman routine, lo and behold - a swordswoman comes out of the woodwork.

"So, if you want to work together... The first three days of my week are dedicated to team training. One day out of the weekend will be dedicated to some hardcore self-study... But the other days are free." He gave her a brief nudge with his cane, "you give me a day, you help me with my sword, I'll see if I can't help you out with those 'things' you said you noticed in the entrance exam." He said, "sound good?"

Weiss considered it, as they moved down the line. "I think that sounds great, Ash." She said, with a formal nod. "Now... Today it looks like they're serving..." She then narrated everything she saw on the lunch line, and after the two of them filled their plates, they sat down to eat.

The conversations they had during their lunch were mostly idle, and when they were finished, the rest of the classes began shuffling on by with little to note. When Oobleck's came, Aldric, keeping in mind Ozpin's 'request', set the standard, sitting in the back of the class and out of sight, lowering his head and using the class as a chance to catch up on his sleep. If Oobleck noticed, he never did anything - either because he was too busy with his beginning of the year greetings, or because Ozpin had let him in on the fact that Aldric was, at this point, his pet project, in a manner of speaking.

No, the person that did something was Srebro, to Aldric's amusement. She noticed rather quickly when he dipped his head, and without breaking eye contact with the front of the class, or even stopping writing her notes, she elbowed him in the ribs to get him to wake up. She didn't reciprocate Aldric's faux-angry glare, still staring dead ahead, attentively, and when he tried again, he found himself elbowed again.

With Srebro refusing to let him bow out, that left him with the issue of where and when would he be able to fix his sleeping problem, especially now that he knew what he did about his Master abilities and the Power Glove, and how many late nights he'd have to be spending, experimenting with that, especially now that he was outside of Cinder's watchful eye.

 _Maybe I should see if I can't crack open the magic and use it as a means of replacing sleep._ That made him grin, _that'd solve a lot of problems, actually._

Regardless of the sleep problem, the day continued on. The schedule was soon established, the educational classes taking up most of the day, and sparring matches capping it off before dinner. The rest of the night was the students' oyster, and it began at dinner. Aldric's team slid into place at the first available table they found, whereupon Ecru dramatically let her head fall onto the table with a 'thwack'.

 _"We got homework on the first day."_ She mumbled into the table.

"How didn't you hit your food?" Aldric asked, staring at her tray.

"It wasn't that much..." Srebro voiced.

"The food or the homework?" Aldric gave her a concerned look.

"Yes." Said Srebro, as Myrtle slid into place - her tray piled high with more food than the three of them put together.

Aldric commented on this, "jeez, woman! How can you eat all that food?"

"How can you see?" Myrtle deadpanned, an eyebrow arced.

"Touche." Aldric broke eye contact and started digging into his food, as Ecru straightened up, turning to Myrtle with a vicious grin on her face.

"So when were you going to tell us?"

Myrtle didn't respond, prompting a raised eyebrow from Aldric, who, upon giving it a bit more focus, noticed something peculiar in Myrtle's jacket.

"Is this about those papers with Port's handwriting in her jacket?" He asked, to which everyone present snapped their heads up to him.

"How'd you see me?" Myrtle asked, aghast.

"How do you know she has those papers?!" Ecru demanded.

"What just happened?" Srebro gasped.

Aldric shrugged to all of it, "in order: I'm pretty sure I've answered that already..." He said, "see the first answer, and..." He frowned, turning to Myrtle. "If I shouldn't have been able to see you, would that make your semblance invisibility?"

 _"How?"_ Myrtle whispered, swiping her blue hair out of her face, "how do you know?" She looked equal parts aghast and amused, "yeah, it's invisibility, but it's more than that! It muffles my noises, suppresses my scent, makes anything I touch invisible, I can reach through objects... I can't even be seen by motion detectors! How'd _you?!"_

"Lady, everything you ask me can be answered with one phrase: Magical blind man." He said, "my semblance is telekinesis, I can move stuff with my mind, but..." He swept his hand back and forth, "I can go a bit further, by using it to 'feel' things around me. Like everything within a set distance has a nerve ending. So if it has physical presence, I can see it." He then raised it higher, in a defensive manner. "And because I know you'll ask, _no,_ I can't see down any of your shirts." A lot of straightened postures and tensed muscles relaxed at that, and he had to suppress a grin. "It takes enough concentration as it is just to get a... Call it a radar image, if you will. To see further than that - color, details, things of that nature - it's like an endurance test. Thus -" He waved his hand at his white cane. "The cane."

"Oh!" Ecru called out, leaning back and pointing at Aldric, practically stamping her feet in excitement. "That's how you see while you're fighting!" She leaned back forward, "that's so cool!"

"So your... Active radar, that's how you saw me in Port's class?" Myrtle confirmed.

"I mean - there was a freakin' Grimm in the room. I wasn't leaving anything to chance." Aldric nodded.

"Wait -" Came Srebro, who leaned in over the table and lowered her voice, her long dreads flowing over her shoulders. "- _Myrtle what did you take?!"_

Myrtle shrugged, and lowered her voice as well. "Port said we would have a test next week. I wanted to know what it would be about." She said, nonchalantly.

"Holy fuck!" Aldric chuckled, clapping his hands, as Ecru gasped, and tried to hide her growing smile from Srebro, who looked like she was about to faint, right next to her. "You pretty much stole secret documents right out from under the nose of a huntsman, good enough to capture a live boarbatusk and haul it into his school. Bravo, lady - that takes _balls."_

Srebro, however, had this to say. "Myrtle! Myrtle you need to give that back right now!" She whispered, visibly shaking. "If you get caught -"

But Myrtle shook her head, "I won't get caught, don't worry." She said, waving her hand back and forth. "School I came from before here, that kind of stealth was a right of passage. It's how I got the Tosser."

Aldric choked on his food, "the who-what?"

"My crossbow."

"Oh."

But Srebro pressed on, practically freaking out at this point. "But Myrtle! You can't - you -"

"Srebro." Aldric grunted, holding up a hand. "Calm down." And as he spoke, the papers slipped out of Myrtle's jacket, rolled up like a newspaper, and landed in his hand, Myrtle jumped at this, but anything she would have said was silenced when Aldric smacked her with it, with a light 'thwack!'. "Do I have your attention?" He asked, as Ecru held back laughter.

Myrtle nodded.

"Good." He gave her another thwack. "Now, we're a part of a team. You steal something and fuck up -" And he raised the stack of papers again, threateningly, when she perked up to argue, "- whether or not you think you won't. Doesn't matter. If, somehow, you do. Shit rolls downhill - your getting in trouble will affect all of us." A while ago, he had figured out how to slow down atomic movement to create ice, and had learned how to do the exact opposite to start a fire during his little trip with Emerald, this trick worked wonders right now, as it let him light the entire stack ablaze almost instantly. The girls gasped in surprise, "but that also turns right around." He said, turning to Srebro. "We may not agree with what she does, but we have to support her in it. Like it or not, we're a team for the next four years, and teammates help eachother, through thick and thin. Hence, the burning." He said, using his semblance to catch the smoke as it wafted up into the air, such that no one would notice the fact that he was burning stuff in front of God and everybody.

Of course, he did note the irony of what he was saying: That they should all work together and support eachother, when he was actively working to bring down everything they stood for, and murder the people they had sworn to protect.

And, while it did seem as though his point did register with Myrtle, she had to get a few shots in, to recover her image. "Did you just come up with all of that off the cuff?"

To which, Aldric grinned, as the papers became unrecognizable, almost completely burnt to ashes. "A little bit of yes and a little bit of no." He responded, as he compressed the 'orb' he'd caught the burning papers and the smoke in, until it was the size of a soft ball. The flames were quickly smothered as all of the available oxygen was eaten up, and Aldric hid the telekinetic cage in one of the pockets of his jacket, so he could dispose of it later. "But suffice to say, it's something I believe in."

Ecru nodded, "ah - that's why you have a shield and you wear a cape!" She grinned, "fancy yourself a hero, don't you?"

Aldric shrugged, and dug back into his food. "I repeat: It's something I believe in." He said, starting what would no doubt be a long road of turning Ash into the idealist, so as to make him a much greater candidate for martyrdom, in the proper circles. "As opposed to hoodie and a baseball bat?" He added, his grin turning to a teasing one.

"Bah!" She waved him away, "don't you make fun of my lovely lady!" She played with her food, "so we've got - a master thief with invisibility and a crossbow." She indicated Myrtle, who nodded. "A superhero, cape, cowl, the whole nine yards, with telekinesis and an _impregnable_ shield." She indicated Aldric, "a - _stunning,_ might I say - street fighter, with enhanced reflexes and a shotgun bat axe."

 _Don't call it a bat-tle axe. Don't call it a bat-tle axe. Don't call it a bat-tle axe._ Though he was intrigued to hear she had heightened reflexes, that'd definitely come in handy once he figured out how to rip off other peoples' semblances.

Ecru turned to Srebro, "so what can _you_ do?"

Srebro shrugged, "nothing very impressive." She said, "my weapon is a zweihander... And I can increase or nullify impact force."

"Lady, you're in Vale. If you're about to claim that your 'zweihander' doesn't have a name and is _just_ a sword, I'll call so much shenanigans." Aldric deadpanned, as he finished off his dinner. "So..." He leaned back, giving an exaggerated frown as he thought. "It's rocket powered!" He said, pointing at her.

Srebro grinned, "no."

"It's... Also got a cannon!"

She stifled a giggle, but shook her head.

Ecru joined in, "it's razor sharp!"

"No."

"Is it really difficult for you two to believe a weapon has only one function?" Myrtle asked, an eyebrow arced.

Aldric turned to Myrtle, "you're not from Vale, are you?"

"Vacuo."

"No shit?" He nodded, "okay, then you don't know." He gave her a push on the shoulder.

Myrtle rolled her eyes, "coming from the guy from Mistral!" She countered, "only person here that was born in Vale is her!" She pointed at the dark skinned member of their quartet. "What else does your _shield_ do, huh?" She pressed.

"It doubles as a ranged weapon and a crowd control implement!" He then flicked his arm back and forth between all four of them, making bouncing noises as he did so, before he landed on Srebro, "it's got a heating element!"

"It wouldn't make much sense to call something that could superheat itself 'Skye', Ash." Srebro said, still smiling, but she shook her head. "No... It's just a very big sword. I spared secondary features for metals that could conduct my aura better." She explained, "such that I could increase its impact force much higher than I could without those metals."

"You just double down on your semblance, don't you?" Though he was interested in seeing this thing, and her, in action, and against his shield; it seemed the only one of the three that had any idea of exactly how it worked and what it did was Ecru, and he was pretty sure she'd be underestimating it too, had she not landed on it and had her momentum arrested by it _twice._

"It's a good semblance, Ash." Ecru murmured. "It lets me double down, as you say... I don't need much in the way of defense when anything that hits me gets nullified as long as I've got aura."

 _And there it is._ She had a naturally occurring impregnable defense, but once she lost aura, there it went; Aldric gave her a conciliatory nod. "Oh, I don't disagree. Part of the reason I use the shield is because of how damn good it is at increasing my defense." He pushed his tray back, "so, I'm thinking..." He pointed at Srebro, Ecru, Myrtle, and himself, in turn. "Tank. Support. Subterfuge. Assault." He said, "we get into big team battles... Srebro attracts attention and goes for the heavy hitters, Ecru keeps an eye on everyone and helps who needs it, Myrtle stays out of sight and takes the cheap shots, and I keep them off balance by going for their leaders. Yeah?"

Myrtle nodded to the side, as she finished her food. "It sounds good in theory, but it may be better to wait until we've had a chance to fight eachother, before we make those plans."

"I think he was more going off of what we got out of tonight, than making ironclad plans." Ecru defended.

"Well, yeah, but still."

"What are we thinking for training schedules?" Srebro asked, bringing the topic back around.

Everyone looked to their leader, who nodded, sliding his hand through his hair. "Thinking, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that's us. That's GEMS days. The rest of the week, and the weekends, we do with as we please. Train with eachother, with other students, set up sparring matches with other teams, sleep, study, etcetera." There wasn't much argument with him there, and the rest of dinner devolved into idle chatting and cementing their training schedules.

Once the food was gone and the shattered moon had fully replaced the sun in the sky, they retreated back to their dorm, getting to work on the assignments they'd gotten through the day. When the clocks struck the late hours of the night, they all began gearing up for bed, and as much as his increasingly sleep-deprived body protested the actions, much like the previous night, once everyone was fully asleep, Aldric got back up.

He fished his backup Power Glove canister out of his coat and slid out of the dorm, running his hand through his shaggy locks and letting out a long, tired sigh. When he rounded the corner and stepped outside onto the academy's main grounds, he found something interesting; a familiar looking cat-faunus, perched up in a tree, book in hand. They soundlessly exchanged a nod with eachother as he passed on by, no words really being needed, as they both seemed to be capable of recognizing a person with nocturnal tendencies.

But past her, perched on a distant rooftop, was another faunus, so seamlessly blending in with the rooftop she was pressed against that she almost appeared as invisible as Ecru could be. She glared down at Blake from her great distance, her face shielded by a Grimm mask, and her presence serving as a reminder of the consequences his presence was having on this world.

 _On both worlds._ He thought, frowning, as he idly jiggled the spare Power Glove back and forth in his hand.

The faunus did give him a brief glance, but didn't seem too concerned with the pajama-clad teenager walking around in the middle of the night, wearing sunglasses. That being said, it never hurt to touch base, and while he still had distance from her, Aldric dipped a finger into the canister. He came out with a small amount of Power Glove nanites, and with a thought, a rudimentary face mask appeared in his hands, which he hooked on his ears. He knew well and good that it didn't really mean anything - Taurus was smart, and Aldric had met him twice, and fought him once, before his little mask and scarf ever entered the picture. So while it was clear to him that Taurus _obviously_ knew who he was already, the mask at this point was a matter of principle.

Though he did note the irony that, at this point, the only people he was successfully keeping his identity from were simultaneously the people he respected and trusted the most.

Once he was far enough away from Blake that she couldn't see him from her vantage point, Aldric kept walking, but used his semblance in conjunction with it, making it appear as though he were walking up a flight of invisible stairs, until he reached the Fang's roof. He now had her undivided attention, her eyes were wide underneath her mask and her jaw was set, ready to spring into action at any moment.

 _"Word to the wise."_ Aldric rasped, kneeling down right next to her. _"If I can see you, Headmaster can see you. Go back to your boss. Tell him to contact Roman Torchwick. Can set up a meeting, get in the same room, touch base."_ Aldric felt an unholy amount of temptation to go full Heisenberg and say 'stay out of my territory', but felt that would go against the point of his alliance.

There was silence for several moments, as she eyed him warily. _"Does she know I'm here?"_ She whispered, so quietly that she almost couldn't be heard over the night's ambient noise.

 _"Doubt it."_ Aldric said, _"would have run if did. But has better eyes than me. If I could see you at first opportunity, she'll see you eventually."_ He _really_ needed to get one of those voice modulators Ozpin had mentioned, before he started sounding like Christian Bale all the time.

 _"And what are_ you _doing here?"_ She asked, pointedly.

Aldric straightened up, and started sliding from the sloped rooftop. _"Working."_ He said, before he dropped from the roof.

He landed softly on the ground, as though he hadn't fallen thirty feet, and kept walking, until he found himself at the edge of Beacon's grounds. Once he started seeing more grass than he did stone, Aldric wandered around until he found a nice looking boulder, which he decided would serve as his little slice of Beacon. No Goud Etiolate, no Nathan Drake, just Aldric.

 _It's not a boulder..._ He thought, with a grin, as he hopped up to the top of the boulder, and sat down with a light grunt. _It's a rock!_

He poured out some more Power Glove, a dollop the size of a raindrop, and took a long, deep breath, as he stowed the spare canister, and pulled out his scroll and a wire. With a thought, the nanites in his palm flared to life, and, with the image of one of the lightsabers he'd had as a toy in mind, the wireframe shell of a lightsaber's hilt appeared in his palm. He flipped it around a few times like a knife, before he placed it on the rock and he connected it to his scroll.

He spent the next hour fiddling with the Power Glove's settings, getting the colors right, everything he knew about star wars flowing through his mind as he did so. He had to admit: It had been a _long_ time since he'd experimented with the glove like this, granted that was primarily due to a lack of time to do so and because, as Ash, he couldn't do so without outing the fact that he had a whole host of unregistered weapons. But, if this worked like he and Ozpin thought it would, if the Glove really was a focus for his powers, then it had even more applications than he'd initially thought. It wouldn't merely be a Green Lantern Ring in name, but in practice as well.

 _Hell, maybe I'll make one of those, too._ Now that would be interesting, wouldn't it? Him, as a Green Lantern. _Or, fuck. Make a White Lantern ring and basically be God. Solve all of my problems in an hour._ He grinned, continuing to adjust the settings, very thankful that lightsaber hilts were, by and large, monochromatic. It didn't cut down on the time he had to spend making sure everything was just like he remembered from the movies, but it helped make it easier.

After the hour came and went, and Aldric had successfully turned it softly glowing, muted blue wireframe, into the metallic grays and blacks, with little flecks of color on its buttons and knobs, he killed his scroll and leaned back. He popped his back with a light groan, before he straightened back up and scooped the hilt up in his hands. It was a bit heavier than he expected, but he realized he couldn't use that as any kind of indication for one way or the other, as he hadn't had the wherewithall to judge its weight when he made it the first time.

 _Welp..._ He sighed, thumb on the bright red button. _Moment of truth, Ozpin._ And he clicked it.


	32. League of Extraordinarily Evil Gentlemen

Chapter 31

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I wonder where I'd end up, on the Star Wars moral scale?_

 _See, I'm tempted to think I'd end up a Sith, due to the things I've done... But I actually think I'd fit the bill for a Gray Jedi, better. Those guys straddled the dividing line between light and dark side, seriously. Granted: Maybe I'd lean a bit more to the dark side than the light - again, because of the things I've done/will do - but I don't think I'd be full on Sith, because of my intentions and Batman-level dedication to them, and I definitely wouldn't be Light Side Jedi, because... No explanation needed.  
_

 _So... Yeah, Gray Jedi.  
Call me Aldric the Gray.  
Now all I need is a pipe and some good ol' Hobbit Weed. You! Shall not! Paaaaaaaaaaass!_

 _All that to say: I slipped out of my dorm yesterday to work with the Power Glove, and... **Zhoom!** _

_Now, I'll admit, I actually had second thoughts, after it worked exactly like Ozpin said it would (or... Is working? Was? I dunno.). The shield I made, yeah, that's dangerous, but it's far better as a defensive instrument than it is as a offensive one. You can work around it, and you can take some hits from it._

 _But this fucking thing? Holy hell, I'd rather take a direct hit from Ruby's rifle again than take my chances with it. It isn't a tool for defense, it's a weapon of power. I'm almost willing to bet that it could cleave through pretty much any and all aura shields in one shot, unless your opponent was strong enough. I pull that thing out, I'm making a statement: The gloves are off, and I'm going for the kill._

 _Thank god it has a low power setting so I can train with it (still burns and hurts like a **BITCH** though. Don't ask how I know this.), else I'd have put far more consideration into letting it go. _

_But now that this worked, man - the opportunities with the Glove were endless originally, but now they're even more so. I know I haven't experimented with it as much now as I used to, but that's primarily because, A: I haven't had the time since Amber, or B: I've been playing Goud Etiolate, who wields the mighty shield, not the Green Lantern's ring._

 _And while I'm definitely excited about this, it also worries me tremendously. **What** is the limit, here? Is there one? Can I **really** just... Pull anything I want out of fiction, because I want it? That kind of power is... That's infinity gauntlet, shit. That's Doctor Manhattan levels of over fucking powered. That's the kind of stuff that would make Saitama excited that he might get a good fight!_  
 _ _I never actually thought my wasting my free time reading up on fictional lore would actually have any fucking use!__

 _Once again: That kind of wish fulfillment makes me think I'm either in a coma, or in a universe that makes no sense, but I've said this to death.  
_

 _Even if I stick solely to weapons/items that would have no detrimental effects (ala the Nanosuit bonding with me), I could create a Black Panther vibranium suit of armor, the BFG and the Piece of Eden I mentioned earlier, the Master Sword and the Hylian shield - shit, anything from Zelda, really - Senator Armstrong's Nanomachines (son!), the Boss' Patriot assault rifle (unlimited ammo!), Raiden's high-frequency blade, Isaac Clarke's RIG, Fallout's Fat Man nuke-launcher, WH40K's bolters, one of those bullet proof Kingsman suits with the dope-ass top hat... The Point-of-View gun from Hitchhiker's Guide - the possibilities are goddamn endless!_

 _Especially if I apply it to scientific concepts, and pull a tesseract (or any object above three dimensions!) out of my ass, or create a ten pound chunk of antimatter and chuck it at Salem's head. Or, fuck - I could shoot her ass with a Gamma Ray Burst, see how she dealt with that._  
 _Yeah, that'd kill everything on the planet and probably kill everything in the general vicinity of 'the direction I'm pointing at the time', but it's the point that matters._  
 _Jesus fucking Christ, if I wanted to double down on the 'kill everything too' thing, I could initiate a False Vacuum and fuck up the whole entire **UNIVERSE.**_

 _Or even less science-based concepts. I could **astral project** my ass to the other side of the planet, or clone myself, Dr Manhattan style. _

_And what the hell is stopping me from thinking 'Machine that solves all of my problems' really really **really** hard?_

 _Choking some poor girl out in her bed would literally be the least I could do, with this kind of power.  
_

 _And think of this - Ozpin, with far more power and far more control over it than I have now, has been warring against Salem for millennia, and still hasn't won.  
There **has** to be something I'm missing. Absolutely has to be, unless Ozpin really is right, and the primary reason he hasn't been able to win is simply because there is no free flow of information on Remnant, and as such he hasn't had access to nearly as much shit as I did, on Earth._

 _Fuck, the more I learn about my powers, the more I fear I'm turning into a walking weapon of mass destruction._

 _Anyways... Last little tid-bit: I forget the fuck out of her name, but I think I saw that lizard chick from the end of Volume 4 prowling about, staking out Blake. Maybe it's because I see everything, but she seemed to be obvious about it... Though considering Taurus, I wouldn't doubt that was on purpose, so he could prompt me to get in contact with him.  
So obviously I called her on it, and told her to tell Taurus to set up a meeting with me, through Torchwick.  
This'll be the first 'all hands on deck' meeting of the minds on the Legion of Doom end of the Watchmen, that'll be a sight. But it'll allow me and Taurus to touch base, will show Torchwick exactly how far my reach extends, and allow the three of us to all get on the same page in regards to our efforts against Cinder._

 _I think after that, I bring up the possibility of getting **all** of the Watchmen under one roof, with me acting as the mediator between the Legion of Doom half [Torchwick and Taurus] and the Justice League half [Ozpin and Qrow]. _

_'Till next time.  
_

* * *

As the week progressed, Aldric's days quickly settled into a routine. The morning classes, lunch, the evening classes, dinner, and then sparring practice with whoever the day had been dedicated to; Beacon didn't just have one major ring for the fights - that was just for the combat lessons - it had _hundreds_ of buildings, stretching out across so much land that Aldric was pretty sure one could fit a small city in that space, and it was filled with training rings of all shapes and sizes, it was actually quite impressive. After the sparring matches and practice sessions were over, the last few hours of the night were spent on homework and assignments, until it was time to sleep.

Aldric typically spent another hour awake, on his Rock, experimenting with more things he could 'will' into being with the Power Glove, and even when he wasn't deliberately seeing what he could pull from fiction, and was just seeing what other simple objects the glove itself could make, he still felt a distinct lack of a weight on his shoulders as he did so. It was freeing, in its own way, to get back to experimenting like this, though most everything he successfully made quickly vanished afterwards - he just didn't have the means of hiding an arsenal like the one he was gaining access to, not without some kind of Batcave, or a vault of some sort.

After that hour ran dry, then he'd join everyone else in his sleep.

On the first three days of the week, he spent the sparring days with his team, as they worked to familiarize eachother with how they all fought, and learn how to apply that against other teams. It was through these private team sessions that Srebro's 'zweihander', Skye, wasn't just a huge enormous sword - the thing looked like some kind of nightmarish combination between Guts' Dragon Slayer, and Cloud's Buster Sword, and even without her using her semblance to make it hit like a medieval siege engine, it still weighed a ton, and could take chunks out of the ring on accident.

Still didn't do a damn thing to his shield, though, something he felt a little proud of, and which actually prompted a good hour of GEMS doing absolutely nothing but hitting Aldric's shield with everything they had to see how much punishment it could take. They had to stop when Ecru strapped one of the Lovely Lady's rockets onto Srebro's sword, and Srebro hit the shield so hard that the sound of the impact could be heard from the city, and the shockwave sent everyone else flying - Myrtle almost through the wall entirely. Goodwitch actually came in to interrupt their practice at that one, and wasn't pleased at the state of the ring the impact had left it in. Aldric was deaf in one ear for an hour, afterwards, but damn if it wasn't the kind of fun he hadn't been able to have in the six months he'd been on this planet.

For the remaining three days, his sparring nights would be dedicated to whoever grabbed him up. This week in particular, once Yang had learned through Weiss how he intended to split his training days, she gobbled up the first available opportunity to get him into the ring, where they promptly spent the rest of the night punching the hell out of eachother in what Aldric found to be a _remarkably_ effective stress reliever. The day after that, he ran into Pyrrha again, and they spent much of the night at the school's target range, swapping tips and advice in regards to their ranged shield work, where Aldric learned that Pyrrha actually had much the same problems he did: She couldn't throw or aim her shield worth a damn, it was _all_ her semblance. Though, when she brought it up, they did spent a good chunk of time fiddling with Aldric's cybernetic arm, determined to figure out if there wasn't some way to make it to the legwork for him, and free up his semblance to focus on something else. Nothing came of it, but it felt fun to geek out over their shared arsenal.

When Saturday hit and the classes let out for the weekend, a great deal of the students flooded out of Beacon's halls and flocked to the city of Vale, down below. Aldric actually used the opportunity to swing through the Garden and get an update on his eyes, which were still a few months out, though his spare arm was finished, and he finally got himself a damn voice modulator. After that, the remaining three parts of his team tracked him down and spent a half of the afternoon dragging him from store to store, with Ecru determined to introduce some color to his wardrobe and having wrangled the other two into supporting her.

Aldric was pretty sure she was partially doing this just to see how high his bullshit tolerance was, and because the entire team wanted to see where their fearless leader drew the line and what they had to do to get a rise out of him, probably because of his little speech their first day, at dinner. Aldric promptly called their bluff, and turned it right the fuck around on them, spending the rest of the day clad in a combination of clothing that was practically determined to be an unrestrained assault on the eyes of anyone who looked at him: His 'signature' black longcoat, a periwinkle T-shirt just visible underneath it, _hot pink_ pants, a neon green pair of sunglasses, and a tie-dye headwrap. Combined with the rest of his team's usual attire, with Ecru's gray tunic and bright shorts, Srebro's blue hoodie and brown pants, and Myrtle's bright white shirt and dark jeans, GEMS actually did a convincing job of trying to represent the multiple colors the team's name suggested.

That they ran into RWBY after finishing the ensemble, and that Yang and her sister literally fell over laughing, proved to his team that there was little Goud Etiolate wasn't willing to do for the sake of a good joke. Afterwards, both teams got dinner, and again, Aldric found himself having a kind of fun that he hadn't had the opportunity to indulge in since his plane crashed. Even fucking with Emerald hadn't had the same kind of magic.

And apparently, they weren't the only ones who got an eyeful of his new - albeit _decidedly_ temporary - outfit, because as he geared up for his first training session with Weiss, he got a text message he'd been expecting for a few days, now.

 _-Message reci~eved! Head to Vale Police's Internal Affairs office tomorrow morning, ask to meet with Mister Reeman, and PLEASE wear this sexy little getup again! ;)  
(Attachment: AttentionGrabber1{.}JPG)_

To which, he responded:

 _Mystery Man? Actually, I find that entertaining, so I'll let it slide.  
Also: You should've seen the hot pink hot **pants** they wanted me to wear.  
Also Also: Holy shit, you're telling me he has Vale's IA in his pocket? Damn. Give the man some props.  
_

And as he finished securing his dark armor to his chest and slid his shield out of his locker, he got her counter.

 _-Well, we figured it would be a better idea to meet there than, say, Mountain Glenn or the Garden - both places a certain someone could potentially find you in.  
And in case you're wondering: If your first stunt was a surprise, then he didn't see this one coming at all. __He is impressed.  
Keep up the good work. ;)  
_

He let the conversation die there, and found his way to one of Beacon's amazingly numerous sparring rings, which, likely because the staff wouldn't want the students walking around the entire campus with their weapons, were within eyesight of the locker rooms. One of the things he'd spent a night doing was adding a few things to his white cane, such that he could attach it to the lightsaber's hilt, and give an excuse as to why he always needed it on him, which only worked to benefit him, as he knew that Weiss' reaction to his 'sword' being his cane would be amusing.

He found her waiting at the door to the small, dome-shaped building, and when she saw him coming, she smiled, and gave him a wave. "Ash!" She called out, attracting his attention.

"Well I certainly hope that is who I think it is." Aldric responded, as he grew closer. "You'll see I made myself decent for you." He said, with a grin, as he patted down his less gaudy outfit.

Weiss gave him a warm smile, as she nodded. "I wasn't going to say anything, though I will say I admire you for entertaining your team like that." She said, before swiping her scroll over the door, and pushing it open. "After you!"

He thanked her and strolled inside, "speaking of entertaining our teams, tensions still high with yours?" He drawled, "I... Well, think, at least, I noticed a lot more smiles than I expected from our last conversation."

Weiss nodded once, "yes, you did." She said, "I took your advice to heart, and put a little more effort into thawing things out with the others. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see that it worked, you've displayed more than once that you're a lot wiser than your... Shall I say 'entertaining'? Exterior may let on."

Aldric merely adopted a smug, shit-eating grin, "I have no idea what you're talking about." He said, in an obviously false tone. "So I know why I'm here." He added, over the clicking of his cane, as they reached the ring, and climbed up. "But how about you? What're those 'things' you noticed during the entrance exam?"

"Stamina, mostly." Weiss said, though her tone was of one trying to make light of her weaknesses, as though to suggest she knew about them and had them under control. "I've found multiple times now that I can fight well enough, but if I take hits, they stack up fast, and I cannot compensate."

Aldric brandished his shield a bit, before he set it down next to the ring. "That's why I fight with a shield. Turn my defense into an offense, and vice versa." He slid off his coat, and Weiss' brief expression of surprise, at the sight of his arm, didn't escape him. "So you're trying to learn how to take hits?" And when she affirmed his words, he said, "well... Dunno if you can tell, but -" He tapped his metal arm with the white cane, "that's something I can do pretty good."

She politely deflected his jab, "I had noticed during the exam." She said, "you fight a lot like Yang does, allowing attacks to breach your defenses to open up opportunities to deal more damage than you receive." She adjusted her weapon, preparing it for what was to come. "Would you happen to have a semblance like hers?"

"What, the take more, deal more, thing?" Aldric shook his head, "nah, nothing so grandiose. I just... Use something really simple, really creatively." He adjusted his grip on his cane, holding it by the saber's hilt, and positioning it as a sword. "You'll have to figure it out."

Weiss caught onto this, "is... Your cane, the weapon you're hoping to learn?" She asked, cautiously, as she took up a light stance of her own.

"Hm?" Aldric grunted, "oh, no." And with a pulse of his semblance, the cane popped off and rolled off to the side of the ring. "This is!" And he clicked the button.

 _Zhoom_ went the weapon from a galaxy far, far away, bathing the both of them in bright blue light. Weiss' expression dropped to one of equal parts interest and surprise at the sight of the column of heavily contained plasma.

"Impressive." She finally admitted, as Aldric made _damn_ sure the thing was on its low-power setting. "What do you call it?"

"Ah, it doesn't have a name yet, I finished it just the other day." Aldric responded, "got some others... Kind of like it, back in Mistral, but not quite like this one. You can understand why I'd want to be _very_ careful with it."

"Indeed." Said Weiss, with a nod, "let's get started... Show me what you can do with it today, and we can work from there."

Aldric nodded, having to suppress a monumental urge to swap his blade to his left hand. He _really_ wanted to set up as elaborate of an 'I am not left handed' reference as he could, but two things held him back from doing so. One: Weiss wouldn't get it. Two: Left handed or right, she'd kick his ass anyways, she was a better sword fighter than him.

So he lifted his sword in front of him, mirroring her stance keeping his grip firm, as the two slowly approached eachother. Her eyes were locked to his glasses, and her jaw was set. When they came close enough that the tips of their blades were just past each other, Weiss snapped onto the offensive, thrusting forward; but Aldric swiped his blade in a low arc, batting hers aside and then swinging it back around in a wide circle. It would have hit her cheek, had she not immediately sprang back, causing it to fly right past her. She then swung her blade in a wide arc from left to right, hitting his and ensuring he overextended and lost his balance, filling the air with the zapping, grinding sound that came with her steel striking his plasma. Sparks flew from the brief impact of her blade against his, and when he stumbled, she used the chance to jab at him, but she hadn't exactly how thorough his awareness was, and when he saw the blade coming, he dropped to his hands and it merely stabbed the air where he had been.

With a pulse of his semblance and a swing of his legs, Aldric spun around in a wide circle, his cybernetic hand anchoring him to the ground and his sword-arm swinging up, catching her blade and forcing it away before she could slash down at him. With a push of his arm, he lunged back up into the air and flipped to his feet, quickly grabbing his blade with both hands and swinging it horizontally. The snow-haired swordfighter, however, reacted faster than he predicted, and swung her blade around in a wide, vertical circle, catching his and smacking it away. Aldric spun into the attack and swung again, but Weiss parried this just as easily as the last, before taking her chance and thrusting forward, her blade catching his armor and sending him stumbling back several steps.

It appeared that she struggled against the urge, and lost, as Weiss grinned and said, "you've never fought with a sword before, have you Ash?"

"I mean..." Aldric shrugged, and indicated the edge of the ring with his blade, "I have a shield, and I punch people with it. Should say all that needs to be said." He'd used an axe before, though, but the decision almost killed him just as much as it saved him. "But..." He added, straightening up, with a flourish of his blade, "I like to think I'm a fast learner." Two things he'd used that brief little encounter for: To get an understanding for what an impact against another sword felt like, and to get a feel for the weight of his saber.

The former, he found surprising: Beyond the arrested momentum that came with the saber hitting a physical object, when her blade hit is, he didn't feel it, as he would if it had been the plane's fire axe, or the vibrations that came from someone punching his shield; and for the latter, he was still intrigued, but not as surprised, to learn that most of the sword's weight was in the hilt, which made sense - the 'blade' was just a small column of ionized plasma. It had mass and it had weight, but not that much; and if he remembered correctly, the way lightsabers worked in the lore, was that they - somehow - only ever had a physical presence when making contact with another object. But he learned something else from this: While not impossible, it would be incredibly difficult for him to jar this thing from his grip if he hauled off and whacked someone with it, and with most of the weight right there in his hand, that meant he'd have a lot more control over where he swung it and how fast - as opposed to Srebro, who let the titanic weight of her buster sword, and momentum, do most of the work for her.

So, he dropped his two-handed grip and adopted a one-handed stance, both to build a bit of experience, and to get a feel for it. Weiss went on the attack this time, thrusting her sword forward and launching across the ring as she did. Aldric parried her attack and followed it up with a horizontal swing, but Weiss ducked underneath it and slashed upwards, her attack barely being caught by a downward, awkward spin his blade. She hopped a few steps back and adopted a neutral stance, sword held out in front of her.

After another pause, she charged again, moving faster than she had up until now, her arms almost a blur as she swung for Aldric's left side. He grunted, bringing his sword around to defend it, and with his blade connected to hers in a shower of sparks and a clap of grinding metal and plasma, he thrust upward and around in a wide arc, slamming her blade onto the ground to his right, before swinging his at an upward angle. He just barely felt it drag against something, but Weiss dodged out of the way, spinning around him like a top; he almost wasn't able to bring his blade up and over his head to cover her two rapid slashes at his back. With his deep blue blade pointed at the ground, Aldric twisted around to meet Weiss and, with a circular flourish, brought his blade down to her shoulder, but it was just as he was about to connect, that he realized what he'd done, and Weiss' blade surged upwards, the tip digging far enough into his throat to make her point, but not enough to break skin and draw blood.

Aldric nodded to the side, and clicked the button on his saber, the plasma blade sheathing itself with a metallic 'zip'.

Weiss grinned, and straightened up, lowering Myrtenmaster with a respectful nod. "A sword fight is a lot different than a fist fight, Ash." She said, "you can take a punch well and good, but those tend to give you bruises, versus a sword, where every hit that connects makes you bleed. In a duel against another swordsman, you're as much maneuvering your blade to lock down or defend against theirs, as you are to injure them."

"Yeah, I figured that one out quick." Aldric said, rubbing at his prickling throat. "Despite hitting me more often than I came close to you, I'm pretty certain you defended against more attacks than you launched."

She nodded, "if I had to estimate, I would say eight out of every ten sword strokes aren't to maim the enemy, but to defend against what they throw your way... At least if you fight like we have been today, with _solely_ a blade."

 _And that reminds me..._ "Yeah, but you see... There's one thing you missed, during all of this."

Weiss blinked, "I'm sorry?"

Aldric gave her a sneer from over his shoulder, raising his cybernetic hand and clenching his fist, and making the power glove nanites on the chainsaw inside glow bright blue, giving the appearance that he was activating an electromagnet. "I am _not_ a sword fighter." And no sooner did he finish speaking, than did his shield come flying in, bashing Weiss on the back of the head and flipping end over end, before affixing itself to his arm.

Yeah, he figured out how to do it anyway.

Weiss seemed to find it entertaining as well, as she repressed a grin and regained her footing. "You, my dear lady, sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke." He explained, as he bounced the shield off the ground a few times, dribbling it as though it were a basketball. "Never realized I was pushing you over to where my shield was, and was turning your back to it." He said, planting his fist on his back and bending over until it popped. "See, I learned as much as you taught. You like to use your opponents' momentum against them, deflect their attacks with as little strength required on your end. And from what I've figured out... " He chuckled, indicating his throat, "that's damned invaluable in a sword fight... But let me ask you: How many opponents have you fought in your life, that _only_ used a sword?" He asked, twitching his shield back and forth, for effect.

She nodded to the side, conceding his point. "I would list my sister, but she uses a sword and a dagger."

"My point." Aldric rolled the shield back across the ring, it sliding off the edge and nestling back into his coat. "I've only met two - and the second uses a sword so..." He paused to cut himself off from saying 'god damn', half because Weiss wouldn't know who 'god' was, and half because he remembered what Pyrrha had said, and the lengths she'd gone to to keep him from spewing profanity at this poor girl. " _Huge,_ we'll call it, that your 'minimum required force' thing wouldn't have a chance at all of working." Especially when Srebro added her semblance to the mix, and nullified whatever Weiss _could_ have done in the first place. "Everyone else has a weapon with at least one or two functions beyond the obvious. So as good as you are in a straight up duel..." One last time, he rubbed his throat, a grin on his face. "In a fight... You've got some work to do."

"What would you suggest?" Weiss asked, as she rubbed at the back of her head.

"Well, when you've got aura, I'd say use those glyphs of yours..." He then pantomimed a few attacks being stopped in midair, "predict where they'll hit, and defend. That'll let you keep using your style, as it _should_ open up your opponent for a counter attack, which you excel at." He said, "but when you're out of aura and your semblance is shot?" He nodded his head to the side, "I'll never side against investing in some kind of armor, even if it's just a kevlar lining in your coat... But aside from that?" He indicated his obvious injury, "learn to take a hit. Sometimes giving your opponent what they want, is exactly what _you_ want."

Weiss' brow twitched downward, "make them sacrifice their footing, for a killing stroke."

Aldric snapped his fingers and pointed at Weiss, "she's learning!" He said in a singsong voice. "Now..." _Zhoom._ "Let's go again?"

Weiss nodded, Aldric noting a hint of respect in her blue eyes, and after another moment's pause, the two charged again. Weiss went on the offensive, and Aldric did as she suggested, swinging his sword up to defend himself first, and do everything else second.

'Everything else', in this instance, being planting his fist in her gut with a loud 'thud'.

Her aura flashed as it defended against the blow, but it still caught her unprepared just enough for her to double over and start coughing. Aldric let her recover, and he noticed her give him a sideways look, eyebrow raised and the corner of her mouth turned upwards.

Aldric shrugged, "hey, I _did_ tell you." He said, "and I'd say 'keep your eye on your opponent's weapons', but uh -" He indicated his eyes, as Weiss stood back up. "I'd be one to talk."

Wiess' grin became more pronounced, as she readied her sword. "I must admit..." She launched forward, and Aldric had to parry three rapid horizontal swings, and then catch a downward chop that would have split his head in two. "You make light of your condition very easily!" Weiss called out, over the sound of her blade struggling against his screeching plasma.

"Way I see it -" Aldric then lunged to the side and cut the power to his sword; Weiss was completely unprepared, leading her to overextend completely, stumbling forward as her sword scraped against his shoulder, and he rammed his pommel into her back with a swift chopping motion, before lighting the blade up again. "- if you can learn to laugh at yourself, you can learn to laugh at anything." He said, swinging his sword back and forth in a figure eight, as Weiss got back to her feet. "And this world is _entirely_ too serious to be taken seriously. You need to find something to laugh at."

Weiss straightened up, Myrtenmaster's chambers revolving as she did. "And that something is you?" She said, before three bright white glyphs appeared in the air around her, one to her front, and two to her sides.

She thrust her sword forward, and several chunks of ice shot out of the glyphs. Aldric grinned and flipped the switch to 'high power', before batting several of them out of the air, letting one shatter against his metal arm with a loud 'crash', and then catching the final one as though it were an oversized football. "Yeah!" He said, as though it were obvious, chucking the ice out of the ring and listening to it shatter against the distant wall. "I can turn my previous statement right around: When you laugh at yourself, it'll encourage others to start laughing too." He said, making sure to dial down the power again. "And the world _needs_ more people laughing."

Weiss nodded, her face warming up with a smile, as though she'd just had a genuine epiphany. "Explaining the clothes, earlier today." She said, as the glyphs vanished.

Aldric hummed the affirmative, and charged Weiss, blade dragging on the ground. "My team -!" He swung upwards, Weiss parried his blow and followed it up with a stab, but Aldric lunged out of the way and brought his blade back down, "- tried to find out -" She gracefully spun out of the way of his attack, and the two clashed again, swiping and stabbing at eachother, though Aldric still finding this snow-haired huntress _un-fucking-touchable!_ "- where exactly I'll draw the line!" So he cheated a bit, and when she swung at him next, he used his semblance both to bend out of the way, and curve Weiss' sword away _just_ enough to make her think she'd made a mistake, and then jabbed her chest with the tip of his saber.

She gasped in pain and stepped back, pressing her free hand to her chest, as she looked down at herself, seeming to be quite surprised that her clothes weren't smoldering. She looked back up, "that's _low_ power?"

"High power would've cut your sword into pieces _long_ ago." Aldric responded, with another flourish, as he cast a glance to her blade, which was radiating quite a bit of the heat it had taken over the course of the fight.

Her eyes flicked over to his shield, and then back to him. "Could it cut your shield?"

Aldric paused, frowning a moment in thought, before his grin returned. "Ain't that a question people want answered?" He voiced, "I built this one with the idea in mind that, if I pulled it out, it's me making a statement: The gloves are off. Be it me or the Grimm I'm fighting, someone is going to die." He nodded off to the side, "as opposed to my shield, which is much more of an all purpose tool. Defending, attacking, bouncing off of people's heads." He grinned.

And so did she, "and I assume your team learned you're one to call bluffs?"

Aldric chuckled blithely, as he clenched his blade in a two handed grip, "Weiss, if you knew what my limits were, you'd be _shocked."_ And the two charged eachother again. _  
_

Their training session continued like this, with this back and forth, until Aldric had depleted Weiss' aura through sheer attrition, and he'd gotten more than a fair few nicks and scratches for his trouble, versus him giving her a grand total of _seven_ minor burns and bruises through his swordwork. Now seated outside in the cool night air, each nursing fresh bruises, though Weiss was the only one of the two seeming winded for the experience, and both holding large bottles of water.

"I must admit, Ash." She said, after a reserved swig of water - as opposed to Aldric, who was practically slamming his. "My father liked to say that one can only truly _know_ something if they are capable of teaching it. But, considering what teachers I've had over the years, that prospect didn't really appeal to me."

"Oh?" Aldric hummed, "must've had some bad teachers, then."

She nodded, "quiet mornings and afternoons spent under the watchful eye of my tutors, both of us not really wanting to be there. Me because my grades were checked religiously, and them because if my grades dipped, that was their job and their reputation."

"I can see how that colored your view." Aldric deadpanned.

"Indeed." She said, taking another dainty sip, though she almost sloshed quite a bit of it down when Aldric, finished with his water, crushed his bottle with a loud plastic 'crunch'. "But I must admit, I had far more fun than I thought I would. I don't think I would mind if each of our sessions going forward will be like tonight."

 _Is this flirting? Or is this her being human?_ Aldric played it safe, "don't speak too soon, lady. I may disappoint you yet."

"And thus returns your modesty." Weiss hummed.

* * *

The next morning, while the rest of his team enjoyed sleeping in on a day off, Aldric woke up, bright and ugly, before the sun. To avoid waking up his team, he gathered his things and used the communal bathroom to do his morning routine, though he did leave them a note saying he had some errands he wanted to run in Vale, and he put Srebro in charge just to mess with her. He ran into a few early risers, but no one he recognized, and just as the first glimpse of the sun could be seen on the horizon, Aldric took the 'express' route to Vale proper.

As he flew to Vale, he donned his Nathan Drake getup, and fastened the voice modulator to his throat, though he had decided to leave his coat back at Beacon, replacing it with a long-sleeved shirt, tucked into his waistband; as much as he loved the damn thing, it was pretty easy to identify, and god forbid Cinder just happened to be walking around. When he landed, he found Torchwick and Neo already there, waiting for him and Taurus, and all but confirming that Neo had intentionally not told him _when_ to meet, just because she could. It amazed him how Torchwick, basically Vale's Al Capone, was able to just hang out in an office of Internal Affairs because he _wanted_ to. That was power, right there. Aldric took a few moments to prepare himself, before he landed in front of the IA building and waltzed inside. He'd left his weapons, save the lightsaber, back at Beacon, primarily because he knew he could literally summon them whenever he wanted, with the backup Power Glove canisters he had.

After speaking to the investigator at the front desk and giving him Neo's pass-phrase, Aldric was guided up to the top floor, and let inside.

Torchwick took one look at him and raised his eyebrow, "a taste for the theatrics, Mister... Mask?" He asked, flicking some ash from the end of his cigar.

" _Drake."_ Aldric rumbled lowly, his scrambled voice filling the room. " _Wait until you see him."_ Aldric said, as Neo sauntered over to him, hips swaying and arms held out to the side, expectantly.

Aldric gave her what he wanted, and in the blink of an eye, she gasped, gave him an impressed grin, an arced eyebrow, and slid out of his arms, his lightsaber in her hands. Torchwick watched with amusement, as she indicated it, and then Aldric.

"Finally decided to swap out the shield then? Or decided walking around with a red white and blue Frisbee would make it too easy to recognize you?" Torchwick voiced, giving his cane a brief spin, as Neo inspected the saber.

Aldric reached for it and firmly pushed it away from Neo's face, _"merely added to arsenal."_ He said, using his semblance to pry her hand open and slide the hilt out of her grip.

"And what is it, if I may ask?"

 _"Lethal."_ Aldric clipped it back on his belt, as Neo pouted at his blatant cheating.

Torchwick hummed, "and not a single prompt needed from she or I." He nodded his head, and took another drag from his cigar. "And here I had thought that, _just_ maybe, we'd gotten a glimpse at all you were capable of. Hm, I must admit, Mister 'Drake'. You never cease to amaze."

Neo agreed with an emphatic nod, as she wrapped her arms around one of Aldric's, hung off of him, and gave Torchwick a pointed look, as though to say 'I told you so'. Torchwick raised his hands in surrender, it being clear to Aldric that the two had had this argument once before.

"Word to the wise, Mister Drake." Torchwick said, before making several gestures with his hands, as he spoke. "It would behoove you to learn to sign..." He indicated Neo. "Especially as she sinks her claws ever further into you."

It took less self control than he would have guessed to not flinch at the feeling of a hand giving him a pinch below the belt and behind his back; Aldric chalked it up to knowing Neo too well. _"Keep in mind."_

"So how did you gain his alliance, then?" Torchwick asked, "even I find the White Fang exceedingly frustrating to infiltrate."

 _"Gave him something he wanted."_

Torchwick hummed, as Aldric sensed Taurus approaching the building, taking the indirect approach, from the alleys. "Hm, sounds familiar."

 _"It does."_ Aldric rumbled. _"He's here."_ He said, as Taurus slipped in through the alleyway entrance.

"Oh what I could do with a person of your sensory perception." Torchwick hummed, putting out his cigar.

Taurus, and his guard, were soon led to their room, and Neo disentangled herself from Aldric, and took her leave of the three, to stand outside with Taurus' lieutenant, who sported a new-looking chainsword. The redhead frowned upon entering the room, turning from Aldric, to Torchwick, and then back to him.

"How about we stand on equal grounds?" He suggested. "And bare heads?"

"And be without my lovely hat for even a moment?" Torchwick tsked, "oh no, my good sir, I spent a healthy sum upon it, it _deserves_ to be seen." Though he didn't even bother masking his sneer, as both eyes turned to Aldric.

 _Fuck it, they already know._ And he'd checked both of them, the room they were in, and even their guards and the hallway outside, for any kinds of recording or listening devices, and found none; everyone seeming to understand that bringing their scrolls with them was a dumb idea.

Aldric shrugged, and slid his shemagh off, again noting the irony of openly displaying his identity to the two people who would be most likely to betray it, and keeping it hidden from the two who would die to protect it. Maybe he really _was_ Batman? He set the shemagh, mask, and voice modulator on the table in front of him, deposited his blade and Power Glove next to them, and took a seat.

"You'll forgive me if I keep the glasses." Aldric slid them down to show the blank pits in his head, and neither of them argued, as Torchwick planted his hat on the table in front of him, leaned his cane up against it, and took his seat, and Taurus slid his mask off, leaned his katana against the table, and took _his_ seat; Torchwick extended a hand for him to shake, but he just glared at the gangster until he shrugged and backed off.

"You're at Beacon, now." Taurus began, crossing his arms and turning to Aldric.

"You know, I had much the same question, Mister Drake." Torchwick crossed his hands on the table and leaned forward.

"You two already know what she wants to do." Aldric said, "and what she wanted to do beforehand."

"The Maiden." Taurus nodded, an action mirrored by Torchwick.

"I told you she killed her, and more. The 'more' comes from her having stolen the Maiden's powers." Taurus' scowl deepened, and Torchwick blinked, not having expected this development. "But a Huntsman interrupted us before she could finish it, and took the Maiden. Maiden's in a coma now, I'm at Beacon to find her, for when we all -" He indicated the three of them, "- invade."

"And, question - if I may." Torchwick raised his hand ostentatiously. "Why exactly does she want to haul off and _invade_ Beacon Academy?"

"She wants power." Aldric responded, "killing the Maiden and getting the rest of her abilities will get her that. But she's just one piece in a far greater game."

"And that is?" Said Taurus.

"Full-on genocide." Aldric deadpanned. "All of ours mutual boss believes in the deity brothers. Each of the four academies supposedly houses a relic of the brothers. She kills the maidens, steals their power, destroys the academies, takes the relics, and then." Snap. "Everything. Gone."

"You're serious." Torchwick scoffed, "the Maidens are one thing, but _gods?_ Where's your proof?"

"I've spoken to Ozpin and he straight-up _told_ me."

 _That_ got their attention, Torchwick appeared to be openly reevaluating his opinion of Aldric, and even Taurus seemed to be impressed.

"You went to Beacon's headmaster." Taurus reaffirmed, with a nod.

Aldric indicated Torchwick, "he likes to say he only bets on the winners." He said, "I play to win."

"Well I'll say." Torchwick whistled, "and you're alive, too. Am I to understand that means you've secured _his_ alliance, as well?"

Aldric gave Torchwick a dull look. "I walked into the Headmaster's office and told him I was a spy working for his mortal enemy."

"Point taken." Torchwick leaned back, "so we're to understand that the deity brothers and their relics... The Wizard and the four Maidens - they _all_ exist?"

Aldric would leave the Masters out of the conversation for the time being, and decided to not present his slowly forming theory that perhaps the Deity Brothers had perhaps been _incredibly_ powerful aura users, who were misunderstood to be gods; instead he nodded. "I'm operating under the assumption that they do."

"Entertain us for another minute." Torchwick requested, "because, the two of us - we're not necessarily _out_ of the line of fire in this, but we're not standing in front of the barrels with enormous targets on our faces either. You play a dangerous game, Mister Drake, and the more we learn about you, the more fire we realize you are playing with." Taurus nodded along with what the gangster was saying, his frown having faded away. "So _why?"_

"Because we all have things we want to do with our lives, gentlemen. And everyone being dead..." He hissed, and shook his head. "That kind of gets in the way of that." He said. "You." He nodded to Torchwick, "you have a taste of power, and you want more. You have fingers in every pie in Vale and have connections outside of it; Cinder promised you more connections but failed to add that if she had her way, she'd be killing them all within a decade, at most." He turned to Taurus, "you want equal rights and higher status for all faunus, not just some backwater country no one cares about and fewer bother to invest in. Cinder assured you you both would benefit, in that your peoples' power would be seen the world over, but failed to mention how fleeting that power would be." He opened his arms to indicate himself, "then there's me, the ever-loving no-eyed Thing. I just want to go home, but she'd have it burned and all of its people slaughtered, because 'fuck you, that's why'.

"We all have everything to lose by fighting for her, and everything to gain by fighting _against_ her." He indicated Torchwick again, "imagine the ruined criminal infrastructures everywhere from Vale to Atlas, and the favors you'll get above board and below, for being known as one of the people who helped tear her down." Then to Taurus, "and I've already explained what you could get out of it. You'd practically be _messianic_ to your people. You might not even need to war against the humans in the first place, and if you did, there wouldn't be a single faunus who would say no to their _hero_... And imagine how different you would look like, to you-know-who. You might even be validated to her - all the things you did that she disagreed with, painted in a new light. And me? I'd get to go home. Retire. Tell my Mom I love her. Not work another day in my life.

"But to do that, gentlemen, we'd be playing an entirely different game." He said, leaning forward, and resting his elbows on the table. "With entirely different rules. We'd have to be much more smart about every move we make. Play everything more careful."

Taurus immediately fired back with, "smart like walking into a sworn enemy's office and telling him you're spying against him?" And Torchwick concurred.

Aldric looked to Torchwick, "how's the coat I ruined?" And then to Taurus, "you remember the bombs?" They both gave their own acknowledgements, conceding his point. "I play the game as it is and as I see it. I see opportunities, I take them. And I never do anything without a plan, a contingency, and an exit strategy." He looked past the both of them, indicating the guards standing outside. "Something you both seem to agree with me on." He leaned back in his chair.

"And how would you 'exit' the both of us betraying you?" Taurus challenged. "Let's say... Just for a moment... One or the both of us doesn't believe you."

Torchwick sat back, hiding a grin behind a gloved hand, knowing what would come next. Aldric humored the gangster, and lifted a hand, thumb and forefinger extended, and slowly pressing together. Taurus' frown instantly returned, and without breaking eye contact, he rested his hand on the hilt of his blade.

"I would find your lack of faith disturbing." Aldric responded, before letting go. "And I already told you my exit strategy."

"Quite interesting to see someone _else_ on the end of that." Torchwick hummed. "His throat didn't even move!"

"You really think Ozpin and his people will take you?"

"With what I have, they definitely would." Aldric nodded, "and I sincerely hope you weren't trying to confess, Mister Taurus. I felt bad about the..." He tapped his fingers together.

Taurus rolled his eyes, "devil's advocate. I assume you know the virtue of playing that role."

Aldric nodded, "keep the bases covered." He said, "so are we in agreement?"

The three of them exchanged glances, before Taurus spoke up. "If we're going to work together... I think we'll need to agree on an open flow of information." He said, "this war you're proposing, it's not one we would have a remote chance of winning if we didn't trust and work with our allies."

"Said by the terrorist, to the crime boss and the up-and-coming war criminal, inside a thoroughly dirty police station." Torchwick deadpanned.

"I don't _dis_ agree." Aldric said, cautiously. "But I would also question whether or not you would _really_ give us everything as you came across it."

"In any other situation you would have a point." Taurus countered, "but I'll say it again: This isn't a war that we can fight with our allies at arm's length. If it meant my people surviving, I would do anything for them."

"Oh _anything?"_ Taurus seemed gleeful, "then do _I_ have a few names for _you!"_

"Prove it." Aldric said. "We all have a secret. At least one thing we don't want getting out. But if you want us to share them, you have to be willing to give what you'll receive, as well as be aware of the risks."

Torchwick was actually the first one to speak, scoffing, shaking his head, and saying, "Jacques Schnee is helping bankroll my cleaning Vale of all its Dust."

Taurus and Aldric turned to eachother, "I could have prevented the event that I used to galvanize my faction of the White Fang."

All eyes on Aldric,"there's a certain kind of dust, with magical properties, theorized to have come from another planet with life." He patted himself. "I'm _from_ that planet."

There were a few moments of dead silence, before Taurus turned to Torchwick, and Aldric followed his gaze. Torchwick shrugged, "the profit he would accrue by 'graciously' buying out the devastated businesses would far exceed what he shall lose by funding my temporary hiccup, and keeping me quiet. Especially when he buys the location of all of that pre-refined, ready-to-ship Dust."

Back to Taurus, who offered up: "I _desperately_ want a war with the humans." as an explanation.

 _Hm..._ Aldric held up a hand. "I'm..." He didn't have magic to call on, but he'd long since learned how to this particular trick without it. _"A lot..."_ He sped up the atoms in the space above his outstretched palm, causing the air to combust. "Like that wonderful wizard." And then he stopped that atomic movement, creating a fire-shaped chunk of ice.

There were several moments where nothing was said, before Torchwick clapped his hands. "So!" He declared, "this is what trust feels like." He squirmed in his coat, as though uncomfortable in his own skin. "Ooh... Feels... Strange." Though he didn't drop his sneer as he said this.

Taurus turned his gaze to Aldric, "wizard or not. _Alien_ or not. When this is over, when our mutual enemy is dead and gone... You're still human." He looked to Torchwick, "the both of you are."

"Hm." Torchwick grunted, "quite. Now about those names I mentioned, consider this a show of faith..." He said, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen, and writing a single word on them: _ALBAIN,_ and sliding it across the table to Taurus. "I did, after all, say it was _frustrating_ to infiltrate your organization. Not impossible."

Aldric nodded, still able to accept Taurus' conditions. "One last item of business, before we go our separate ways." All eyes returned to him, as he leaned forward onto the table. "What would you two say if I could set up a meeting with our righteous counterparts?"

* * *

 _And now..._ Aldric thought, later that night, _for part two of my master plan!_

He found upon arriving at Beacon Tower, that there was a note attached to the elevator door, simply telling him to take it down, as opposed to up. It piqued Aldric's curiosity, and then secured his attention when he found his scroll could do just as Ozpin's had, earlier that week, and could actually order the elevator _to_ send him down. Aldric followed Ozpin's instructions, and after a lengthy elevator ride, found himself in Beacon's vault; Ozpin was at its far end, hands behind his back, a deep frown framing his face as he stared forlornly at Amber.

 _Oh, this isn't going to be good._ How did Deadpool put it? Life was an endless series of trainwrecks broken up by brief, commercial-like breaks of happiness? Aldric agreed, if only because of the look on Ozpin's face pretty much told him that he'd be getting some bad news.

Approaching Ozpin, Aldric's voice echoed about the vault as he called out. "Ferrum's news was that bad?"

Ozpin remained silent until Aldric reached him, "the easiest to say would be that Qrow stopped by on his way through, earlier this week. I felt it prudent to show him what you showed me... His reaction was exactly what I predicted."

"Wanting my head, and looking for it in his flask?"

Ozpin nodded, "it took many hours to calm him down and bring him around to our way of thinking... In regards to what we intend to let occur... But I wonder if that plan must too change, in light of recent events." He looked down to Aldric, "have you your coverings?"

 _Well **fuck,** where's this taking me?_ Aldric nodded, "we've got a meeting?"

Ozpin nodded, as Aldric slid his bundled up shemagh, the mask, and the voice modulator, out of one of his pockets, and started tying them on. "The bomb made it through." He said, "we do not have a precise location due to what followed, but we know that it dropped somewhere in Anima."

"What followed?" Aldric repeated, as he fastened the modulator to his throat, and his mask to his face.

"Just yesterday, sixteen airships soared over Atlas, engaged in a heavy battle against more than twice their number of Grimm." Ozpin explained.

 _"Oh god."_

Ozpin nodded solemnly, "whatever damage was or wasn't done by the terran bomb... It doesn't appear to have stopped Salem's capacity for launching invasions on Earth...

"Or letting them strike back."


	33. Aer Vis

_AN:_

 _AN:  
With Volume 5 now finished, and 6 ostensibly on the way within the year, I'm certain the question has entered your minds: What stance, if any, will this story take on the events depicted?_

 _All I'll say is give it due time.  
_

 _Also: Apologies for the delay, I'm adapting to my new work schedule. Had 3 back-to-back 12 hour training shifts, and coming up I'm starting my 3AM-3AM 24 Hr shift.  
So... Yeah, once I got done with the former I did a whole lot of sleep and prep for the latter._

* * *

Chapter 32

* * *

For the first time, Aldric found himself on the less sneaky end of Ozpin's subverting his Radar Pulse.

Once he was ready and fully disguised as Drake, Ozpin placed his hand on Aldric's shoulder. One moment, they were staring down Amber's cryo pods, and the next, they found themselves in a much more sterile and uniform office. Gone was the large, looming, curved architecture of the vault, and missing was the organic curves and wide windows of Ozpin's office; here to replace all of it was a single cuboid room, with sterile white and blue lighting, straight lines, and not a single window to be seen.

 _Did I just teleport?_ Aldric blinked, _I'd say_ _I'm pretty goddamn certain we've figured that out to be impossible... But Ozpin's magic._ He heard a door open; both he and Ozpin about-faced, to see James Ironwood entering the office, a tablet-scroll cradled in his elbow.

Ironwood looked up upon entry, and his eyes snapped from Ozpin to Aldric, their dull look indicating that he seemed to both be surprised and unsurprised at their sudden appearance.

"Great to see my heightened security is doing its job." The man with the iron jaw deadpanned, as he hit a button on his scroll and killed the screen. "I'm glad to see you got my message." He turned his steely gaze down to Aldric, there being a solid foot in difference between their height.

"It is good to see you, General." Said Ozpin, "though I wish it were under better circumstances." He gave Aldric's shoulder a pat, "this is the interested party I mentioned, earlier this week."

"Hm." Ironwood grunted, and extended his hand to Aldric, who noted that it was the General's cybernetic half. "General James Ironwood. You're the one who gave us the tip about the bomb in Anima." He said, not as a question, but a fact.

 _"One in the same."_ Aldric extended his own, correctly predicting that the General had intended to give a handshake a few steps above 'firm', considering the pressure he felt on his metal hand. _"Wish I was wrong."_ They shook. _"Drake."_

"Good grip, Drake." Said the General, "how briefed are you on what happened yesterday?" He asked, indicating the two sit at his desk.

"He knows as much as you told me, General." Said Ozpin, as the three sat. "We would both greatly appreciate a more thorough understanding of the day's events." He said, leaning his cane on the chair.

Ironwood nodded, as he retrieved his revolver from its holster in his coat, and set it on the desk, alongside his scroll. "At nineteen-thirty hours yesterday night, our perimeter defenses detected thirty two aerial Grimm, of from Griffin size to Nevermore, inbound to Atlas city. We scrambled two strike groups to respond as per standard procedure, but as they approached and got a better radar visual, they reported another radar contact, flying in a pattern similar to that of a escape and evasion formation." He explained, folding his hands on his desk, "and no sooner had they gotten a visual on them than did the contacts fly _straight_ past them, faster than anything on record, even a frigate."

 _"Wasn't Grimm?"_

Ironwood shook his head, "no, the Grimm we detected were still a good half mile behind them. It wasn't until these contacts turned around and engaged the Grimm that we figured out they were similar to bullheads and fighter ships, but far faster than anything we've built before. We tried contacting them but they never responded, even when we used less advanced solutions. They just fought the Grimm... Up until the Grimm were dead, and then those sixteen fightercraft engaged _us."_ He explained, anger seeping into his tone. "But despite the fact that they didn't have any laser munitions whatsoever, they managed to eliminate five of our naval ships with nothing but missiles and conventional ammunition before we took them down. Whenever we got a missile lock on them they sprayed some of flare shower into the air and the missiles would either miss entirely or detonate prematurely; we took down at least two of them with our laser cannons, but once they figured out how they were losing their numbers the used their higher speeds to outmaneuver us and keep out of our range."

 _"How'd you win?"_

"A third battle group took them down from longer ranges." Ironwood responded, with a firm nod. "They were fast enough to close in on the ships they were dogfighting, but once we had the range advantage there wasn't a thing they could do."

It made sense to Aldric: If fighter jets knew how to outrun _light,_ Earth wouldn't be the only place with terrans; though that still left him the question of how exactly the ships at closer range still didn't tear through the fighters. A laser cannon should literally just be point, shoot, dead.

 _Unless..._ Aldric nodded; " _took down ships and avoided weapons by going for engines."_ He ascertained.

Ironwood gave Aldric an impressed nod, "smart man. Even I didn't figure that out until how sixteen fighter craft would have been capable of that until I was given the after-action reports. Despite having no energy weaponry to speak of, they made up for it through sheer explosives. Not a single dust round anywhere in the wreckages."

"You said you found survivors, in those wreckages." Ozpin intoned.

"We did, but they aren't giving us anything except their names, ranks, and serial numbers."

 _"Let me talk to them."_ Never did Aldric feel more validated for always carrying his wallet around with him on an alien planet, than he did right now.

Oh, and Ozpin had Earth tech with him, something the pilots most likely wouldn't have had with them in their jets. Both together, and Aldric may be able to convince them of where he came from.

Ironwood frowned at Aldric, but Ozpin came to his defense. "I can vouch for him, James." He said, "of everyone in our inner circle, he may be the most qualified to do so."

"And what would make you so uniquely qualified?"

 _"The ships that you shot down. Looked like avian creatures, right?"_ Aldric began. " _Gray. With wings. Two immobile thrusters on the back. The missiles were loaded underneath the wings. Canopies with the pilots at the front; when they lost control of their ships, they ejected from the seat and were brought back down to the ground via parachute."_ He indicated his chest, " _had patches on their uniforms. Camouflage you've never seen before. No armor plating period. Written text unlike anything on record. Vehicles were powered through fossil fuels - gasoline and oil - and not Dust._

 _"Uniquely qualified because I'm from same planet as them."_ Aldric finished. _"Not. This. One."_ Thank _God_ for war movies!

Ironwood leaned back in his chair, recognition flashing through his eyes, as he turned to Ozpin. "Is he saying what I think he is?"

"I felt he made his point quite clearly." Ozpin deadpanned, suppressing a grin. "Am I to conclude that you had doubts as to what I told you of my origins?" A beat, "until now, that is?" He let the grin appear.

"I've learned through a long military career that a healthy amount of skepticism goes a long way." Ironwood said, shaking his head. "I believed you when you said you were the man who gave the four Maidens their powers, but when you brought up this 'other Remnant' business..." He gave Aldric a firm look, "are you telling me that these soldiers were from Rome?"

 _Oh... So close._ _"No."_ Said Aldric, _"been long time since Rome."_

"And how are you and they even here?" Ironwood asked, "and why did they attack my kingdom?" He leaned forward, planting a fist on his desk. "I lost a _lot_ of men and women to them."

 _"Ancient dust. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sorry."_ Aldric responded, in order.

"Please, James." Said Ozpin, "he is here to help."

Ironwood sighed, but nodded nonetheless. "Follow me." He said, getting to his feet.

He then guided them out of his office and through what Aldric was somewhat certain was Atlas Academy. Much like his office, the academy was almost strictly utilitarian, no wasted space, no warm colors, no needless decorations. The only things that broke this mold were the high, vaulted ceilings and the Atlesian flags draped over the walls. The General led the Headmaster and the spy through his academy and outside, revealing to Aldric that much unlike Ozpin, whose office was at the height of Beacon Tower, Ironwood's was deep in the center of the heavily fortified, and eerily silent Academy.

"The entire city has more or less been on lockdown until we can be certain that another attack like yesterday's wouldn't happen again." Ironwood supplied, as they made their way towards Atlas Tower.

"And what of your students?" Asked a frowning Ozpin.

"They're ready for war." Ironwood said, though his tone suggested he didn't necessarily approve of the sentiment; and when Aldric pointed that out, Ironwood followed up with, "even if we assume that this 'Earth' has so little dust that we will never have to worry about armies of Wizards and Maidens, they have a weapon whose detonation was felt all the way from Anima, and sixteen fighter craft took down almost a third of their number of full-sized naval vessels." He frowned, "and my gut tells me that neither our side nor theirs has all the facts in this."

 _"Trust your gut."_ Aldric said. _"And explanation simple: Enormous airships with lot of guns. Powerful, but limited. Terrans moved away from sheer firepower almost a century ago."_

"To what?" Ironwood asked.

Aldric exchanged a look with Ozpin, who nodded, appearing to also be curious. _"Aircraft carriers."_ Aldric responded, _"aircraft are cheaper to build and arm. Have longer range. Can project force where ships can't. Can scout ahead of their ships, and faster at that. Load them with explosives, and..."_

Ironwood frowned up at the sky, Aldric imagined the General was reliving the previous day's battle. "Sixteen cheap fightercraft can destroy five priceless airships."

 _"Long before other naval vessels could enter gun range. Thus, tactic became: Use planes to scout out enemy fleet. Destroy their carriers. Protect your own at all costs."_ Aldric nodded, _"had a global war. Air power was often deciding factor over which navy beat which."_ A beat, _"anything more than that, can't say. Liked physics and science more than history of war."_

"And we see how useful that is."

 _Don't pull out the lightsaber, don't pull out the lightsaber, don't put the jarhead in his fucking place with a stick of plasma in his ass._ Aldric let out a long, quiet sigh, and Ozpin kept his expression neutral. _"Physics and science why you felt that bomb from Anima."_

That actually got Ozpin to purse his lips, as he tried not to smile, and Ironwood looked down. "You know what that was?"

 _"Yes."_

Silence.

"And?"

 _"Don't need two worlds under threat of those weapons."_ Aldric responded, as they reached the tower, and entered an elevator, descending to its third basement floor, where Aldric saw dozens of jail cells; he'd give Atlas some props, actually - they hid their vault by making it seem that the 'secret' was where they kept their POW's.

"Who's side are you on, Drake?" Ironwood demanded, giving Aldric an accusatory glare.

 _"The side that defeats the White Witch."_ Was Aldric's response. _"Guarantee war against Remnant and Earth is what she wants. Tell you concept of that bomb, you create it, both sides wipe eachother out."_ He said, _"Mutually Assured Destruction."_

"That sounds barbaric."

 _"That's why my planet still exists."_ Aldric said, as the elevator 'dinged', and let them off.

Ironwood brought them through the secure areas, past the guards, and towards the cells. "They have similar ranks to our own. You'll find the highest ranking officer in this cell here." He said, nodding to the one they were approaching.

 _"Want visual surveillance equipment disabled."_ Aldric requested, as he held his hand out to Ozpin, _"tablet, please."_

Ozpin didn't question him, and produced it from thin air, but Ironwood argued. "Why?"

"His identity." Said Ozpin, as Aldric stuffed the tablet into one of his pockets. "He's playing a much more dangerous game than all of us, and his anonymity is what allows him to play it without risk of bias from our side."

"Bias?" Ironwood looked down to Aldric, "are you _spying_ on Salem?"

 _"Technically spying on you."_ Aldric deadpanned, as Ironwood passed his scroll over the door, it unlocked, and the three entered the cell.

There was a two-way mirror that greeted them, allowing them to see inside the prisoner's cell. The man, who appeared to be in his early thirties, had his arms chained behind his back and was currently pacing back and forth in his cell. Ironwood resisted turning off the cameras and audio equipment inside, but eventually acquiesced when Ozpin requested he do so, and once they confirmed the room was silent, Aldric nodded.

 _"Wish me luck."_ He lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles against the prisoner's door, specifically to the tune of 'shave and a haircut', and it got the _immediate_ attention of the man inside, as Aldric opened the door with a loud 'thud' of a latch being undone, and walked on in.

 _"Evening."_ Aldric greeted, as he pulled up a chair.

"Captain Dale Evans." Said the man, dropping onto his bed with an unamused huff. "Four Eight Eight Three Nine Eight Zero Nine Three Two."

 _"Fascinating."_ Said Aldric, as he slid off his shemagh, making sure his back was turned to the General watching from behind the mirror. _"Air force?"_ He asked, as he released the clasps on his mask.

"Captain Dale Evans." Was his response, along with the number Aldric was frankly amazed he'd had memorized; Aldric could barely remember his social security number.

 _"Interesting."_ Aldric pried the voice modulator from his throat, "what if I gave you my name?" He said, cracking his neck, and sliding the tablet out of one pocket, and his wallet out of the other. "Look here." He said, displaying his ID, and Evans frowned after learning forward and reading the name printed on the plastic card. "I was on Continental Flight Six Three Six." He said, casually, retrieving the RWBY SD card from his strong box, and sliding it into the tablet.

Evans blinked at that.

"Yeah." Aldric nodded, "I got the same reaction from a buddy of yours..." A quick application of his radar pulse let him see the nametag of another one of the pilots, "Teresa Evans." He arced an eyebrow, "that a coincidence?" But he shook his head, and powered on the tablet. "Never mind." He made eye contact with Evans, "I've been stuck on this planet for a little over six months, now... And while I have learned some crazy shit in that time, I'm pretty sure we didn't crack the secrets to interstellar travel that fast... So you can imagine my _utter_ surprise when I hear about a bunch of fighter jets showing up in a world where they don't exist... Shooting down what everyone _really_ wanted zeppelins to turn out to be..." A pause, "you know, before Hindenburg." He shoved his thumb over his shoulder, "these people have it easy, let me tell you. They got half of their problems solved for them, what with that Dust nonsense. Us?" He waved his hand back and forth between the two of them. "We had to boil ourselves with steam and blow ourselves up with hydrogen to get where we are." Aldric yawned, "did the new Black Panther movie come out while I was gone? I _really_ wanted to see that fucking thing. Chadwick Boseman was the biggest badass in Civil War. Even outshined Spiderman.

"Want me to keep going?" Aldric asked, "I've got a hell of a point to make about the Cold War, I could talk your ears off about Batman v Superman... Or we can agree we're both from Earth." And to finally prove his point, Aldric turned the tablet around and, though the speakers were muted, had RWBY playing, because Aldric was willing to bet _all_ of the Garden coins Mercury had given him that the pilots had been made to memorize the show before they were told to fly through a wormhole. "And that we have the _best_ kind of entertainment."

Evans was silent for a long time, long enough that Ironwood turned to Ozpin and said something to the effect of they were wasting their time, though Aldric couldn't read lips well enough to know exactly what was said.

Before Ozpin could defend him again, Evans spoke. "We... Didn't know anyone had survived." He said, an astonished, and partially horrified, expression on his face. "How many are you?"

Aldric killed the screen, "I don't know." He said, "but that you recognized what I just showed you means you were briefed on it."

He nodded, "once we realized what was happening - really realized it - we eminent domained the _shit_ out of that company -"

"And let me stop you before you get going too far. There are four people present right now, three of them know what it was I just showed you. Me, you, and..." Aldric pantomimed taking a sip from a coffee cup. "The man behind the curtain, we'll call him." He said, "if ever a wiz there was."

Evans understood it well enough, and nodded. "The fourth being the General, out of the loop."

"The fourth being the General, out of the loop." Aldric nodded, "so try to keep _that specifically_ vague. That's information that can't be allowed to spread, and I hope I don't need to explain why." Ironwood got _pissed_ about that, but while Ozpin physically held him back from storming into the cell, Aldric used his semblance to keep the door shut and locked, and did a little damage control. "But the fact does remain that you bombed five Atlesian ships, despite ostensibly knowing that they should have been helping you... And no one on this end knows why, myself included. So how about we start there?" Aldric suggested, "tell us how things started on Earth, and bring us to you and the others getting to Atlas."

Ironwood calmed down, still _fuming_ angry, but able to keep it in check to hear what it was Evans had to say.

Evans let out a long sigh, "there was your flight." He said, "NORAD, the CIA, the NSA - everyone who could have been involved with it picked up on it. Biggest investigation since Nine-Eleven, but it was NASA that finally figured out that a _wormhole_ opened up off the coast of California." He began, "they couldn't figure out where or when in this universe - if it even was this universe - you were sent, so you were declared dead by means of a freak of nature. An act of god, some were calling it.

"Then, a few weeks later... Another one opens up. This one stayed open for a few days... We were hoping you'd all come back, but that's... Not what we got." He shook his head, "the Grimm from this world. Started pouring through by the thousands. The Navy bought the mainland a _day,_ but had to break off or risk one of the carriers getting destroyed. We evacuated the coastlines and prepared for the invasion... And spent a good three months fighting for Los Angeles. But the Grimm just _never stopped._ "

Aldric concurred, "it was a Nevermore that made sure so few people survived my flight. If it hadn't crashed into us, the pilots could've landed. Things might've turned out different on both sides."

Evans nodded, "three months, we spent fighting for LA. The Federal Government seized all of _that_ company's assets and employees, last I heard they're still trying to figure out what's happening and if we're at war with the planet, or... You know." He explained, "and last week... We dropped the bomb. Four of them."

Aldric frowned, "you _nuked_ LA?"

"NASA figured out another wormhole was about to open. If it did and brought more Grimm, that city would be _gone._ The choice was made under the idea that all of the wormholes were being focused around that region... I think I remember someone saying something about it being easier to open a wormhole in an area where it's already been opened before, but that's beyond me. All I know is that they decided to drop the nuke because we captured a live Grimm and exposed it to radiation, and they're just as susceptible to it as we are. A bit more, even." He explained, "so we dropped the bomb and basically poisoned the entire area, such that if more wormholes opened..." He waved his hand in a circular area.

"You'd have a radioactive minefield to thin the herd." Aldric nodded.

"And we had a second objective: When the second wormhole opened, we sent another nuke _through_ it." A pause, "did it make it?"

At this, Aldric shrugged. "Remnant isn't quite as advanced in planetary monitoring as Earth is." He said, "satellites, all that stuff, it doesn't exist here." Evans was nodding as he said this, "and their internet is... It's the calculator to our supercomputer. They don't have a freeflow of information like we do." He said, "all that to say: We're pretty sure it did, but we have no idea if it hit _her_ base of operations, had any effect whatsoever, or just got dumped on a random spot and blew up." Though he was damn certain there were already scouts checking the area out, and he was curious as to the results himself: If the wormholes had been opened from Salem's domain, there could be the slightest chance they could track her down and bring the fight to her before Beacon ever got attacked.

Fat chance, he knew, but it felt good to dream.

Evans was disappointed at this, letting out a sigh. "Hm." He grunted, nodding as he stared off into the distance for a moment. "Well, what we know from our end is that when we launched those bombs, the wormhole vanished. Air strikes and mortar fire kept the Grimm from getting outside of the exclusion zone, and we effectively set up a blockade around the entire area.

"And then another one opened up two days ago, and it _stayed_ open. Longer than the last one."

"Is it still?"

"It was yesterday when we went through." Said Evans, as Aldric sensed Ironwood immediately whipping out his scroll and making a call, no doubt to send airships to scout the continent, and see if they couldn't find the wormhole. "When it didn't close, we started making plans for potential incursions into Remnant. But when we sent a few drones through, something else came back." He nodded to the two-way mirror. "It was one of their airships." Ironwood stopped cold.

"I highly doubt Atlas sent a huge Starship Enterprise over to your end." Aldric deadpanned. "I can see the General right now, and he doubts it even more than I."

Evans blinked, "you can see him?"

"I'll show you mine when you're done showing me yours." Aldric said, "how did you figure out it was Atlesian, specifically?"

"After we shoved ten million dollars worth of cruise missiles up its ass, it survived the crash landing and we boarded it. It was filled with their androids. _That_ company helped us translate their language and we found written and vetted orders from the top."

The wall shook a bit from Ironwood angrily planting his fist on a table leaned up against it. Aldric, meanwhile, was feeling his blood run cold, all but certain this was proof of both that Salem wanted to ignite a war between Earth and Remnant, and that at least one Master had survived on Salem's end, and had _far_ more control over their abilities than Aldric did. Instead of minor weapons and trinkets from fiction, whoever this was was building Salem a fucking false-flag _army._ Sure, Roosterteeth could shout until they were blue in the face that no one on Remnant would do something this monumentally stupid, or self-defeating, but _evidence_ was piling up against it. As far as the UN knew, something had changed, and now Remnant was launching incursions onto Earth. This was no longer a matter of state security, but global security. Their very _species_ could be at risk.

So of course they'd start hitting back.

"Do you believe that?" Aldric asked.

"I believe one million, ninety three thousand people are dead, and the evidence points to it being a state-sponsored attack." Evans argued.

"You're in the military, Captain. Are you really going to tell me that the official story is always the correct one? _Especially_ with what we know?" Aldric pressed, before he let out a long sigh. "I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was no such order given. That, until you dropped the bomb a week ago, only a handful of people over here even knew our world _existed._ That there's only one person who wants to see humanity die. That by pursuing this war, you're playing into her hand."

"Be that as it may, kid - where's your evidence?" He asked. "We have a ship, with orders, and soldiers, that all point to this being a state sponsored, sanctioned, _attack._ Not just on my country, but on my _planet -_ **our** planet." He stressed. "Data that suggests _their_ war went _bad."_

The air of 'Uh, what?' seemed to be shared by all three of them, even Ironwood stopped trying to put his fist through the table at this.

 _So_ that's _her play..._ "Go on."

Evans was frowning now, "no, I'm done with you." He said, "it's clear whose side you're on."

"I'm not on any 'side', Evans. I was the first casualty in this war, remember? I was on the flight she took. I just want to avoid a needless war."

"Captain Dale Evans." He said, swinging his feet onto his cot, "Four Eight Eight Three Nine Eight Zero Nine Three Two."

"Evans, a _lot_ of lives on both ends depend on us knowing as much as we possibly can, going forward." Aldric stressed.

But, Evans laid back on his cot, "Captain Dale Evans."

"Don't give me that, Evans. I can see it in your eyes - you _know_ something's not on the up and up."

"Four Eight Eight Three Nine Eight Zero Nine Three Two."

"Evans, we could send you back."

"Captain."

"Do you _want_ more cities to get nuked?"

"Dale."

"Who'd you lose, Evans? A spouse, or a child?"

 _"Evans."_ He growled through gritted teeth.

 _Bingo._ "Would they want you to allow _billions_ to senselessly die in their name?"

"Four Eight Eight..."

"Because if you pursue this war, it will only hurt us both."

"Three Nine Eight..."

"The Grimm will literally _feed_ on the despair this war will generate, and it will only make it easier for _her_ to wipe all of us out when we're done!"

"Zero Nine Three Two."

 _God damn it..._ Aldric sighed, "fine, Evans." He said, "but I don't know when, or even if, I'll ever return." He said, fastening the voice modulator back to his throat. " _I am the friendliest face you will ever see on this planet."_ On went his mask, " _If you don't help me, you won't be treated like a person, you'll be treated as a prisoner of war..._ "And he tied the shemagh around his head, " _On a planet with no Geneva Convention."_

Evans remained silent, and Aldric sighed, getting to his feet, and turning back to the door.

Once in the room with Ozpin and Ironwood, the Atlesian General was on him like white on rice. "What is it you're hiding from me?!"

"James, please -"

"This is a war now, Ozpin! The pilot _just_ said it!" Ironwood hollered, "what is it you showed him on your scroll? What is eminent domain? What company did they do it to? Why?!"

"James, Mister Drake is -"

"I know he's our ally!" Ironwood rounded on Ozpin, "I know we didn't do a damn thing to them, but an entire planet just declared war on us and he's making it seem like they have intel!" He turned to Aldric, "I can have you detained if I must!"

Aldric met Ironwood's appropriately iron gaze with one of his own, _"do you know how easy it is for plasma to cut through metal?"_

Ironwood's glare turned livid, "are you -"

 _Zhoom._ _"Do you want to find out?"_ Aldric asked, the room bathed in the blue glow of his saber and filled with the sound of its hum; even Evans seemed to hear it activate, as his head briefly shot up.

The room was silent, save for the hum of his blade, as Ozpin eyed the both of them warily, and Ironwood's glare turned down to Aldric's weapon.

 _"I'm sorry, did I break your_ _concentration?"_ Aldric demanded, " _Ironwood, what country are you from?"_

The question out of left field left Ironwood momentarily stunned, "what?"

Thank _god._ This might actually work. "What _isn't a country I've ever heard of. Do they speak English in What?"_

Even Ozpin was staring at him funny, his perplexed look mirroring Ironwood's. "Excuse me?"

 _"ENGLISH motherfucker, do you speak it?!"_ Aldric roared, his scrambled voice filling the room; he was damn glad he had a mask to cover his face - he was losing the fight to keep the smile down.

"Of course, but what does -"

Aldric pointed into the cell with his blade, _"then you understood what all we just said!"_ _Zip. "And you know damn well and good that detaining me will solve just as many problems as going in there and beating that man within an inch of his life."_ He growled. _"There are things I can't tell you. Doing what I do - as I do it - necessitates that secrets have to be kept. For fuck's sake -"_ He indicated his face, before clipping the saber back onto his belt. _"I would've thought this would be indicative enough of that._

 _"Let me ask you a question - knowing the sheer destructive capacity of your entire military right now, would you go back in time a million years ago and give all of that power to the people of Remnant?"_ Ironwood paused at that, _"the answer is 'no', because not only did they not earn that might, but they wouldn't respect or understand it either, and giving them those secrets would cause more damage and create more problems than it would solve."_ He said, crossing his arms. _"The information I have from Earth is the exact same thing. Remnant is, in many places, more advanced than us. But in many others it lags behind - and there is no better way of explaining this than to go back to our brief discussion on your naval doctrine._

 _"The concept of an aircraft carrier befuddled you, and I can guarantee just as ideas came into your mind of how you could adapt that idea, so too would it fail miserably because you wouldn't know how to handle it."_ Aldric explained, _"and not for bad reason, either - the way Remnant's navies and Earth's navies work are alien to eachother, and so are the way our respective species developed combat tactics with them. The idea never occurred to you simply because it was never necessary. And if you tried to adapt it immediately, as I know you considered, it would fail miserably because you don't fully understand the concept, and therein lays my point: I keep secrets because it's necessary. I don't tell you things because I don't think you are ready for them."_

"You are _literally_ a child!" Ironwood protested.

 _"And of the two of us, who has convinced the enemy that he's completely on their side?"_ Aldric asked, _"who has managed to craft an alliance with so many disparate entities that he functionally commands an army? Who has had access to his species' entire stored catalogue of knowledge for his entire life?"_ He pressed. _"Who has_ literally _lived in a world powerful enough to destroy itself?"_ He shook his head, _"and besides. We're both asking the wrong questions. We're having the wrong conversation."_

Ironwood frowned, "how so?"

 _"Let me ask you something."_ Aldric began, _"you picked up on my implication that we had intelligence on Remnant, but the entire time I was in there... Did it ever occur to you that the terrans are acting on it?"_

"They shot down _five_ of our ships and knew where our kingdom was!"

But Ozpin picked up on Aldric's train of thought, "I think he's referring to a far bigger picture, General."

 _"I'm wondering if the war they declared on Remnant wasn't because they_ had _to."_ Aldric said, leaning against the table and looking into the cell, where Evans appeared to have fallen asleep. _"Because there is all of this evidence pointing to an organized invasion from another planet, that they can't just let it slide and expect to stay in power."_ He looked at Ironwood from over his shoulder, _"so they declared their war... But are investigating the circumstances leading to it at the same time."_

As he cooled down, Ironwood's frown turned from one of anger, to one of thought, as he considered Aldric's words.

 _"I'm wondering if the attack force was sent both as a means of retaliation, if they were right and this was an act of war... And as a means of distraction, if they were wrong, and there is a grander game being played."_ He said, turning around and leaning his back against the table. _"Think about it. We don't know how she got the ship and the androids, but we know at this point she **desperately** wants our planets to tear eachother apart, likely so she can finish us both off when we're weak. The terrans may not **know** this, but they have to suspect it. But they have the advantage, in that there is no way she knows they have the information they do."_

His meaning dawned on Ironwood. "They attack us and pursue this war to make her think her plan is working... And send investigative squads during the chaos, so they can locate her."

 _"And there's no better proof of this than the fact that they **only** shot down those ships. They didn't actively try to destroy them."_ Aldric finished. _"They were **holding back."**_

"But how would they investigate this... Ostensibly from the other side of the universe?"

 _"The long game, General."_ Aldric responded. _"The people they sent to make the investigations probably don't expect to go home soon... If at all."_ He said, _"and if I had to guess how specifically they intend to conduct the investigation..."_ He shook his head, _"the terrans can get to space. You can't. If we're correct in these assumptions, I'm willing to guarantee you that they had rockets flying through that wormhole, with space shuttles piggy backing the whole way through."_ He pointed to the roof, _"that somewhere up there... Right now... There are terrans, sitting in a tin can, far above the world, doing what always comes first in a war."_

"Information gathering." Ironwood nodded, brows furrowed in a tight frown. "But that means your people will be _killing_ mine for no other reason than to serve as a distraction."

 _"Au contraire."_ Said Aldric, _"this is a planet they have zero stake in. If they really wanted you all dead, they would have sent more of those bombs through. Or worse."_

 _"Worse_ than a bomb whose detonation we could feel on the other side of the planet?" Ironwood sounded skeptical.

 _"Yes."_ Aldric deadpanned. _"When I said we could destroy our world, I wasn't speaking in metaphor, and I wasn't excluding yours."_ Aldric affirmed.

Ironwood sighed. "I'm sorry, Drake." He said, straightening his posture. "I shouldn't have threatened you like that. It's been a very long two days."

 _"Reciprocated and agreed."_

"I concur." Said Ozpin, "now, should we bring him up to speed on what we were doing as he was questioning his fellow man?"

Ironwood nodded, "come." He said, guiding them out of the cramped room. "I sent word for an entire recon group to start combing Solitas. If the wormhole he spoke of is still there, we _will_ find it." He explained, giving a salute to the guard as they passed him by. "Perhaps we can send word through it... Try to open up a less violent dialogue with these 'terrans'."

"That would be for the best, General." Said Ozpin, "though I fear she has learned from her first mistake, and will seldom, if ever, keep those doorways to Earth open and stationary for very long."

"If that was her intention in the first place." Ironwood mused, "the attack in Anima could very well have been meant for her to draw them into destroying something valuable. Unfortunately the continent has been dark ever since, so until we fix the CCT Tower, information in and out will be slow."

 _"Something to consider is that she may have escalated her plans."_ Aldric voiced. _"Sped them up with the resources she has available to her now. She may very well be tracking all four Maidens and be readying herself to attack **every** academy in one massive coup-de-grace."_

"You don't know?" Ironwood questioned.

"He and the woman who crippled Amber are merely small parts in her grand game, Ironwood." Ozpin interjected, "it is not impossible that she has specifically compartmentalized these things, such that the loss or capture of one arm does not immediately jeopardize the others."

 _"To wit: Haven't even seen her in person."_

"The good news at least is that we know Haven is still operational, as of this morning." Ironwood assured, "but even then, what do we do?" Ironwood asked, as they entered the elevator. "We can't just cancel the Vytal festival and lock down our borders. She'd know we're onto her, and the questions she would ask would be unpleasant." He glanced down at Aldric, who didn't budge. "And even the Atlesian fleet isn't large enough to lock down _every_ academy."

 _"If I had a week I couldn't explain all the reasons why that would be a bad idea."_

"And do you have a better one?"

"Mister Drake and I have been creating a minor menagerie of plans and contingencies for when we believe she would most likely launch her attack. Be it single-bladed, or multi-faceted." Ozpin said.

 _"The endgoal being my being brought into her inner circle. Being allowed to see her in person and being able to locate where it is she hangs her coat."_

Ironwood nodded, "and _then_ we would strike."

 _"Then we would strike."_ Said Aldric.

"And what of the other Masters, Ozpin?" Ironwood pressed, as they came to a halt in front of Atlas Academy's main doors.

Ozpin let out a long sigh, "that, I'm afraid, is something we will not necessarily be able to plan for." He said, "we do not know their numbers, nor their location, nor even the extent of their loyalty to her." He said, "for all we know, there are four other Masters out there, working just as diligently as Mister Drake, here, at subverting her. But so too could all of them be completely loyal to they who saved them from their crash, especially when gifted with the magnificent powers they possess." He nodded, "we will have to deal with them on a case by case basis... And Mister Drake suggested we operate under the assumption that the terran bomb wasn't able to kill any of them, meaning we have four other Masters to contend with, in addition to the one who stole, and intends to reunite, Amber's abilities."

 _"In the meantime, the absolute best we can do is prepare."_ Said Aldric, _"fix your ships... Build as many as you can. Arm and train your soldiers. Do what you can to warn the other countries. Locate and watch the other Maidens. A war on two fronts is coming, and_ fast. _"_ He emphasized, before turning to Ozpin. _"Tell the others that the game has changed. Tell them of what we face. You_ both _lead Academies, and the year_ just _started. It would not be impossible to galvanize your students now, while the time is young."_

"And what would you be doing, Mister Drake?" Ironwood asked, looming over Aldric, his posture ramrod straight and his steely gaze pouring over him.

Aldric picked up the saber again, holding aloft it in his palm. _"With the prospect of as many as four others like me, drawing from the same sources I do..."_ He clenched his fist over the deadly weapon. _"I intend to build my arsenal. Make contingencies. Master my powers... Cement alliances... And, if at all possible... Chart my way back home. Maybe confirm some theories while I'm there, or at least burn their resources for as long as I can."_ He slid the saber back where it belonged.

Ironwood nodded, giving each of them a firm handshake. "I think we're done here, then." He said, "I'll give you everything I learn in Anima... And I wish you luck in your endeavors."

And with another pat on the shoulder, Aldric and Ozpin were back in the latter's office. It was clear by the way the air felt between them that there wasn't much else that needed to be said, tonight. Much like last week, they each needed time to digest the information they had gathered, and to adapt their plans to it all.

 _"I assume we'll get to work on my powers_ next _week."_ Aldric deadpanned, to which Ozpin nodded. _"One last thing then, before I go."_ He began, _"as this little... Fifth column of mine, has begun to grow, I've begun to call it the Watchmen."_

"As in... Who watches them?"

Aldric nodded, _"it consists of those who either know my goals, know where I'm from, or both."_ He said, _"I wouldn't consider Ironwood to be apart of it... Due primarily to the fact that he's a soldier, first and foremost. Sees the entire world from behind the barrel of his gun... As evidenced by his bullheaded thought process, when I got Evans talking. That's why I chose my words carefully while we spoke, never revealed to him Earth's 'prophet', touched on yours and I's plan, or things of that nature."_ Ozpin didn't appear to fully agree with his reasoning, but nor did he say anything that would indicate he disagreed, either. _"At the moment, I would think our little group consists of you and I, Qrow, Adam Taurus, and Roman Torchwick... The latter, of whom, I got into the same room together, just this morning._

 _"Things are picking up speed,_ Ozpin." He explained, " _I can tell the tides are changing and things are moving faster than ever. Every day it seems like what was earth-shattering the day before is nothing special at all. I worry that this 'calm' before the storm may be even shorter than what our 'prophet' would have us believe. Just as you thought it prudent to let Qrow in on my last little secret... I think it would be prudent to get all of the Watchmen on the same page. Now, more than **ever.**  
_

 _"So what would you say to me setting up a meeting between you, Qrow, myself, Torchwick, and Taurus?"_


	34. Intervention

_AN:  
Little peak behind the curtain, this is the second version of this chapter, and it goes without saying: It's far... Far... **Far** more tame than what I'd initially thought of doing. Ended up not using it because we've already had a few paradigm shifts and plot twists in the last few, and this kind of ballsy move on Aldric's end is the kind that would make his job infinitely easier and more difficult.  
I won't spoil the initial idea, because I'm about %99 sure I'll end up using it anyways, just a bit later._

 _I will say that I've been hinting at it, though._

* * *

Chapter 33

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I wonder what it is about Los Angeles **specifically** that makes it easier for Salem and her subservient Masters (isn't **that** an oxymoron?) to open wormholes there, than on other places on Earth.  
_

 _I think I know the answer, actually, and it will be proven as fact if we learn that the place the nuke dropped was on top of an untapped Dust mine, and the place the jets came through was on something similar._

 _The long and short of it is: I think there's Roman Dust under LA, and the Legion, on some level, knows this, and is using it and the Masters' connection to it as a means of far more easily opening wormholes; and as much as this may seem good at first glance, this could be **very** bad for... Everyone, really.  
_

 _Because Salem (SOMEHOW) got her claws on a military airship (I'm thinking it was a Master who figured out how to do it) and sent it through to Earth as part of her gambit to pit Earth and Remnant against eachother, that means Earth now has Remnant Dust to examine and experiment on. They do that, I guarantee that they'll be able to create a way to detect Dust, and then what do you know: There's a shit ton of it underneath Los Angeles._

 _So, absolute perfect-world best case scenario:  
The terrans **won't** find that Dust, or won't try to mine it for fear of what nuclear radiation would do to it; and are at 'war' with Remnant as a means of making Salem think we're playing to her tune, when in reality we've got space shuttles and satellites filling up Remnant's orbit as they try to locate her and find a way to stabilize the path between Remnant and Earth.  
That means in addition to my Watchmen and all of those connections, I've got a **planet** of pissed off terrans ready to help out... And that could also arguably only be good because, if and when we win, the terrans could then also help take Remnant back for the humans/faunus, but that's way out there. _

_And that's **best** case._

 _Worst case scenario:  
I'm absolutely wrong, they want Remnant blood, they'll find the Roman Dust, it will give everyone on Earth magical superpowers, they'll open a stable Einstein-Rosen Bridge to Remnant, nuke the shit out of the whole goddamn planet, find Salem, nuke the shit out of **her,** and then within a decade all of the superpowered terrans will do as people do, fight eachother, and it'll be World War Superman, and everyone will die._

 _And we haven't even addressed the fact that it's a done and done **fact** that, even if one or two of them may have died because of the bomb, Salem still has one or two more Masters, not including me. She could very well be escalating her plans wildly out of proportion and getting ready to destroy three of the four academies in one major stroke. The **only** way that doesn't happen is if she doesn't know where the other Maidens are... But even then, that might not stop her, because she doesn't need the Maidens to conquer and destroy the cities, only to access and retrieve the Deity Brothers' relics. _

_And that is the basic problem with my plan, from the very beginning, even. It relies on two things I simply could not control: My being the only terran on Remnant, and my having the time to execute it.  
_

 _I **thought** I was the only terran on Remnant, but it is clear to me now that Salem scouted the Emerald Forest for any survivors that may have been separated from the plane, and sent her allies after them. **I** got the luck of the draw by being the only one who made it back to the plane and stayed there, and as such Cinder picked me up. So either Cinder has been lying to me the whole time (likely), or Salem compartmentalized the entire thing, and even **Cinder** doesn't know that there are more Masters running around (more likely.)_

 _And because I thought I was the only terran on Remnant, I thought I'd have the year I'd need to build up Cinder's loyalty, and be brought to Salem's domain after Beacon fell. That way I could be able to locate it again, in reference to where on Remnant it was, and then bring the cavalry in and end Salem and the war. All I needed was the eighteen-odd months to do it, but that was operating under the assumption that the only entity on Remnant capable of butterfly effect-ing the planet was **me,** and that is **clearly** not the case anymore. It's only been six months, and my plan is already fucked six ways from Sunday. I'd be lucky if I recognize the next **month** , let alone the next year, or survive the both of them.  
_

 _I can't even rely on my hope-and-a-prayer that Salem won't try to Coup De Grace the whole world because she doesn't have a single Maiden on her side - because she doesn't **need** the Maidens to take over and lock down the fucking Academies! So, god forbid she does **that,** that means in the eyes of Adam Taurus and Roman Torchwick, I'll have lost control of the situation, and they'll sell me out in a heartbeat, and if I haven't located Salem by then, my entire plan - all those people I'll have killed - will have been for nothing. _

_To wit: There's literally only one thing I can do in this situation. My own nuclear option.  
Or... Should I call it the Batman option?  
I need contingencies. I need plans.  
_

 _I need to be prepared, for **anything,** and **everything.**  
_

 _And I don't mean that in a metaphorical 'be ready for X, Y, and Z' way, I mean I actually need to prepare things ahead of time.  
Like, Batman having a batcave at Arkham Asylum for **when** (not if) it got taken over, prepare.  
Or Injustice Batman uploading a virus onto Cyborg the very week they met 'just in case', prepare.  
Or the CDC having a Zombie Plan, prepare.  
Or the god damn US Copyright Office being fully prepared for works submitted by plants, animals and deities - **SERIOUSLY!** (They won't accept it, by the way. Sorry God!)  
_

 _Jesus. It's getting harder and harder to look forward to these 'off days', attending classes at Beacon, especially as my nights are getting increasingly long and increasingly dominated by staying up and training or arming myself.  
_

* * *

After his impromptu journey to Atlas, Aldric fell further into his routine. During the week, and on saturdays, it was training, networking with his team and others, and on Sundays, he worked with Ozpin, specifically on accessing and using his powers. Ozpin now steadfastly refused to do this training anywhere but the vault, explaining to Aldric that apparently it was 'easier' for him to ensure no unintended side effects if they were in there. Aldric didn't argue, but he did idly wonder if Ozpin wasn't playing his own game, trying to keep Aldric surrounded by both the artifacts from his home, and the physical manifestation of his actions here on Remnant, perhaps as a way to keep him grounded.

Regardless of the why, the how got to him fast. Unlike what he could access at rest, what he called his 'semblance', cracking further into his powers required something else entirely. Using these abilities was akin to an endurance test, it was like clenching each and every single muscle in his body, all at once, and keeping them clenched as tight as he could, for as long as he could. The pain was reminiscent of what Aldric felt every day for that first month he was on Remnant - like something one would feel after a long, harsh, and strenuous workout; a pleasant kind of pain, that let him know he was working, but _damn_ did it hurt to keep it going at the time: Aldric could only stay 'Super Saiyan' for a handful of seconds at a time, but only at rest - in combat conditions, he could barely hold it together for _a_ second.

One would think that was amazing progress, and Ozpin reflected that sentiment, but Aldric remembered how strong he had been - and for how long he'd used the power - after killing Rayne. He'd blasted his way through that village for _twenty minutes._ Compared to then, the few seconds he could manage on his own felt like backwards progress; though, while he did say that, _fuck_ did those few seconds feel like a rush. If accessing his aura and using his semblance was like letting a pleasant warmth wash over his body and into his cells, then cracking into his magic was like pumping himself full of adrenaline, it felt like he was on top of the world and that there wasn't anything beyond his ability. The _things_ he could do with those few seconds. Just like he'd theorized when he'd only known about his telekinesis, like Ozpin had affirmed that night in his office, and Aldric had _con_ firmed when he'd made his lightsaber, if he could visualize it, he could make it, and if he understood what it was he was making, the results were better, and using his Power Glove as a focus only made the process easier, and allowed him to create complex and larger objects that he wouldn't be able to in those few seconds of power. Without the glove, he'd been able to pull a smartphone out of his mind, and with it, he'd made a quadcopter with a fucking _missile_ loaded onto it, like he was in some bad Call of Duty game.

Ozpin made him get rid of that last one, though Aldric couldn't _quite_ put his finger on the 'why'.

And as time went on, Aldric and Ozpin both kept their fingers on the pulse in regards to the attack on Atlas and if there were any more terran incursions. With what information they had gotten from Aldric's conversation with Evans as a springboard to pry small bits of information from the other pilots, but beyond that, there wasn't anything, and Aldric didn't feel even remotely confident enough in his abilities to pull a space suit out of his ass and go check Remnant's orbit for shuttles and satellites.

Aldric knew the phrase 'no news was good news', but he felt like this situation was the exact fucking opposite, because he didn't know what Salem was planning, what the situation on Earth was looking like, or anything beyond what Cinder gave him when he sent her his updates, and those all revolved around Beacon and the attack plan. It made him wonder again whether or not Cinder and the rest of the Legion were all compartmentalized, but as often, Aldric found there was nothing he could do about it, right or wrong.

Nothing but prepare, and that was where his nights came in.

Every single night he returned to his Rock and experimented. He worked on furthering his telekinesis, on trying to build up his 'magical endurance', and most often, improving the weapons he had and working on getting new ones. By the time his first month at Beacon had passed him by, the Rock bore more than its fair share of scars from his nightlies, be it from weapon strikes, telekinetic experiments, or just him punching it a few times on the days he was particularly tired and had to stay awake.

What he didn't notice, however, was that his nightly routine was being observed, but not quite by who he would expect it to be. It wasn't Ozpin keeping an eye on him, or Cinder being as omnipotent as he liked it to be, nor was it Neo reporting to Torchwick or any of the White Fang reporting to Taurus, but rather a familiar cat faunus, reporting to three specific people who could arguably do as much damage as the others, simply due to how much time he had to spend with them.

It happened after one particularly frustrating night. He'd spent nearly all of it trying to take the next logical step after his little fire trick with his semblance, and create not just a flickering flare of fire, but a full-on sphere of condensed plasma, with higher mass and the whole nine yards, like a miniature sun without the nuclear fusion. Something like this would have immediate benefits in both the short and long range game - he could smack it into someone like a rasengan, or shoot them with it like a bargain-brand kamehameha. But as much effort as he pushed into it, and as hot as he could make the fire, the best he could make without cracking open the magic was a flamethrower, and unless his opponent was willing to sit there for a few minutes so he could melt their weapons and armor, it wasn't remotely enough to do what he wanted it to do.

He was, at least, able to draw the moisture out of the air on his own, so that was nice. He'd more or less never have to worry about water again, and it certainly helped when, after almost setting himself on fire for the dozenth time that night, he hardly had the stamina left to use his ice trick to cool himself down. _That_ was far easier in comparison to creating plasma, instead of having to speed up atomic movement to set things on fire, all he had to do was manhandle the atoms in the air and _stop_ them from moving. He'd hit absolute zero, one night, it took so long for the ambient air to heat it up and melt it that it looked like it was snowing in its immediate vicinity the next morning.

But, after this night of aggravating failures, Aldric returned to his dorm, passing Blake in her tree along the way. Not aware of her observations of him, he didn't register that she followed him with her eyes as he walked by. No, what he noticed was out of the ordinary was that, as he entered the building, he saw his dorm was empty, and there was -

 _How the fuck did they get my shield?_ Aldric blinked, seeing his shield resting on his bed and a note pinned to it. _I literally chose my locker code at random, how -_ He cut himself off when he realized he'd made it a habit to leave behind his scroll when he was doing something he wasn't supposed to, and that very scroll was under the shield. _Then, what is this, an intervention?_ He frowned.

Ascending the stairs to the upper floors and entering his dorm, Aldric approached his shield and picked up the note.

 _Training room 63!  
_ _~EMS_

"Oh, this is much worse." He drawled, a smile on his tired face as he picked up the shield and slid it onto his arm.

Back out into the chilly Vale night and to the training rings he went, the only thing breaking the white noise being the sound of his cane tapping on the ground, echoing out through the air. When he arrived at the one they had specified, however, he found himself alone. No one in the ring, or in the surrounding ones either. Aldric frowned deeper, wondering if this wasn't some sort of confrontation with his less than scrupulous allies. Neither of them would hesitate to kidnap, but the real question is who would be able to get in to do it? Considering the sheer skill it would take to break into a Huntsman academy, ascend several flights of stairs, steal a team of rookie huntresses, and get out, without alerting _anyone,_ Aldric could only put his money on Torchwick. This was the same man who had pull enough to convince Weiss' father to fund his own robberies, of course he'd have the connections he'd need to find Remnant's Solid Snake, Sam Fisher, Agent 47 dream team.

He continued inside, slowly collapsing his cane and being ready to crack the lightsaber off of it at a moment's notice. There weren't any notes on the ground, and Aldric couldn't find any signs of a previous presence.

 _But it couldn't have been some stealth team... I don't think they would have left the room as perfectly well made as it was, and wouldn't have **armed** me either._ Thought the frowning terran, as he stepped into the ring. _And - whoa._ There it was.

The moment he'd stepped into the ring, two new presences entered his zone of awareness. They were wholly invisible and silent, but he could still identify them as Ecru and Srebro, both armed and slowly approaching him.

 _Did... Did Myrtle make them intangible? Can she_ do _that?_ That was the only theory Aldric had ever been able to make sense of in regards to how Ozpin avoided his radar pulse, because it relied on physical objects to work, and if something was intangible, it had no physical presence, and thus his radar wouldn't see it, and it was the only way Aldric could understand how they _remained_ invisible, despite regaining their tangibility.

Considering their actions thus far and right now, Aldric was able to predict what happened next. Srebro circled around to his front, as he continued feigning ignorance, and Ecru approached him from behind, Lovely Lady held tight and muscles tensing. Once they were in position, Ecru then charged him, screaming like a banshee and shattering the night's silence like a cannon. Aldric's shield was up in a second, but where he expected her to try and fastball him over to Srebro, instead she rammed her bat into his shield with a loud gong, and then the axe-blade popped out, locking the shield to it. _Then_ Srebro came charging in, dreadlocks bouncing with each step and her blade coming around in a titanic circular swing; Aldric's metal hand snapped up and, with an application of his semblance, he slowed Skye down until it was barely crawling towards him. Its impact with his hand still felt like he'd been hit by a truck, but it was far lesser than what it would have been had he not slowed it down.

Then out of nowhere, from the edge of the ring, a crossbow bolt entered his senses and shot towards him, but this was the easiest to intercept of them all - he just used his semblance to push it off target, and then he tilted his head to the side, it brushing past him. Ecru took this chance to rip her bladed bat from the edge of his shield and strike it again and again, keeping it pinned down as Srebro scraped her titanic sword out of his metal hand with sparks flying through the air. Srebro hefted the sword into the air again and brought it down in a vertical chop, and it was here Aldric figured out what they were trying to get him to do: Abandon his shield. Ecru wasn't letting up and wasn't letting him bring it to bear on anyone else, and Srebro was using her superior range to either force him to intercept it and take damage to his aura shields - clearly not aware that, when the computers were off, _he had none -_ or to dodge it entirely, the only way he physically could: By sliding his good arm out of the shield and rolling out of the way.

Any other situation, Aldric would take a third option, use his semblance to throw Srebro off balance and give the sword some forward momentum as well, to put Ecru at risk and force her to retreat. Then all he would need is a single step backwards to get out of the way, and he'd keep his shield. But Aldric was pretty certain this was a Huntress' - or a team of them's - version of an intervention, and playing hard to get wouldn't get him anywhere, especially not that whatever they were pissed - or concerned - about was keeping them up on a school night.

 _Unless._..Aldric frowned, as Skye grew closer to his head. **_Is_** _tonight a school night? Oh fuck, it's Friday._ He'd been operating the entire day under the assumption it was Tuesday. _Explains why Oobleck was talking about the weekend, though._ He thought, the sword now less than a foot from his head. _Now where was I? Oh, right: Give them what they want._ He then lunged backwards, releasing his grip on the shield, sliding his arms out of it, and out of the way of Srebro's sword.

As he skidded to a halt, Ecru slid the shield onto her left arm, her Lucky Lady still grasped in her right, and another previously unseen bolt flying right for his nose. He used his semblance to slow this one down, so he could twist around and appear as though he caught it naturally. Granted, he knew, if anyone, his team would probably be wise to that particular act by now, but he still kept it up for consistency's sake.

"So..." He said, twirling the crossbow bolt in his fingers. "This is happening?" He gave Ecru and Srebro a look in turn, before turning his gaze to the space right between them, where he was certain Myrtle stood, no doubt frowning, and nervously pushing her blue hair out of her face.

"I mean..." Srebro said, hefting her sword onto her shoulder, with a meek shrug. "You don't look at home anywhere as much as you do when you're fighting, so..." Another shrug, as she tentatively added, "we thought this was the only way to get you to talk."

Aldric turned his eyes to Ecru, who was nodding. "Something's wrong, Ash. We could tell even before we figured out you were sneaking out at night."

 _Would the Neo trick work twice?_ Aldric nodded his head to the side, "jig is up, I guess." He dropped the arrow and opened up his coat with one hand, and held his hand out to the side, "don't worry..." And the lightsaber flew out of the coat and into his waiting hand. "Safety's on."

With a flick and a few loud snaps, he extended the white cane from the light saber's hilt, making an improvised shinai and managing to give everyone pause, as they saw him take up a weapon that, until now, he'd shown zero interest or proficiency in. Even Myrtle seemed surprised, as she briefly flickered back into reality before grabbing control over her semblance again and vanishing from Aldric's non-eye. The truth was, Aldric was whipping this out to extend the fight and buy him a minute or two to come up with a halfway decent lie. As his mind worked in overdrive, Srebro cast Ecru a tentative glance, but Ecru nodded, a determined frown on her face as she adjusted her grip on Aldric's shield. Srebro charged forward, digging her blade into the ground and bellowing out, the meekness vanishing from her eyes and being replaced with a steely resolve. When she reached him, she swung it up in a wide, angular arc, but Aldric hopped up into the air, planting his feet on the flat of the blade and sticking there fast with his semblance, using her momentum to build his and the blade's surface as a springboard to launch himself at Ecru.

Ecru ducked behind his shield and it took his one handed thrust and the two-handed followup slice he hammered it with, each impact resounding with a loud clang, and sending the jolts of impact down his arms, as now, unlike his training with Weiss, his blade had a more physical, solid form to it, which meant the force the shield absorbed and reflected was being sent right back through his cane and into his arms, not an issue he had when he lit the blade up, nor one he had anticipated right now. Ecru rolled to the side and, on the up roll, had the Lovely Lady shouldered in its shotgun mode. Aldric could see a slug in the chamber, and grinned at the opportunity. Ecru pulled the trigger as Aldric forcibly grabbed the slug with his semblance, the result being it flying out of the gun far slower than muzzle velocity - giving him just the time he needed to slam his cane into the slug as it grew close, and deflect it, purposefully evoking the image of him swinging a baseball bat when he did so. Ecru didn't realize what happened until she tried two more times, and Aldric batted both shots away, though he was feeling the strain from having to move so fast and slow down _shotgun_ slugs with his mind.

Srebro used Ecru's distraction as a chance to charge Aldric from behind, but as her blade came dangerously close to his cybernetic arm, he whirled around, his coat spinning with him almost like a cape. His cane collided with the side of Srebro's, and the impact was enough to for him to have to thrust his other hand around, plant it on the flat of his cane, and use it and his semblance as a brace. Aldric skidded back several feet, and Ecru used this chance to hop to her feet, flip the Lovely Lady once in her hands to change it to a bat, and then come charging to Aldric's back. She bent down to one knee and swung the bat at the back of his knees, hoisting the shield up as she did so. The impact knocked Aldric's legs out from under him, and as Srebro's sword swung unimpeded through the air, it caught the top of his shield and bounced off of it, leaving Ecru unharmed - and in perfect position to swing the shield down on Aldric's face.

The edge of the shield hit his nose and he heard a horrendous 'crunch', and that stopped _all_ the fighting on a dime. Ecru gasped and stumbled back a step, dropping the Lovely lady and almost beaning herself in the face with Aldric's shield, as she brought up both hands to cover her mouth. Srebro nearly lost control of Skye when she saw the blood from Aldric's nose rush up to paint the surface of his shield, and Myrtle even dropped her disguise - and her crossbow - to dash over to Aldric.

 _"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!"_ Ecru cried out, as she tossed the shield from her arm and she and Srebro both lent Aldric a hand to get him back to his feet.

The improvised shinai dropped to the ground as Aldric accepted the helping hands. Having broken his nose and so many other bones so many times in the last six months, he recognized the feeling and the pain, and knew that Srebro had gone and practically turned it sideways, she'd hit it so hard. He was lucky she'd hit him with a cross and not a straight - that could have driven his nose into his brain and killed him.

 _Stupid, stupid._ He'd neglected his TK barriers, thinking - not incorrectly - that this was a friendly fight, and they weren't trying to kill him.

"Are you okay?" Myrtle asked, the usual harshness in her voice wiped away, replaced only with concern, as Srebro dropped her blade with a loud 'twang' and dashed over.

Aldric nodded, grunting in the affirmative as he collapsed the white cane and stowed it and the lightsaber in his coat, and grabbed his horrifically deformed nose. "This ain't gonna be pretty." He said with a nasally tone, before he wrenched his nose around with a sickening snap and a crunch. He felt air flow through his nostrils again.

Ecru, practically in tears, tried to haul Aldric to his feet, saying, "we need to get that set! We have to go to the nurse!"

While Aldric let her take him to his feet, he slid his arm out of her grasp, waving her concern away. "I'll be fine, I'll be fine." He said, blocking each nostril and blowing some air - and some blood - out of each, in turn, before wiping them both with the back of his coat. "Probably still be red in the morning, but it won't be broken." He'd never figured out how or why his bones never looked deformed six ways from Sunday, despite never being properly set; strictly speaking they should have healed as they were - oftentimes poking against his lungs or not in their natural position - but they never did, instead reaching their natural position and fixing themselves there.

"But -" Ecru whirled around, concern leaking through her wide brown eyes. "But your -"

"Lady -" Aldric sniffed, "see? I'll be fine." Though he didn't mention how that one act gave him a killer headache, "it's _not_ the worst to have happened to me." True to point: Seven months ago, he'd be in the hospital for this, but now it was more of an annoyance than anything else; the Lovely Lady's axe digging into his chest would only be slightly more worrying.

"Ash..." Srebro rested a hand on his shoulder, attracting his gaze. "She broke your nose."

He grinned, "really?" He blew some air out of his nose, and wiped some more blood from the split bridge. "Couldn't tell." He flicked his hand back and forth, and called his shield back to him, standing it on his edge and sitting down on it like an improvised stool. "Again - it's not the worst that's happened to me." He revolved his robotic hand around to demonstrate this. "Don't worry about it."

It was moments like this that reminded him, despite being in a combat academy, everything here was done with safety in mind - fights were called _before_ they could be turned into bloodsports; breaking a nose and losing blood was a daily occurrence to him, but was a _serious_ outlier to them. They still had four years to come to terms with the fact that they may draw blood, but where he was long since desensitized to it and at this point was ready for, and expecting to, draw it as soon as _tomorrow,_ the girls around him - and most everyone in this school - thought something that serious was years away at the least, with some like Ruby preferring to reserve bloodshed for the Grimm entirely, and never have to kill a human.

Despite his protests, Ecru wasn't convinced she was off the hook, she dropped down to her knees and embraced Aldric, apologizing profusely and dropping every excuse in the book. She had misjudged her strength, she hadn't ever used his weapon before, she should have used hers, she shouldn't have gone for the face, she should have held back, and on and on it went. Aldric didn't have the heart to try anything drastic to get her to quiet down and listen, especially since seeing Ecru like this was a one-eighty from the fighter he was used to. But he didn't get the chance to let her peter out or pry her from her chest - because she was joined almost instantly by Myrtle and Srebro, making Aldric the bewildered recipient of a group hug.

He'd admit: He actually felt a bit of warmth in his chest, at this. It felt nice.

So he let it go on for a while, until they felt comfortable breaking it, and soon enough they were all sitting in a circle.

Aldric killed the partially guilty silence with, "so, aside from testing the durability of my skeleton..." He said, taking an offered rag and wiping the blood off of the shield, idly realizing that, aside from a few passes with a hose, he hadn't ever cleaned _any_ of his weapons; them being made and remade from hardlight tended to do the job for him, but now, at Beacon? With the Power Glove more or less a secret, and the shield a permanent presence? He guessed he'd have to start cleaning and polishing it for real, especially now that he knew it was the _real_ shield, and not just a facsimile. "What's the occasion?"

"Well... We noticed you sneak out each night." Ecru began, not making eye contact with him. "And we know that you can see better than you let on to everyone else..."

Myrtle picked up, "I took what you said about your radar thing to heart, and thought that you couldn't see what couldn't be felt. I always had a little intangibility, but it took me some time to work it on my whole body." Aldric felt the kind of satisfaction someone would have when they completely guessed an answer and got it dead-on. "So, I followed you one night and saw what you did next to that rock."

 _I sincerely hope she didn't follow me the night I made a lightsaber to break._ The test was a success, but Aldric still felt sore from it. "Alright."

"Why do you push yourself so hard, Ash?" Srebro pushed, leaning forward, her tightly bound hair falling over her shoulders like strings.

 _So it was one of the TK nights._ Aldric let out a long yawn. _Best way to lie, best way to lie..._ He'd just have to try and ignore the rot he'd feel settling in on his soul.

"World's about..." He frowned, "four thousand? Ish? Miles in radius?" He said, "anywhere from ten to sixteen _billion_ acres of habitable land all across it. Human kind has a grand total of... _Four,_ defensible establishments... Hardly even measuring out to half of what I just described." He explained, "we are the same people who crawled out of caves and, through ingenuity and tenacity, have gotten to the point where we can fly across the planet, and yet we don't even control a _quarter_ of its landmass. Our people, cower behind walls, scared of the day the monsters in the dark wise up and try to attack, either in general or, for the wiser folks out there, all at once, because despite thousands of years of advancement and fighting, we still can't beat them.

"Compare our..." He hummed, "what even is the world's population? Does anyone know?" He asked, "we're scared of the monsters at our door, and are _terrified_ of our neighbors, so much so that we won't share even the barest iota of information with eachother, lest the other guy figure out how to kill us with it." He said, "make no mistake about it. We live in a dark, nasty, cruel, and inhospitable world... And people _know."_ It made him feel lucky to not have drawn the cosmic short straw and to have had as much time on Earth as he did. "But you want to know what keeps them from losing hope?" He kicked the shield out from under him, caught it, and lowered himself to the ground.

"It's huntsmen and huntresses, yes... But I'd put more faith in this." He said, bringing the shield around, the star on display, front and center. "Our weapons. You look at any Huntsman's ID, and you'll see their name, and their weapon, because they're our symbols. Symbols of what we fight for, of what we represent. What we are, what we do. We fight for hope, to keep that one, single ember burning to stave off the darkness, and oftentimes we'll do whatever we need to to make sure that ember stays aglow, even if it means spending our lives on it." He explained. "I believe in that... I believe that there is hope in a hopeless world, and I believe in fighting for something bigger than me, even at my own cost.

"Most of all, I believe in the idea that the _people_ who _can't_ fight, believe in _us_ who _can._ We give them hope, even if the enemy is literally at their door, a Huntsman's presence can... Inspire them." He said, "give them the strength to hold on a second longer." He leaned back, "that's what I want this to be." He said, knocking on the edge, a light ringing noise filling the air. "That kind of symbol. One of hope even in the hopeless times. _The_ ideal." He let out a long breath, "so... I push myself. I help as many as I can as much as I can.

"Even..." The image of his claws dragging across Amber's face, bursting open her eyes, entered his head. "If it means I have to be steady..." Then came Rayne, thrashing against an unseen killer in her bed. "And give up the things I love the most." Finally, Earth, its innumerable people gearing up for a false war against a friendly foe.

He let a beat pass, and then leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Like sleep." A grin ticked up one corner of his mouth, and then he leaned over towards Ecru, "and punching people back."

His attempt at breaking the tension and the atmosphere he himself had created worked, and smiles spread across faces and postures relaxed, and after a few chuckles passed by, Srebro spoke up. "I think... Ash... That is noble." She said, "but... You shouldn't harm yourself like you are, now. We're in school... We have _time."_ She stressed, "we're still kids... Kind of." She said, sincerity glowing in her eyes. "We can enjoy the time we have."

 _Were it so easy._ Aldric shrugged, "it's hard to break that kind of habit, Srebro." He said, "that idea is what got me this." He indicated his arm.

"I think that's her point." Myrtle picked up, "you go like you do... Forgetting to activate your aura is going to be the least of your mistakes."

 _Oh good, I don't have to explain that._ Aldric shrugged, "no harm done."

"And your arm?" Ecru stressed.

"I got a new one."

"Your eyes?" Srebro squeaked.

"Hasn't slowed me down."

 _"Death_ will." Myrtle finalized.

She had him there, but he still shook his head. "I've always operated on the belief that, with great power, must also come great responsibility. That means if you're blessed with power, you have a moral obligation to use it, as best you can, for the betterment of everyone, even - to repeat myself - if you have to be steady." He explained, "the stuff I can do, that we _all_ can do." He indicated all of them, "the opportunities we have... We can't let them go away. We have to do our absolute best. Because any less, and the lives that are lost are on our hands. They would have died because you, specifically, did not do everything you could."

"Don't you think that's needlessly shouldering a _massive_ burden?" Ecru asked, her eyes drying up.

Aldric held up his hand, "how many TK's do you know that can move _atoms?"_ He clenched his gut and sparked a white-hot fire in the air above his palm. "Or can _stop_ them from moving?" And it froze, the air around the ice instantly fogging up from the temperature difference. "How many people can get hit by a warhammer -" He indicated the amazonian woman next to him, "and not budge an inch? Can turn invisible to _all_ forms of detection? Have reaction times in the microseconds?" He turned to each of them in turn. "That's why the phrase is _must, also,_ come responsibility. It is a choice, and we already made ours by attending this academy. We already chose to shoulder great burdens simply by tying a symbol to our names. To our ideals." He stifled a yawn, "I stay up and sacrifice my body so others won't have to do the same." He said, "train now, so I don't regret it later." He lowered his head to his shield, letting it rest a moment, and wondering what was worse: That he was lying to them, or that he also _wasn't._

"You're literally fighting to not fall asleep right now." Myrtle deadpanned, with a breathy laugh. "Even you have a limit, Ash."

"Can't afford to know what it is." He drawled, lifting his head back up with a thin smile. "I appreciate it." He said, with a genuine nod. "Don't have many friends, these days." That was what a soul rotting sounded like, kids!

Srebro smiled, and reached over, bringing Aldric into a long one-armed hug. "You'll always have us, Ash." She whispered.

No.

 _That_ was what a soul rotting sounded like.

The warmth in his chest gradually faded away, replaced with an icy grip, and a feeling of dread, of the inevitable day these three would realize he had spent their entire working relationship lying to them. A few moments were spent like this, in what was, to them, a comfortable silence, and to him, was the drowning dread of inevitability.

Before, as was custom, Ecru broke it, her moxy regained. "So - how long have you been holding out on us!?" She said, clapping her hands. "Using your cane like that? And why do I get the feeling you made it in response to my Lovely Lady?!" A fierce grin stretched across her face.

Myrtle scoffed, "I don't know if you noticed Ecru, but he didn't use his cane on your Lady. He used it on Skye." She said, as Srebro let Aldric go and he straightened up.

"Nuh-uh!" Ecru shook her head, "he deflected her slugs with it!"

 _"After_ he parried her sword."

"But -"

"Hate to break up the party ladies... But I've never seen Goodwitch in her pajamas, and I've never seen her angry. She's both, right now, and she's on her way here." Aldric said, a light smile stretching across his face, as he let his radar fall closer to him.

Ecru and Srebro promptly began panicking.


	35. Who Watches The Watchmen?

Chapter 34

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _You know, one day this is all going to bite me in the ass.  
All the lying, the cheating, the stealing.  
_ _ _What would my Dad think of me? What would my Mom? Any of my friends from back home - any of my 'friends'_ now? _

_Seriously. All else being equal, if we win... I'll have either killed, imprisoned, lied, deceived, or cheated everyone that ever trusted me or called me friend.  
I won't be able to go back to Earth because I'll either be not welcome there due to my powers, or not capable of returning due to Salem being dead. _

_So what am I going to do when I win? If I win?_

 _Seriously. I think the only person alive who does not give a **shit** is Neo, and... Do I really have to explain that again?_

 _Fuck, man. I need a day, or an hour, or a **minute** of not thinking about this - and my team somehow figured that out, but I did the 'me' thing and lied by telling **a** truth. I fed them the whole 'symbolism, great power' shtick, and yes, it's not a lie but... Do I really embody that? I'm not a hero, and once my secret is inevitably outed, the image I'm crafting of Goud Etiolate will **die.** I'm not lucky enough to have these people say they believe in Goud's ideals and not Aldric's._

 _What is worse, here? Lying to them? Or feeding them a belief that I don't embody?_

 _It's moments like yesterday that really just make me pause and think about the why of things, and the what._

 _Fuck, man._ _  
_

 _All's quiet on the homefront, Atlas/Mistral are almost done with their sweep of Anima, looking for the nuke's ground zero, and I haven't gotten any news from anyone about any new terran attacks.  
And it's Watchmen meetup, today. _

_Fun._

* * *

Ever since the heart to heart with his team, he'd found it more and more difficult to pry himself away from them, which was nice, in theory, but in practice, there was a major issue. Namely, in him needing to make his getaway to meet with the Watchmen.

He ended up having to play a card he'd really hoped to never have to pull.

"Wait a second - you're going on a _date?!"_ Ecru barked, eyes wide and mouth agape and covered by her hands.

His 'preparing for everything' vow was already bearing a little fruit, as he nodded and hummed in the affirmative, and opened his scroll. He'd had Neo create a disguise for herself if he ever needed to use her as an excuse to slip away from the Beacon contacts that weren't 'in the know'. Neo being Neo, sent him a picture of some character she'd thought up, damn near giving Aldric a heart attack when he opened his scroll _in public_ and was greeted by a petite red head in pasties and a thong. Aldric pretty sure her hair being a very bloody shade of red wasn't on accident. The best he'd been able to do was to convince her to swap the clothes - or lack thereof, really - for anything else that wouldn't get him stared at.

His suspicion that Neo had been fucking with him was confirmed when she _immediately_ had a picture of the same disguise, but in jeans and a t-shirt, prepared for him.

"What's her name?!" Ecru gasped, as three quarters of GEMS crowded around his scroll and gawked at the picture.

When they had come up with the character, Aldric had shot down each and every single name but, "Name of, Yuno Magenta." And before Ecru could ask, he provided, "met her back home, she goes to Haven, has friends in high places, is burning her weekend here."

"I honestly thought you were lying when you said you weren't dating Yang." Ecru blinked, leaning back upwards, and running a dark hand over her shaved head. "I think I agree with her, though. You've got yourself surrounded by..." She counted off heads, "three women all the time, five or six _most_ of the time... And now a seventh just _waiting_ on you."

Myrtle picked up, as she slinked back to her bed, "I'm calling shenanigans on all that hero stuff you said the other day. You became a Huntsman so you could get women."

"Oh, I think I'm in a coma, this is all a dream. It's the only way I can explain all the shit going on in my life." Aldric snapped his scroll shut as Srebro slowly stood up straight. "So now you can understand I actually _am_ going to go relax on my day off."

"You come back with your clothes in a mess, I'm going to beat you, Etiolate." Myrtle said, waving him off.

"Oh, I'll do you one better." Said Ecru, as she slid on a hoodie and zipped it up. "I'm telling Yang." A beat, "like, right now!" And she ran for the door.

"Wait, wha -" The door opened and slammed before he could even react, and before Srebro made it to her bed. "Wonderful..." He breathed, "I'll be back later tonight, yeah?"

"Have fun." He heard Srebro murmur, as he slid on his own coat, and extended his white cane.

No sooner did he exit his dorm than did he hear, through the closed door and the thick walls, _"WAIT, WHAT?!"_ From a familiar, brash voice.

"That's my cue." And he promptly fled the building.

He couldn't avoid Yang, though - his scroll practically exploded with texts from her, all basically the same thing: Give me pictures. After the thirtieth one in half as many minutes, he killed the ringer and shut the scroll off. Exiting Beacon, Aldric took the express route to Vale. The meeting place had been selected by agreement of all parties, as unanimously the only place everyone in the Watchmen felt safe, and the one place both allies and enemies would never truly think to look for them.

The roof of Mogar's Grillin' Bar, in broad fucking daylight.

Neo let him in on the fact that Torchwick promptly bought 'a lifetime of favors' from the owner once they had agreed on the place, and that she had seen a few poorly disguised faunus casing the joint during her and Torchwick's time Al Caponing it. Aldric was willing to bet that Ozpin and Qrow had done similar things even though they'd all already been there once before. Aldric, meanwhile, merely had to show up to the highway above place and extend his radar pulse. No one following him, no one watching the place - no one that was a threat to him, anyways - and no one he felt he really had to worry about.

He still put on the Drake mask, though. Granted, he intended to take it off again - his reasoning being that everyone but Qrow knew what he looked like, so at this point, what _was_ the point? Maybe if he hadn't revealed it to Taurus by proxy, and if Torchwick hadn't figured it out because of his fuckup, but with those two things together, there wasn't much of a point keeping his identity a secret from the Watchmen.

Aldric hanged out on the highway for a few hours in the chilly morning air, and around noon, people started showing up. First it was Taurus and Chainsword, they waited in the alley. Then it was Torchwick and Neo, with them waiting in a remarkably subtle car parked on the street, considering who he was dealing with. After them, he saw Qrow sidle into the bar and start fueling up, and at half past twleve, Ozpin appeared on the roof, being the only one to go straight for the roof and not wait for it. His presence seemed to be sensed by Qrow, who finished his sixth shot and filled his flask to go, before heading around back, running into Taurus and Chainsword, and following the former up. Torchwick knew they were up there based on his looking at the roof more often, but waited a few minutes so as to be fashionably late.

Once everyone was assembled, Aldric slid off the edge of the overpass and floated down to the roof. He greeted everyone with a nod, and then led by example, prying the Power Glove off of his gauntlets, and alongside his pistol and his lightsaber, deposited them on an AC vent in the center of the roof. Qrow was actually the first to follow suit, not saying a word as he dropped his scythe on top of Aldric's pile of nanites. Ozpin collapsed his and placed it down just as Torchwick laid his cudgel, and Taurus finished everything off by dropping his sword and rifle.

Aldric spared only one glance at the pile of weapons, suppressing a grin, as he slithered a small, practically invisible colony of nanites into everything present, his own included. After a moment of silence, Aldric pried his coverings off of his head and laid them down, followed by Taurus' mask, Torchwick's hat and, after a few moments, Qrow's flask and Ozpin's scroll. Everyone promptly dropped their scrolls in the pile, though Aldric had the wherewithall to keep his physically separate from the others, just in case.

Aldric did note how Qrow gave him a brief, appraising look, before he returned his gaze to the others present.

Now all bare and equal save for the clothes on their backs and the minds in their skulls, Nebo Aldric, Roman Torchwick, Adam Taurus, Qrow Branwen, and Professor Ozpin all stood across from eachother. The Watchmen, in all its glory, power, and terror. On one side, the teachers inside the law, and on the other, the criminals above it, and in the middle, the alien who influenced all of it.

Aldric began, attracting all eyes present. "We here are five men who, alone, can influence many, but together, can influence the world... And we watch over not just one, but _two."_ He said, "but who watches the Watchmen?" He asked, "who checks and who balances our power?" He gave Torchwick and Taurus each a look in turn, "you two trusted me with a secret explicitly stated to be able to ruin you if it was merely suggested in a public sense. We are not in any position to have anyone watch us... _But_ us." He turned to Ozpin and Qrow. "So we begin with that. We bare our secrets, we watch eachother... And will work together. Pool our influence, to guide the fate of our world and another.

"I... Am Nebo Aldric." He said, lifting a gloved hand, and sparking the atoms. "I _come_ from this other world. The same place that bombed Atlas a month ago. The place that birthed the Wizard who created the four Maidens." The fire turned to ice, and then faded away. "I am outright betraying the people who rescued me because I don't believe in their cause, and I do so by making them think I support it." He lowered his hand, and stowed it back in his coat.

Silence.

Taurus, "the event that allowed me to galvanize my faction of the White Fang was the collapse of a Schnee Dust Company mine, and its subsequent explosion. I knew that the contractors hired to build the mine were lowest bidders and had cut corners, turning the entire place into a bomb waiting to go off, and I did nothing, because I _want_ a war with the humans." He said, after only a moment's hesitation. "But... I found myself humbled recently. Twice, and both times by a human. My views have not changed... But I know the true threat that we _all_ face, now. A threat that can control Grimm, slaughter the Maidens of myth, and steal their powers. I may be willing to let faunus die, but I don't want my _species_ to die."

"Oh, bravo." Torchwick clapped, "I double deal on pretty much everyone I work with - even that pretty little assassin down in the alley." And he waved a hand at Aldric, "don't worry, she _surely_ knows." Aldric couldn't bring himself to care in the slightest, and his neutral expression reflected this. "And at the moment, I'm sweeping over all of Vale like a vacuum cleaner, stealing its Dust for purposes I _certainly_ don't know... With funds and bodies _certainly_ not procured by a certain CEO of a certain multinational Dust exporter." A beat, "whose name _certainly_ isn't Jacques Schnee." He added, with a grin. "See, he doesn't quite know the long-term plans of our mutual enemy, and is under the impression he may make far more of a profit than he would lose from my thefts."

All eyes on the Huntsmen, now. Qrow sighed, and made the motion to grab his flask off his hip, before remembering he'd dropped it. "I was sent to Beacon by the bandit tribe that raised me. My sister and I had the most aura in the tribe, so they sent us off to learn how to kill Huntsman."

A beat.

 _"That_ would ruin you?" Torchwick arced an eyebrow.

"I'm a teacher." Qrow growled.

That got a sidewards nod from the gangster, "that would do it."

And to Ozpin, "the wizard who created the Maidens, and the man you see before you, are one in the same." A beat, "in a way. I was cursed a very long time ago, my soul never leaves this world, always attaching itself to a new, young host, when I fall... And indeed, I did originally share a home with our benefactor." He nodded at Aldric, "and I lied to the other headmasters, when telling them I would hide my relic in Beacon. I quite literally put it in a bag and dropped it in the ocean, with the understanding that the sheer size of our planet and random chance would hide and protect it just as good as a secure vault could."

 _Son of a bitch hid the dragonball in a Faraday cage. No radar's going to find that._ Aldric would give Ozpin some points for that, that took balls.

"Would you care to elaborate, my dear Headmaster? 'Relic'?" Torchwick requested.

"The same Deity Brothers that created our people and the Grimm, and cursed me, so too created four relics of great power. Three rest in each of the Huntsman academies, and one at the bottom of the ocean." Ozpin explained, with a carefree smile.

Aldric stepped in, "we all have secrets, we all have strengths, and we all have weaknesses. As of this moment, all five of us, are _all_ of those things to _eachother._ " He explained, "because with what we do..." He shook his head, "we cannot afford to lose ourselves to our own power. Two planets, and _all_ of our species, rely on us being able to work together amicably, if they want to survive to the next generation." He nodded to Taurus, "faunus." To Torchwick, Qrow, and even Ozpin, "human." And then indicated himself, "terran.

"The woman we fight against... The White Witch, she seeks to destroy all of us. The why of it is unknown and, frankly, irrelevant to seek out. The _how_ of it... Is what we know and must focus on." He explained, "she intends both to seek out and claim the abilities of each of the four Maidens, and use them to locate and retrieve the four relics. While she does this, she intends to pit my planet against yours, in a war of such size and devastation that all war before it pale in comparison.

"Gentlemen, if we do nothing to stop it, to stop her... Everything we hold dear. Our power, our people, our homes, and our lives, it could all be gone by this time next decade." He said, "so I ask you... What do we intend to do about it?" A beat, as he gave everyone a firm look. "And what will we _give_ to do it?"

Torchwick, as usual, was the first to speak. "Well, fortunately for our 'Watchmen', I am a simple creature. I require merely three things: Power, influence, and favors. Any one can buy the other, so I do hope you will acquiesce." He said, with a low nod and a sweep of the arms.

Taurus went next, "when this is done, everyone here is still human." He said, though not as scathingly as Aldric would have expected. "I want the weight of your names, and all of our deeds, and all of our influence, behind my bid to lead my people when it is done."

He noticed Qrow set his jaw, but Ozpin spoke before he could do anything. "All I desire is everyone present's word, that no matter their goals for after the threat of the White Witch is ended, they shall not, intentionally or otherwise, seek to resume her work."

 _Interesting choice of words..._ Aldric thought, as Qrow picked up.

"Shit." He said, shaking his head. "There are only two things I care about. I know nothing I demand can guarantee their safety, but I just want it agreed that direct, concerted, offensive, and unprovoked action against them remain outlawed, else all bets are off."

 _Again, interesting choice of words._ Here Qrow was basically saying he knew damn well and good no one here could, or would, agree to doing nothing to Yang and Ruby directly, but that he at least wanted it agreed that unless it was reactionary and defensive, no one here would _specifically_ aim to kill them.

He was pretty damn sure Qrow was actually referring to him more than everyone, considering present circumstances.

Nevertheless, it was his turn. "I want it understood the nature of my work." He said, "of what I do. That to protect my role, and to benefit our shared goal, I may find myself forced to do things. Be they good or bad, that may have impact upon the goals or desires of others here." He explained, "I want it understood that while I may have to do things, I do not do them out of malice or ill intent, and I will, if ever possible, attempt to mitigate the damage of my actions as great as possible." A beat, and then he let out a long, hollow sigh. "And if we win, I don't want to _have_ to work another day in my life." He made sure to emphasize 'have', because he knew damn well and good that he'd go stir crazy and mad with boredom after a year of postwar retirement, and he'd need something to do.

Though, he said that, and he knew damn well and good that he probably wouldn't be able to sit idly by while Taurus tore apart innocent human lives with his war lust. At least he was already prepared for his reputation to be ruined, he had _that_ going for him.

"Would it..." Slowly began Ozpin, attracting all eyes. "Be reasonable to assume that the resources of everyone here, are open, to those who do not possess those resources?"

As the 'benefactor', all eyes turned to him, now _this_ would be fun. He was in a political game now - if he showed favoritism to any one side, he'd alienate the other, but if he didn't provide enough help when asked, he'd risk alliances.

"Within reason, I would say." He responded, "I can't go up and, say, murder the Council of Three, get caught, and then expect you four to risk your lives and the mission to get me out."

"Oh, please tell me that's a hint." Torchwick smiled wide, "that would make for _great_ television."

"Keep in mind who we are and where we do our work, Headmaster." Taurus replied, "I cannot be seen openly helping a human without risking my entire standing with the Fang."

"And I can't just murder a rival gang boss because I'd be good at it." Qrow added.

"Oh please, dear Qrow. What makes you think I have any rivals left _alive_ that haven't sought refuge and withered away in the Garden?" Torchwick waved the huntsman away. "But I feel that this is something that can be agreed to. Should we, for instance, suddenly have _need_ of a terrorist attack... Or _require_ over and under world services, you understand." He explained, for everyone present.

"Then it's agreed."

"What about the wild cards?" Torchwick asked. "Say, someone inside of our respective spheres of influence should decide to work against one of us." He eyed Qrow a moment longer than anyone else, before continuing. "How would the _other_ Watchmen be expected to respond to such a thing?"

"I believe the way Qrow put it earlier may best answer the question. So long as we do not blatantly pursue offensive actions against the interests of our allies..." A pause, "I would say at least do _try_ not to cause permanent damage." The message was clear: Don't _kill_ Ruby Rose.

"Hm..." Torchwick shrugged, "I suppose that is the best we can ask for."

"I would add." Taurus said, gaining the attention. "That if they retreated to their respective leader's borders... A third party be used as neutral grounds to solve the issue."

Aldric was honestly just surprised he hadn't angled for some kind of non-extradition stance; maybe he really had been humbled? Aldric wondered if this hadn't had something to do with the word 'Albain' as much as it did the Legion handing Taurus his ass the last time they all met.

 _Or... It could have something to do with Blake._ Aldric bit back a curse, that would be a sticky situation he'd immediately get caught in the middle of. _It may behoove me to make friends with her, so I can claim bias... Then Qrow or Torchwick will have to deal with it._ "I can agree to that." And with Qrow, Torchwick, and Ozpin's support, the 'ayes' had it.

Aldric decided to throw in his two cents, "the Maidens." Holy _shit_ he felt the temperature drop on Ozpin's side, despite the lack of a change in his expression. "The fact of the matter is that they will, in some way, shape, or form, be involved in this war, and through my boss and our _other_ mutual enemy, already have."

"What do you suggest, kid?" Qrow rasped, sneaking another glance at his flask.

"Complete transparency." He said, "if one of us finds a Maiden, we _do not_ hide her from the others, and instead _openly_ identify her." Ozpin cooled off a bit at this, but Aldric could tell he wasn't fully happy. "You talked about wild cards..." He nodded to Torchwick, "well there is not one more wild, and that applies to us as well. If we tear eachother apart over a hidden Maiden, everything we work for will be lost."

"I can agree." Said Taurus, "but what do we do with the Maiden if we find her?"

Ozpin put the foot down with, "absolutely nothing." He even gave _Qrow_ a fierce look with this. "They are their own people. We identify and, if need be, protect. But we _do not_ influence. Entire volumes of text exist to prove how wrong such a thing could go."

Torchwick nodded, "I'd say aye to that. I don't need or even really want the trouble. I've already one angry vixen in my life, don't need another."

Qrow shrugged, "hey, I work for you." He said.

"The ayes have it." Aldric finished.

"Now how about Earth?" Qrow asked, "what do we do about the terrans?"

"I have a theory about them that I can't substantiate." Aldric responded, "over there we are literally dealing with an alien planet and an alien people, that we have little to no intel on. Until we even know _a_ fact, let alone enough of them to operate, any wars or battles we wage should be defensive ones. Take prisoners. Accept surrenders."

Torchwick actually was the one to say, "uh - Mister Taurus. Looking at our mutual friend here, I can't help but notice a _lot_ of similarities between him and myself." A beat, "when this is over, is _he_ human?" And, the question was implied, would Taurus pursue his oh-so-wanted war against the terrans, as well?

Taurus and Aldric eyed eachother down at this, as the former mulled over his thoughts.

"He specifically is human." Taurus finally said. "But I don't care about the terrans so long as they don't care about us."

"Oh what a piece of work is man, Taurus." Aldric reminded him, "they think we've declared war on them." Aldric said, "if they kill faunus under this false understanding, would they remain not human?"

Taurus removed his gaze from Aldric, and stared at the pile of weapons for a long time. "I guess we all have to make tough decisions, don't we?" He breathed, before shaking his head. "Until we can open a dialogue with them... They will remain not human." He said, "but I warn all of you... And through _you -"_ He nodded to Aldric, "them. That even if I gain power if and when we win... I can't control popular opinion. I can try, but if the terrans do something bad..." He shook his head.

"I can accept that." Aldric nodded, "may not be happy about it, but I can accept it."

"And now for the big question." Taurus said, after a deep breath. "What happens when we find the White Witch?"

"Something I've learned very well the last few months is that it's an exercise in futility to make concrete plans when she's involved." Aldric responded, "last time I tried, an alien race came through and destroyed five Atlesian airships with a little over three times that many _fighter_ ships." He explained, "as such, we cannot make any ironclad plans until such a time as we can locate the White Witch on a map." He rested his hands behind his back, and saw Qrow tense, as he knew what was about to come. "Which means Beacon needs to go off without a hitch."

"Yes -" Qrow growled, "let's hear _your_ reasoning for this." Clearly, no matter how much convincing Ozpin had done, Qrow was still pissed.

What surprised Aldric, however, was that he didn't have to. Taurus spoke up in his defense, "first rule in war is to know what battles to fight and which ones to let go." He said, glaring at Qrow. "This more than _anything_ before it, the Maiden included, will likely be their single greatest test of loyalty for him. They've spent..." He gave Aldric a look.

"Six."

"Six months grooming him. But are now giving him freedom, and more than that, are letting him run free, and outside of their influence, for a _year."_ He stressed, "this is a test of loyalty. If he chooses them over the alliances and friendships he builds in Beacon, there will never again be a question of their trust in him, or his in them."

"And you would know?" Qrow rasped.

"Yes."

"The point is..." Aldric said, before things could escalate. "I won't ever be brought to the White Witch if they don't trust me. I can't figure out how or why they're launching invasions on Earth unless they think I'm loyal. I can't do anything to _stop_ any of that without locating her, and rallying all of our collective armies and resources against her." He explained, "so bar none, their planned attack on Beacon _must_ happen, and _must_ succeed, if we want the best possible shot at tearing her down." He gave Qrow a firm look, "that puts lives at risk, but this is war. Lives are at risk anyways. The best we can do is try to mitigate the damage as best we can."

Qrow clenched a tan fist, and let out a long breath, before he took a step back and nodded. "Just remember what I said, kid."

Aldric grunted, and turned to Torchwick. "Now. I've been led to believe you've had this place bought and paid for, before we came here." Torchwick had the grace to look a little guilty as he grinned, "that's good. Give us the owner's contact information, tell him we're your associates." He explained, "we can't be seen with eachother's information in their scrolls... But the owner of a bar and grill will create fewer questions. If we need to set up another meeting, we send it to him, and he sends it to us." He said, casting a glance around. "Yes?" Everyone assented, "good. Does anyone have anything else?"

Torchwick raised a hand.

"Of course you do."

Torchwick grinned, as though he hadn't heard it. "A gift." He said, "a show of good faith." And he produced a glasses case from his pocket, tossing it to Aldric.

Aldric saw two clearly cybernetic eyes and ocular nerves inside the case, and it prompted him to look up at Torchwick, arcing an eyebrow. "Don't you need some _major_ surgery in order to gt these installed?" He asked, cracking the case open with a pulse of his semblance, and picking up one of the eyes.

Torchwick scoffed, "hardly." He said, as Aldric saw the ocular nerve collapse into the mechanical eyeball itself. "Just put it in and it will do the rest. The Garden has _very_ thorough connections, dear 'benefactor'." He turned to Ozpin, "indeed, I've a little something for everyone here, today. As a show of good faith."

"Oh?" Ozpin tilted his head, an amused grin playing his features, as Aldric debated the merits of trusting Torchwick in this instance.

"Indeed. Do you remember a certain starry night, about three years ago? Had quite a few books stolen from your personal library, if I recall."

Ozpin blinked, "you had something to do with that?"

Torchwick shook his head, "hardly. Rather I took over for the man who did so - he happens to be one of the men I mentioned wasting away in the Garden." He said, "but I would reccomend checking the... Oh..." He leaned his head back and closed his eyes dramatically, "seventeenth? I think - yes, seventeenth window from the left of the entrance. You'll find one of the floor tiles there to be far less secure than it looks, and the efforts of one rather determined group of criminals underneath it."

Ozpin hummed, as Aldric slid his glasses off and, as though he were inserting a contact lens, pried open his right eye with two fingers, and promptly slipped the metal orb inside. What followed was the single strangest and most foreign sensation he had ever felt in his life, as he felt something strange slither and snake through the empty space between the cybernetic eye and what remained of his organic ocular nerves. Aldric was morbidly fascinated by the fact that he was actually able to _watch_ what was happening inside his head, thanks to his radar. The fake nerve he had seen in the case was growing back out and searching for what remained of what he'd been born with, and, once it was found, a moment later there was a harsh, stabbing pain, as the mechanical eye extended a needle and jabbed it into Aldric's nerve. It then appeared to 'grow' around it, enveloping the nerve until it almost appeared as though a spiderweb had been spun up around it.

"And for you, dear sir." Torchwick said, turning to Qrow.

"Oh this'll be good." Qrow crossed his arms as Aldric felt another series of sharp stabs in his right eye.

"Oh, I certainly hope it would." Said Torchwick, "because our mutual enemy has been using my contacts in Mistral. She seems rather keen on discovering the location of your former tribe... It may not be the worst idea to find out why."

"I'd second that." Taurus piped in, as a wash of color flooded Aldric's brain. "He's been told to search the city, but I've been told to have scouts search the country. She wants something from that tribe, but what she hasn't said."

"Consider..." Aldric added his two cents, as the color faded away and the eye began to activate. "What two things she's been doing ever since we've all known her." He straightened up, cradling the second eye in his metal palm. "And since Beacon isn't in Anima..."

"You think my sister has a Maiden." Qrow deadpanned, looking between the three.

"I'm an alien, we're all demon hunters, and more aliens shot down five Atlesian airships. It's not the strangest thing you've heard. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if she _was_ a Maiden" And as he finished speaking, the eye finished booting up.

And promptly popped out of his skull.

Aldric caught it deftly, but turned to frown at Torchwick.

"What - you think you'd be able to perform software updates or mechanical fixes with it _still inside your head?"_ Torchwick chuckled, "my dear boy, they're designed to be inserted _and_ removed. It's far cheaper to give it to a mechanic than it is to have a surgeon remove it whenever you get hit on the head too hard."

 _Makes sense, actually._ Aldric again slid the false eye into his head, and when it clicked into the bowl-like plate connected to his nerve, it sealed itself to it just like his arm would against his shoulder, and a moment later, he found himself seeing not only through his radar, but through his _eye_ as well. _Oh depth perception..._ Thought Aldric, as he rubbed his eye - his actual eye and not just an empty pit! _How I've missed you._

He brandished the second eye, "thanks." Before he slid it into the remaining pit, and the strange process from before repeated itself.

"I'd recommend playing with it with your scroll. You'll find that it has far more useful features than _just_ vision." Torchwick gave him a bow.

"Nothing for him?" Qrow nodded to Taurus.

"Oh, I already _gave_ him his gift. Helped him fix a few problems with his little army" Torchwick smiled.

As Aldric's second eye booted up, he knew what Torchwick's real game was: Curry favor and good will from his new allies. It was the same game he'd been playing from the start, and joining this 'higher cause' of his wouldn't change the kind of man he was, merely give him opportunities to remain that man. But damn if he wasn't _good_ at that game, Aldric would give him credit for that - the last he'd heard about his eyes, he wouldn't be seeing them until around the time people started streaming in for the Vytal festival. Somehow Torchwick had either moved him up on the list, or had thrown enough coin and favors around to get the work done faster.

 _Perhaps a bit of both..._ Aldric thought, as, with two eyes now again in his head and working, he looked up and saw the sky for the first time.

And something else, off in the distance, but drawing closer.

Aldric frowned, as conversations continued between Watchmen, and focused on it. Was it a bird? He didn't discount the possibility - what he'd read about the eyes made him understand that they were as good, if not better, than an eagle's eyes, so he'd be able to see something so small, so far. But as it grew closer, he found that it couldn't be a bird, it was too large, and angular, too many straight lines and not enough -

Oh _fuck._

"Your have terribly fantastic timing, Torchwick." Aldric grunted, raising a hand and calling his weapons and effects to him.

This action put everyone on guard, but their eyes followed his gaze, where the one 'bird' was soon joined by a second, and those two by two more, and more, and more, all flying in a perfect formation.

"It can't be..." Ozpin breathed.

"It is." Aldric pointed at Taurus, "Taurus. Are you about to tell me you have _no one_ of yours in this city?" He demanded.

Taurus blinked, but his confused expression was wiped away as he realized what Aldric was implying. "I can't be seen here." He warned.

"You don't have to be. Just wait until ten minutes after the bullets start flying, to give the air that you're merely being given information. Then order yours to help wherever they're needed. Evacuation, defense, attack, whathaveyou. You will garner a _lot_ of support, potentially recruits and power, and Lady In Red can't get pissed, because either she doesn't know, or she hasn't let _us_ know. _Go."_

Taurus nodded once, snatching his mask and his weapon from the AC unit and leaping off of the roof, grabbing Chainsword and sprinting away, as the planes grew ever closer.

Aldric turned to Torchwick, "favors." Torchwick turned down to him. "you can gain a _lot_ if you play your cards right, today."

Torchwick grinned, and grabbed his own equipment. "I may not be able to help in the defense, but the aftermath..." He nodded, twirling his hat in one hand, and then planting it on his head. "I like the way you think, Mister Aldric." He spun on one foot and, just as Neo down below leapt up, having sensed the change in the air, he began his own flight from the area about to get _bombed._

Aldric turned to Ozpin and Qrow, but didn't even have to say anything to them. "If they know anything, they will go for the tower." Ozpin said, firmly, grabbing his cane and his scroll, and opening the former.

"Their jets will." Aldric corrected, "but they'll only be the beginning. That's _way_ more than sixteen, and it's been a _month_ since we've heard from them. So we have to assume they're operating from somewhere. That this isn't an attack, this is an _invasion."_

"I don't..." Ozpin frowned, as several Vale fighter ships launched from the ground and began rushing up to meet the terran jets. "Disagree." The airships hardly made it a kilometer into the sky before they were destroyed by a hail of missiles, and then the terran jets began breaking formation - no doubt half of them surging down to Vale proper, to take out targets of importance, while the rest surged towards Beacon.

Ozpin hit a button on his scroll, and then air raid sirens began sounding throughout all of Vale.

Aldric, meanwhile, pulled out his own scroll, and opened it up, but not to call his team or to summon his locker.

No, he dialed Cinder.

It wasn't any surprise that she picked up quickly, _"what is it?"_

"Are you outside?"

 _"No."_

"Get out of the ship, and look up. Tell me I'm dreaming." He said, nodding to Qrow and Ozpin, and then leaping into the sky, hurtling towards Beacon.

 _"Why would I do that, Aldric?"_

"Are you in the ship?"

 _"Yes."_

"Then get out before the entire United States Airforce _BLOWS IT UP, LADY!"_

 _"Excuse me?!"_ Bingo: Salem had to be compartmentalizing all of this. Cinder never sounded pissed quite like that, except when something wasn't going according to plan. _"Isn't that your..."_ She said over the sound of footsteps, before trailing off when she no doubt got to a mirror and looked up. _"Home..."_

"ET _phoned_ home, hot stuff!" Aldric hollered over the rushing air, "you have any fucking idea what's going on?!"

 _"None at all, Aldric -"_ Her voice grew more distant as she raised it, _"Mercury! Mercury we need to get out!"_

 _"Huh?"_ He heard, even more distant than hers. _"Why?"_

"Lady, only people I know can cross universes are the ones I'm working for. How can you _not know_ how an entire fucking army of jets are flying through the air right now?!" Aldric righted himself and landed heavily at the airship landing pads at Beacon, before removing the phone from his face and opening the rocket-locker app.

 _No... Wait._ He turned around, frowning. _They see lockers launching, they'll - yup._ No sooner than had the idea occured to him than did some poor student launch their locker to them, and as it curved towards Vale, the jets saw it, locked onto it once it entered their range, and blew it out of the sky.

"They came loaded for bear, lady! They're shooting the students' lockers out of the sky!" He added, taking off again, flying low to the ground now as he hurtled towards the locker room, the jets now passing directly over the city and mere minutes away from Beacon.

 _"Aldric, I assure you I know nothing of this."_

"Is that permission to keep up my Ash disguise? Because I can't _ignore_ this call!" Aldric hollered, as he zoomed over confused students pouring out of their dorms and classrooms and squinting up at the sky, trying to figure out what was happening to warrant the air raid sirens; and as he did so, more students spending their weekend in Vale summoned more lockers, but they too were blown out of the sky, soon joined by explosions on the ground, as jets passed over the city and took out Vale military installations, probably police stations too, if Aldric had to guess. Whatever would hinder the ground forces that _had_ to be coming.

And then Cinder said, _"do what you have to. Whatever is happening, this is a good opportunity for Goud."_ She said, over the sound of an explosion on her end. _"But Mercury and I cannot be seen in Vale yet. Not until students come in for the festival. We will be retreating to the Garden."_

"Good luck, Hot Stuff." And Aldric killed the scroll and landed with a crash in front of the locker room, where more ill-fated lockers were launching.

 _"Students of Beacon Academy."_ Aldric heard Ozpin's voice over the loudspeakers, as he rushed inside, sliding his coat from his arms and abandoning it on the ground. _"This is not a drill. Vale is under attack from an unknown enemy. They have aerial superiority and are firing on any and all airborne objects. Do **not** summon your lockers to your location, as they will be shot down and your weapons destroyed. Retrieve your weapons personally. _

_"Do not report to the landing platforms, the enemy is focusing their attack on targets of opportunity, specifically those that would allow direct air to air_ combat." He continued, as Aldric found his locker and practically _tore_ the door off of it, to reveal the red white and blue disc inside. _"Anyone with anti-aircraft capabilities report to the main hall. Anyone with flight capabilities, report to the main hall. Anyone lacking in those two qualities, report to the cafeteria where our staff will provide you with your orders._ " Aldric noticed that Ecru's Lovely Lady had been deployed, as he slid the shield onto his arm, and then broke the White Cane off of his lightsaber. _"This is not a drill. This is not a drill."_

Aldric sprinted back outside, wondering what would behoove him more: To follow Ozpin's instructions and report to the main hall, or to lead the attack. But when he got outside, and saw the horde of students sprinting towards him, recognizing some of them, one look up told him what his immediate action had to be, and made him realize that this attack was far less off the cuff than he initially thought, it had been planned, and thoroughly at that. Moreover, Aldric realized that this wasn't just an attack and it wasn't just an invasion: It had to be a blitzkrieg. The terran military intended to overwhelm Vale's capacity to resist against them in its entirety and then dominate them before they could get on a proper defensive footing, because they knew even _one_ properly armed huntsman could play hell with their plans.

And there was no better proof of this than half of the jets heading for Beacon broke off from their approach of the main tower.

Hurtling straight towards the locker rooms.

 _"SCATTER!"_ Aldric screamed to the approaching students, as more than a dozen jets launched more than a dozen missiles.

Some had the reflexes to duck and cover, most of them being the upper classmen, whereas the rest made the mistake of looking over their heads to see what it was Aldric was screaming about, or continued running forward. As showers of missiles came screaming through the air, right towards all of them, ready to turn them all into a cloud of red paste and a crater of scattered limbs.

 _Oh this is going to hurt!_ Aldric clenched his jaw, grasped of both of the shield straps and thrust it forward, reaching out with his semblance until he felt the missiles entering his awareness, one by one.

He grunted with exertion and pain as he clenched his gut tightly, and grabbed ahold of every one of the missiles, mid-flight. But where he wanted them to stop fast, they were only slowed - and were still making their way down, their speed noticeably lessened but their progress still clear and still visible.

And as some of the jets pulled up and passed them by, clearing the way for others to launch their payloads, meaning only more missiles were coming.

He couldn't stop them.


	36. No Huntsmen or Huntresses-Only Man

_AN  
_

 _And here you people thought I was **kidding.**_

 _Enjoy your fucking land invasion! Courtesy of the planet Earth!_

* * *

Chapter 35

* * *

A dozen missiles just to start, only ever more were being added to the pile, and the best he was capable of was slowing them down - and not nearly enough to buy all of the students time to run. People would die, and the force struggling against him was enough to slowly push _him_ back towards the locker room. All of his muscles clenched, his legs were braced behind him, but with every jet that passed only more were revealed on the approach, or others arcing back around, and only added more missiles for him to struggle against. He was losing this battle.

Until the force lightened, and the weight he struggled against was lifted - not removed, but lifted as though someone were helping him.

Aldric's eyes snapped open and he saw Pyrrha standing next to him, in a similar stance, arms held out and body alight with the black glow of her semblance, as she grabbed ahold of the missiles streaming towards them, and with her help, they didn't stop, but they were slowed to a crawl, and fewer came to join them - the pilots soaring by overhead no-doubt realizing the futility of throwing metal at Magneto and regrouping for a different strategy. Aldric feared this strategy would involve a hail of bullets to join the bombs, but another student rushed by him and into the locker room.

 _"Buy me one minute!"_ He heard her shout, as others followed her lead and sprinted inside, be it to help her or to take the chance offered to them by Aldric and Pyrrha to grab their weapons and escape.

That one, single minute, felt like an eternity, and Aldric and Pyrrha were both pushed into the wall of the locker room - the latter bracing his foot against the wall as he pushed harder, his voice and his body both shaking with the effort, and both he and Pyrrha slowly being covered in sweat as they struggled against the missiles.

Aldric looked up and over the rim of his shield, seeing the missiles suspended in mid-air, all spread about and angled right at him and the other students, their engines blasting fire as they struggled to crawl closer and closer to the ground, their determination the result of the cold, ceaseless efforts of their design. But beyond them, he saw as other jets were buzzing Beacon Tower with their guns, and blasting at Ozpin's office with their missiles, and he could just barely see other students fleeing the tower, in varying states of physical health.

Teeth clenched, Aldric vowed to have _words_ with Cinder, if he made it out of this.

And as he and Pyrrha were pushed tighter against the wall, and more students streamed in and out of the locker room, the one who had spoken before strolled out of the locker room, the students parting around her like the red sea, as she hefted an enormous, silver and gold, multibarreled minigun to bear. She glared up at the sky and the barrels started rotating with blinding speed, before a storm of bullets began blasting out of each barrel, hundreds each second. She angled the barrels upwards and drew her metaphorical line in the sand with a literal line through the sky, the rounds from her minigun tearing through the air and slamming into the missiles, each one causing a detonation and each detonation lessening the force Aldric and Pyrrha were struggling against. After they all were gone, both of them dropped to the ground, as the student's minigun's rotations slowed down, the barrels glowing white hot and the air radiating around them.

"That's a one off!" Aldric grunted, over the sounds of cheering. "I can't do that -" But he was interrupted by the cheers being drowned out by a rising chorus of yells and screams.

When Aldric looked up, he saw why: A jet had seen all the missiles get destroyed, and decided to try its luck with its guns. The ground and the walls around them was chewed apart, but the closer the jet grew, the more accurate the gunfire became. With a pained grunt, Aldric lunged over to Pyrrha, grabbing her by her vest, and then whirled around, throwing her into the locker room and using his semblance to slide his shield onto his back, and just he braced his hands on the frame of the door, the gunfire became pinpoint accurate, it hit not the student, or Pyrrha, or the people inside the doorway, but Aldric.

Specifically, the shield on Aldric's back, the air briefly filled with the banging sounds of the rounds slamming into it.

Despite everything, Aldric couldn't help a grin stretching across his face, in stark contrast to the looks of horror and concern on the faces of the students in front of him. Not a smile of excitement or energy, but of the fact that the bullets hitting the shield and it rattling against his back actually felt a little ticklish. The smile was wiped away when the bullets stopped and the jet banked upwards and passed on overhead, and, panting, Aldric looked at the assembled students.

"Is everyone armed?!" He called out, to a wave of nods and a thunder of affirmatives. "Then what're you waiting for!?" He let go of the doorframe and waved everyone out, "come on!" And with that, a horde of Beacon's huntsmen and huntresses of all years, shapes, and sizes, burst out from the locker rooms, a small partition breaking off and rushing for the academy's main hall, while the rest ran for the cafeteria.

"Ash!" Aldric heard, after reaching the main hall and as the trickle of students began to slow. He whipped around and saw Pyrrha, decked out in her combat gear.

They each seemed to have the same thought, saying simultaneously, _"why are you in here?"_

"I can fly!" Was Aldric's answer.

"I can hit the ships with projectiles!" Pyrrha responded, nodding.

Aldric pointed at her, as Ozpin, a firm frown on his face, took the stage. "You need to stick with me, I have a _dumb_ damn idea!"

"I saw your team, they're in the cafeteria!" She nodded.

Aldric sighed, "phew, good." And with that, Ozpin's voice filled the main hall.

 _"As I said before, Vale is under attack."_ To accentuate this, the ground briefly quaked from the force of a distant explosion, _"their intent is to cripple our ability to fight back and to destroy the CCT Tower to remove our capacity to call for help."_ Aldric noticed how quick and harshly he was speaking, his voice deeper and words sharper. _"As of this moment we have confirmed that no troops have landed, and their air-to-ground strikes have been limited to military targets in the coastline and the industrial district. However this is likely not the case forever, because we have received reports from Patch that the airships are being launched from offshore sea-ships and boats, and that these ships are also launching other air and sea craft, all filled with soldiers equipped for ground assaults._

 _"We **cannot** let that_ _happen, we **will** not let Vale fall."_ Ozpin declared, firmly, to the brief cheers of the students in the hall. _"Right now our priority is towofold: Your fellow students in the cafeteria will assist in the evacuation of the civilians in the city below, and those of you here will attract the attention of the enemy air forces to buy the Vale military stations in the other districts the time and breathing room they sorely need to scramble their own defenses."_

Aldric felt light headed; this was growing larger by the second. The only way they could stage an assault - an _invasion! -_ of this magnitude was if they had the numbers and hardware to back it up; Aldric was willing to bet a lot of money that there were drones in the air too, but an even surer - and more terrifying - bet was that these 'ships' Patch was reporting sightings of were actual naval vessels. Aircraft carriers, guided missile destroyers, frigates, the entire fucking world's Navy showed up for this. But Aldric knew that the United Nations wouldn't risk their naval forces on a one-way trip, so there had to be a _stable_ wormhole somewhere out there, one that wasn't going to open and shut as the earlier ones had, and one that the UN had watched long enough to declare safe enough to travel both ways.

This month of silence hadn't been Salem being inactive - it was the entire planet Earth planning how to secure their beachhead on an alien planet.

 _"Now because they have specifically targeted areas with aircraft, we cannot stage this counter offensive from Beacon's landing pads. As a result, we must do from the academy itself. Find high ground wherever you can and use it to launch counter attacks at these airships. Take them down but do not risk your safety to do so, if you find yourself targeted by them, remember that they have the advantage in speed, height, and destructive power and they will not hesitate to use it_." There was a pause, before Ozpin's voice grew lighter, _"We can rebuild Beacon and we can retake Vale, but we cannot replace you.  
_

 _"If you have them, assemble your teams. If you do not, pair up, and_ **go.** " He said, over another distant explosion and quake of the ground.

Aldric turned to Pyrrha, "come on!"

She followed behind him, _"where are we going?"_ She shouted over the sounds of explosions, roaring jet engines, sonic booms, and bullets strafing across the ground, the both of them had their shields up.

 _"Back to the locker rooms!"_ Aldric shouted, _"we need a **lot** of metal!"_ He roared, as the teams from the cafeteria streamed out as well, rushing like a tidal wave towards the landing platforms, no doubt to take the 'express' route down to the city. _"Have you ever -"_ Aldric's next words were silenced when the two had to defend against another strafing run, their shields holding up but Pyrrha's quickly went from golden-orange to gunmetal gray, the bullets having flayed most of the paint from its surface. _"-heard of a railgun?!"_

Pyrrha shook her head, as they reached the locker room. Aldric leapt up to the roof and Pyrrha followed him, the two of them taking up position next to the slots in the roof, under which the undeployed rocket lockers sat.

"Alright!" Aldric called out, sliding his shield off of his arm, letting it hit the ground, and then holding both arms out, perpendicular to his chest, level with eachother, hands open. "Do this with your arms!" He then pointed away from her, "make it so all of that energy is pushing _away_ from you, and only use the slightest amount of energy at this moment!"

Pyrrha frowned, appearing lost, but she nodded nonetheless, doing as he instructed. When her arms were aglow with her magnetic energy, Aldric snatched his shield up and held it above her arms, "brace, this might hit you."

"What?!" And he dropped the shield.

Thank _god_ it shot away from her and not towards her; Aldric caught it with his semblance and snatched it back, nodding to himself. "Alright, here's the short version: What we're doing is using your semblance to skip _all_ of the steps of a railgun and go straight to obscene magnetic force! So I need you to put your _ALL_ into this!" He shouted, "everything you can summon up! All of your power, focused right here in your arms!" He tapped both arms, and stomped on the roof, wrenching two of the metal plates off of it that kept the locker sealed underneath it. "You have to do the aiming and the power supply! Find an airship and tell me when you've got it! If this works we can blast them right out of the sky!" Railguns were supposed to shoot projectiles fast enough that they could act as anti-missile weapons, provided a good enough computer to aim it; Aldric was hoping and praying Pyrrha could get them going fast enough that she could eyeball it and shoot down planes.

She seemed to understand his instructions and his explanation well enough, and nodded, frowning as she clenched her jaw and her muscles, the dark glow around her arms growing more powerful, enough so that Aldric felt what little metal he had on him being attracted to her. When she felt she was ready, she looked up into the sky, before shifting her arms up and acquiring her target, as Aldric pulled up the metal plates he'd torn from the roof and crushing them together, creating a vaguely bullet-shaped projectile.

"Ready!"

"Dropping!" And Aldric dropped the projectile between Pyrrha's arms.

It shot forward with a deafening thunderclap, and Pyrrha shot _back_ wards. Sir Isaac Newton, it seemed, would not be ignored: Every action had an equal and opposite reaction, and that meant that all the power that shot the projectile forward shot Pyrrha _back._ Aldric almost wasn't able to catch her before she flew off of the roof, but when he pulled her back to him, she, rubbing her chest, pointed up. "Look!"

Aldric looked in the direction she was pointing, and saw that his half-baked plan _worked:_ A jet had been hit by their improvised rail slug and was tumbling out of the sky, the pilot ejecting. Aldric gave Pyrrha a clap on the back, "damn good!" He said, sliding his shield onto his back, as he tore up more metal from the roof and began making more slugs, "new plan!" He planted his shield on Pyrrha's back and braced them both against her, "alright, get a target!" He called out, hoping his strength and the shield's nature would be enough to keep Newton's third law from biting them in the ass again.

"Got one!"

"Dropping!" And Aldric dropped the second projectile into Pyrrha's arms; it blasted away with another clap of thunder, making Aldric's ears ring and pushing Pyrrha into him.

Aldric looked over her shoulder just in time to see the slug clip a jet, not with the brilliant explosion of the first, but enough to make its pilot lose control and plummet towards the ground, and as Pyrrha acquired her next target, Aldric saw more anti-air students taking position around the school, finding rooftops, pillars, and large, open windows - some even in the heavily damaged Beacon Tower itself - and beginning to tear apart at the jets filling the air; he was pretty sure he saw Minigun Chick's bullets streaming about, taking care of missiles and planes alike. This continued in for several minutes, the airspace above Beacon becoming choked by smoke, fire, and falling debris. Aldric had no shortage of metal detritus to loot from, be it the metal plates on the roof, the lockers in the building below, or various bits of jet falling to the ground around him.

But as with all things, especially those in battle, it didn't last forever, as though the planes did retreat after a few dozen had been taken out, Aldric learned that it was because of two specific reasons: Beacon tower was heavily listing to one side, and there was something far worse brewing far above even the jets.

Something he wouldn't have been able to see without his new eyes.

A _lot_ of somethings, in fact.

Far smaller than a full-fledged fighter jet, too small to carry a person, but large enough to carry a suite of missiles.

The drones were here, and they'd already found two targets of great opportunity: Minigun chick, operating off of the dorm rooms' rooftop, and the two assholes who had improvised a deadly railgun in a world where they did not exist. Fortunately, one missile was far easier to deal with than _dozens,_ and because Aldric saw it arcing down from the clouds, he had just enough time to switch places with Pyrrha, twisting around and then using his semblance to thrust his shield forward. The missile slammed into it and left the two unharmed, but the same effect couldn't be said for the building: The explosion enough to buckle the roof beneath them and send them tumbling to the ground.

"Ah!" Aldric grunted, as he pushed some rubble off of his leg, feeling a bruise welling up. "Pyrrha! You okay?" He called out, using his radar to find and scramble over to her.

 _"Yes!"_ The rubble covering her was blasted away with her semblance, "I didn't see what hit us." She breathed, covered in a thin film of sweat from the focus and power she had to summon up for their little trick.

"It was too high up, almost in the clouds." Aldric gasped, brushing some rubble from her shoulder, and noting a bad gash on her right arm. "I think we might be in more trouble than that."

"Why?"

"Back west, while we were falling. The airships were pulling back, but I saw more approaching from the coast." The two limped outside, and looked up at Beacon Tower; the top missing. "And that means..." Aldric gasped, pulling out his scroll and seeing it without a signal; Vale was disconnected, the world didn't know what was happening. "Soldiers are coming." He flicked his hand at the tower, "cut off communications..." He looked out west, seeing the few Vale fighter-ships tangling with the terran jets, while off in the distance he could see Vale naval vessels hurtling towards the city to assist, but were also under heavy attack by jets, helicopters, and drones alike. "Cripple the enemy's ability to fight you back in the air." He indicated the largest pillars of smoke. "Then you bring in the soldiers." He looked over at Pyrrha; the way she was gasping for air and streaming sweat told him that, if they could again, they couldn't use their railgun trick for long.

"We have to help, them." Pyrrha nodded, firmly.

"No." Aldric shook his head, "well - yes, but we go down there, we get torn the hell apart. Whoever these people are, they own the air, and now we can't communicate with our own forces." He gave the tower another look; _maybe_ if they could push the terrans back, they could fix the CCT tower, but it would take time, weeks - months, even. "And look." He looked back down to the horizon, "a lot of the airships are fleeing, and even more are coming back."

Pyrrha frowned, "they're staging their attack somewhere. Those ships aren't new, they're just rearmed."

Sometimes throughout their interactions, Aldric forgot Pyrrha was supposed to be a prodigy. "Exactly." He nodded, "so long as they can keep doing that, we can't do a damn thing but hold them off." He popped his back. "Their airships can just keep coming, leaving, and coming back, and as long as they have air superiority, their ground forces will take losses, yes, but they won't lose."

"But how would we find the airships they're rearming at?" Pyrrha asked, "how would we get to them?"

Aldric turned back to the partially flattened locker room; Pyrrha could feasibly be able to follow him if she used one of the lockers as a means of propelling herself, but he could tell just by looking at her that she was exhausted. The kind of power she'd needed to bring up, and how long she'd had to do it, and how many times, it took its toll on her. It could very well be all she had just to get to the carriers, let alone help him attack them. He could haul her along with him, but that didn't eliminate her exhaustion, only meant she would be less so when they got there.

Aldric frowned, and began making a few assumptions.

One: That the US, or the UN, or whoever's navy had been donated for this assault, absolutely would not donate too many ships to it.

Two: That an aerial assault of this magnitude couldn't possibly be done by one carrier, but with One in mind, there had to be enough carriers to be able to lead the attack, whilst also having _more_ than enough at home - or defending the wormhole here - to defend against counter attacks.

Three: The Earth may be at war, yes, but it was shifting to a war footing from a little over seventy years of relative peacetime, so there wasn't a titanic number of aircraft carriers in the world, as opposed to other sorts of ships.

Based on these facts alone, Aldric would high-ball it and say Earth had twenty five aircraft carriers, with twenty being a more reasonable assumption.

That led him to four: That the number here had to be anywhere from three to five, plus their escort vessels. The likely number would be three - enough to stage this kind of aerial assault, but not even remotely enough to put the Earth's security in danger if they were lost or stranded here on Remnant.

And finally, five: That the loss of one of the vessels in this invasion fleet, especially a carrier, would be catastrophic, as it would severely lessen their ability to stage an assault on the city, by means of cutting down on the number of aircraft and drones they could launch, refuel, and rearm.

If Aldric could locate and somehow destroy _one,_ Vale would at least be able to push the terran soldiers back. _Two,_ and they would be in full retreat, likely by using missile strikes from the other ships as cover. If by some miracle he could wreck all three, they'd high-tail it back to wherever the wormhole was and flee back to Earth. He highly doubted he could do two or three without quick and sustained access to his magic, but if he could just find a way to destroy _one_ carrier's bridge, they'd lose their ability to communicate and coordinate with the other ships, and, while not scuttled or even truly incapable of operating, it would be damaged enough that it would negatively effect the terrans' ability to fight.

One major problem, though: Aldric only had a passing knowledge of the history of naval warfare, and that was only because his parents had been _in_ the Navy. So it was very possible - perhaps even likely - that he was wrong on each and every single count. So that meant he had to ask himself: What was more important, here and now? Crippling the enemy's ability to fight? Or saving lives here on the homefront? Or, more accurately, what _would_ save more lives? Abandoning the defensive line here to try and shred the enemy fleet? Or Sticking back to assist the citizens of Vale in evacuating to their fallout shelters?

 _Wait..._ Aldric blinked, as he realized: He _could_ destroy the enemy ships. Even without his powers.

Very easily.

Because he'd had a trick up his sleeve that he'd _never_ used, deeming its use too dangerous, too unstable, and limiting it only to a single emergency.

So he frowned, and reached out with his semblance, grabbing his shield and summoning it back to him. "This is what we're going to do." He said, as the shield slid into place. "You're going to link up with the ground forces. Find your team if you can, find my team or RWBY if you can't... Or just find _a_ team if you can't get any of those three, but find someone who can watch your back."

She slowly turned to him, very aware that he hadn't mentioned himself at all. "And you?"

"There's ship out there." Aldric said, clenching the shield strap tightly. "I'm going to sink it."

Pyrrha blinked, "Ash, that could kill you!" She gasped, "we could barely stop a few rockets, working together! You can't tear an airship out of the sky!" She shook her head, "take - take me with you!" She grabbed a shoulder, "I can help you!"

Aldric blinked, and gave her an incredulous look. "Lady, you're thinking too big." He spread out his arms, as the ground shook from a distant explosion. "Gotta think smaller." He brought his hands together, "I don't have to tear the ship out of the sky, I just have to break its engines, and... I'm pretty confident in my ability to do that." He displayed a palm, and the air around it froze. "Even the most durable metal gets brittle when you freeze it." He neglected to explain to her that freezing an entire aircraft carrier wasn't even remotely his idea.

She shook her head, "don't, Ash. Don't throw yourself into the meat grinder."

"And let potentially thousands of people die just because I'm not willing to risk my life?" Aldric asked, shaking his head. "That's not what I believe in." He slid her hand off of his shoulder, and placed his on hers. "I'm a huntsman. I'm here to save lives, at the cost of my own if need be. And besides..." He lowered his gaze, revealing his new eyes. "If the fire and the ice aren't any indication, I've got tricks up my sleeve."

But she didn't look convinced, and Aldric wasn't liking how much time this was taking.

So, he took a slightly drastic measure, "tell you what." He gave Pyrrha a pat on her shoulder, "when this is over, and the teachers are trying to figure out what the hell's going on, there are going to be a _lot_ of hungry Huntsman. So you and me..." He said, backing up. "We'll chow down and I'll tell you exactly how it was I broke apart an airship without dying." He grinned, "sound good?" And before she could answer, he launched into the sky.

With the air mostly clear around Beacon, Aldric was free to climb higher and higher without trouble, until he hit the cloud barrier and burst through, leaving a small but visible break in the overcast sky. With a firm frown and a clenched gut, Aldric then rocketed forward, unable to resist the urge and throwing a hand forward in a Superman pose, as he left a sonic boom and some thin contrails behind him. He passed over the city and heard the sounds of warfare, muffled by the distance and the clouds, and once they grew distant, he dipped down below the clouds, again soaking himself and chilling him to the bone, but his semblance was able to take care of that.

He cast a look over his shoulder; he saw landing craft at Vale's docks, and intense gunfights raging all across the city, even a few tanks making their way through the streets.

 _What happened?_ Aldric frowned. _I understand the 'we thought it was them' angle... But you can't honestly tell me that they thought it a good idea to act like this, with what they **have** to know - no, they **do** know. Evans recognized the footage on the tablet, and they knew where the locker rooms and everything were in Beacon, so they're operating on RWBY's intelligence, probably what they could coax or torture out of the Roosterteeth staff._ He turned back forward, using his radar pulse and his new eyes to scan the oceans; he saw a huge island in the distance, and figured that had to be Patch. _Evans said 'their war went bad'. What did that mean? Do they think we lost a kingdom or two to Grimm? But that doesn't make sense, **one** surveillance flight, or one pass-over from satellites, would tell them otherwise. So what changed?_

It did occur to him that this could, in a roundabout way, service as some sort of evidence for the thoughts he'd written down after his episode on Earth. Thinking like that, perhaps they were launching this war - in this way specifically - because they knew Ozpin to not nearly be the white knight he tried to show himself off as?

 _But killing him..._ Thought Aldric, as he passed over Patch, noticing that there weren't any battles raging down there; the Navy had bypassed that island _completely_ in favor of Vale. _That doesn't do anything... And I don't want to believe he's some kind of evil in disguise. No, there has to be something else going on..._ It wasn't _im_ possible that, much like how Salem was able to build and launch an attack on Earth and frame Atlas, that she had been able to do the same here. He could prove that if he ever - wait, no, that couldn't be it either, because there weren't machines piloting the jets, but squishy organic terrans.

 _So what am I missing?_ He absolutely refused to believe that they had been swindled into thinking Remnant had declared war on them, that was entirely too simple and entirely too easy to pick apart. Even _his_ people weren't that stupid.

Aldric shook these thoughts from his head when he noticed, in the distance, a pair of jets rapidly approaching him. Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, Aldric climbed again through the clouds, and they passed right by eachother. Aldric followed the direction they had been flying from, and was able to use their heading to trace down the ship they'd launched from.

Never had he thought seeing a United States warship would actually fill him with _dread,_ and not _hope._ But dread it was, as he knew everyone there was there to war, and right now they were attacking innocent people in Vale.

 _Okay..._ He thought, from behind a frown, as he scooped some of the Power Glove from his off hand, and clenched them in his fist. _Oh... Fuck I hope this works._

And he dropped through the crowds, falling through the air and hurtling towards the carrier like an arrow. There were dozens of helicopters and jets being filled with soldiers and refueled and reloaded, respectively. Aldric kept picking up speed and fell faster and faster, and some on the flight deck actually noticed him as he grew closer to the ground. The soldiers and marines loading up into the helicopter dismounted and brought their rifles to bear, letting off a few rounds before deciding it better to wait for him to either flatten himself, or land. Aldric did the latter, slowing down almost to a halt as he reached the carrier deck, shield in one hand, and the small ball of nanites in the other. It didn't even take a second for him to be surrounded by armed soldiers, all of whom were barking orders, one who seemed to recognize the shield on his arm.

Aldric decided he would at least _try,_ and turned to face one of them. "Parley?"

Safeties were removed and rounds were chambered.

"Can't say I didn't try." And with the nanites in his hand, Aldric made one, single, _damning_ mental command, and then let them flow from his hand like sand.

Aldric's plan hadn't been to destroy an airship's engines, or try to fight an aircraft carrier head on. As strong as he was, he needed _all_ of his power for a stunt like that, and he just didn't have that kind of power available to him, not in combat. But what he did have, was a clever, creative mind.

And nanites that were capable of self replication.

Each single nanomachine hit the flight deck and ate away a piece of it, to create a second one of its exact image and function. Those two would then eat one more each, to double their number. Those four would then make eight, would grow to sixteen, to thirty two, and the numbers would continuously double, with Aldric's only caveat to their replication being organic matter, and water.

No, he wouldn't fight the ship.

But he'd sure as hell _eat_ it.

The soldiers only realized that he'd done something crafty when they realized that the crater he was standing in wasn't one made on landing, but one that was _growing -_ its growth heralded by the outward spread of squirming, growing, multiplying machines. Before they could pull their triggers and fire on him, however, Aldric thrust a hand forward, grabbing each rifle with his semblance, and then wrenching his hand back, all of them flying to his grasp, as the ground was eaten out from under him. He remained standing in the air, as the soldiers started backing up, their gazes shifting from him, to the ground beneath him, as alarms began sounding on the ship.

Aldric frowned, dropping the rifles in the ever-expanding and ever-deepening pile of nanites. He then thrust both hands out and grabbed everything he could - Airplanes, wheel carts, missiles, ammunition boxes.

 _"_ _COME ON!_ _"_ And he threw both hands downward, yanking everything he'd grabbed ahold of and plunging them into the still growing pool of nanites, watching with satisfaction as they began to sink into them and get disassembled into more, and more, and more.

Then he thrust his hand again, and created a veritable tidal wave of his Power Glove, letting it wash over the flight deck and spreading the destruction. A few marines stormed into view and raised their rifles, but Aldric didn't even need his shield, merely clenching a fist and wrenching upwards, creating a wall of nanites for the bullets to pass through, and while they did part this wall like a stone parting a waterfall, the bullets failed to reach him before being disassembled and falling right back to the deck.

Aldric then heard a loud grinding sound, and with his radar, sensed an AA gun turning to face him. This one he afforded his shield, and had it up and ready just as the loud cannon started singing him its song, but it, as did all things, failed to overcome his shield, and the bullets merely bounced off of it in a shower of sparks and light, falling back down and only adding more fuel to the gray goop below. Aldric could actually see inside the ship, now - they were streaming into the halls like water, and eating everything they came into contact with. Some marines tried firing at it as it reached them, but found their efforts to be fruitless, only able to hasten what they thought to be their demise.

Aldric used his semblance to take control of the AA gun and forcibly turn it to the ship's bridge, the sheer number of bullets blasting out of its multiple barrels cutting straight through it, until whoever was manning it had the common sense to kill the trigger. Then Aldric used his semblance to splash some of his now exponentially expanding gray goop onto it, and it was eaten in seconds.

Aldric sensed a rocket launcher being aimed at him, and quickly ducked behind his shield as it shot across the flight deck. It didn't hurt him, but the impact against the shield sent him sailing over the rapidly deteriorating edge of the flight deck. He noted, however, that with the still increasing speed at with the Power Glove spread, Rocket Launcher didn't get a chance to grab another one - he was submerged by the gray goop and had his weapon, ammunition, and clothes eaten in seconds, the speed only growing the further he was submerged.

Aldric sensed a few jets returning from the mainland, and upon seeing him and the chaos he had wrought, they began arming what weapons they hadn't emptied upon Vale. Aldric wouldn't have it, and scooped up two beachball-sized spheres of Power Glove, and chucked them at the jets - instantly coating them and eating through them in seconds; the pilots screamed and flailed about as they fell _through_ the cloud and hurtled towards the water. Aldric used the new nanites made by this to increase the devastation on the carrier; by now, the soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen on the ship were all but ignoring him, unable - or unwilling - to fight, as they fled his gray goop, some even jumping off the edge of the ship while they still had ship to jump off of.

As the rate of expansion grew exponential, Aldric could literally _see_ the ship melting before his eyes, appearing like an avalanche of cold, molten metal, and squirming, spreading sand. The nanites stained the water below black, and the people they enveloped dived underneath the surface to be rid of them. Aldric took whatever wasn't eating the carrier and scooped it out of the water - making extra sure to take back whatever was caking the terrans, so they couldn't try to take it for themselves - and then threw it right back at whatever parts of the carrier remained.

All in all, it took ten minutes, and once it was done, Aldric had an aircraft carrier sized _ball_ of nanites, hovering over his head, his arm and his muscles straining with the strength he needed to keep it telekinetically held aloft like some kind of Dragonball Z attack.

 _So what do I -_ But his question was answered for him when he sensed two missiles come screeching through the air, one angled towards him and one for the dormant nanites.

Aldric dropped the nanites and ducked down behind his shield; the missile hit him and sent him careening into the sea, as the second missile hit the falling nanites, obliterating a sizable portion of them in the blast alone, and burning countless more with a combination of the heat generated and their small size being unable to cope with it. Aldric hit the water with his back, but as he recovered, he found himself immediately accosted by the sailors he landed near. Some grabbed at his shield and started wrenching it this way and that, others lunged on top of him and used their weight to counteract his buoyancy and shove him back under the water before he could catch his breath. He _did_ respect the attempt, especially as he felt some punching and kicking at him, but he was dealing with thousands of sailors, airmen, soldiers and marines, none of whom had anything beyond their bodies to fight him with - their weapons, the detritus from the ship, and even their clothes, having been consumed by his Power Glove.

So while he did find himself stunned and briefly drowning, all Aldric needed was a single, powerful telekinetic push, and the terrans and even the water around him were all blasted away, leaving a huge, crater-like depression in the water, that soon began collapsing back in on itself and filling back up. Aldric blasted back into the sky and followed the contrails left by the missiles, water streaming off of him.

 _Drones!_ He frowned, adjusting the grip on his shield, as he saw another flash of light, and with his enhanced eyes and his radar pulse, was able to see that the drone had launched another missile. _They'll pull back on the jets if they have to, but the drones are expendable!_ He shot upwards and the missile, unable to compensate fast enough, sailed right by him.

Aldric brought his shield to bear as he took in a deep breath and roared, and when he reached the drone, he didn't stop - he kept going. Aldric used the shield as a battering ram as he tackled into it and blasted through it in a shower of seawater and electronics. He felt more than a few wounds pass through his barriers as a result of this stunt, but the drone dropped to the sea like a rock. Aldric turned back to the east and then blasted off again, hurtling towards Vale and leaving a single thin contrail in his wake. Aldric frowned, stretching his radar out as far as he could so he could locate the drones, as Vale's ports grew closer.

 _You'd **think...**_ He thought, _that considering the unknown nature of this shit - and the fact that it wasn't Vale who attacked them, but **Atlas** \- that they'd try to open a fucking dialogue first **before** lobbing - BOMBS!_ He banked hard to the left as a cruise missile caught up to him and coming within inches of hitting him. _Shit!_ Aldric thrust his hand forward and used his semblance to catch the missile, but he was _not_ strong enough to stop it, or even noticeably slow it down, so the effect was as if he'd thrown a lasso around a rampaging horse: It took him for a ride.

Aldric used his telekinetic grip on the missile to haul himself closer as fast as he could, because it moved _far_ faster than he had - and would reach Vale in less than a minute, he could already see it on the horizon.

 _Did they already land troops?!_ Aldric demanded of himself, as he landed on the missile. _Or was it the drones? No -_ He shook his head, activating his chainsaw with a loud roar that was completely overwhelmed by the sound of the missile's engine burning, and the wind howling in Aldric's ears. _Special forces! **Fuck** I didn't think about that!_

His father always liked to say that the SEALs were the first guys to get sent into enemy lands, they were the ones who scouted out the targets for air strikes and missile runs. Even in the age of drones, having eyes on the ground to throw lasers around and tell the pilots where to shoot were still as invaluable as they were necessary. So while the Marines were just getting there, trashing the ports and securing them for their own staging grounds, the special forces were already there. They were already _inside_ Vale.

Perhaps already fighting Vale and Beacon's forces.

 _"Not -"_ Aldric hopped up, and as he came down, he swung his saw, _"- good!"_ And cleaved through the missile's midsection, immediately causing it to break apart and tumble to the ground.

Aldric wasn't quite sure if it was a good or a bad thing that he saw it slam into the ports and send a _lot_ of terrans scattering, but he shoved those thoughts aside as he saw more missiles arcing down from far higher than where the fighter jets were, now engaged by the Vale forces that had been able to scatter, though those battles were almost all completely clustered around Vale's naval ships, and while they were putting up a far better fight than Aldric expected them to, the sheer _weight_ the terrans were bringing to bear was pushing them back. Where they would destroy one jet, a helicopter would swoop overhead and buzz their hulls. Where their AA defenses would take down the helicopter, a drone strike would blow open a section of the hull, and where their main cannons were able to locate and lock onto a drone, the forces on the ground not engaging with Vale defenders were shouldering rockets and AA turrets and tearing into naval and fighter ships alike, and if none of that worked - terran ships were out at sea, just _waiting_ to launch more cruise missiles into the fray.

 _Take out the drones..._ Aldric looked up to the sky, tracing all of the smoke trails left by the multitude of drones' missiles. _Free up the ships to start shooting at the ground... **Maybe** be able to keep the terrans from pushing into Vale proper._ With a tight frown, he rocketed higher into the sky.

Aldric weaved in and out of air combat, climbing higher and higher until they were all down below him. One drone seemed to realize that something new had come and tried firing on him, but Aldric reached forward with his semblance, grabbing ahold of the missile, but not trying to stop it. Instead he changed its trajectory, spinning in a round circle and then throwing it right back at the drone, and allowing himself a moment to grin when he saw the drone explode. He followed this up with several more over the course of the next half hour, but the strain and his accruing injuries began to take their toll, and as the sun hung high in the sky, he found himself having to strain harder and harder to keep himself aloft.

And down below, it didn't look like his efforts were bearing much fruit. Vale airships were being torn apart by any combination of air, ground, and sea fire, and where the battle had begun with at least a dozen of them, now he saw five. Terran Marines were also taking up positions in the buildings that lined the docks and were using them to keep Vale forces from pushing against their landing craft, and their air dominance - from the helicopters all the way up to the drones skimming the clouds - meant that they had all the time and support they needed to entrench themselves. In the fewer than two hours since the fighting had began, Aldric saw that the terran forces had pushed through nearly half of the industrial district, a huge swath of the agricultural district, and were isolating the commercial and residential districts, the very definition of a blitzkrieg.

The only good news was that Vale's military was giving as good as it was getting, he saw _dozens_ of destroyed jets and helicopters littering the ground and setting buildings ablaze in their wreckages, and the huntsmen seemed to have become aware that the terrans' greatest strength was in their numbers and air dominance - just as Aldric predicted, the very moment a huntsman or a huntress got within fighting range, they tore through the terran forces like a natural disaster. The terrans weren't being pushed back, but their initial progress _had_ been slowed considerably.

The problem was that this had all been done solely with ground and air forces. Aldric could see giant seacraft streaming towards the ports, loaded down with ground vehicles. APC's, tanks, humvees, artillery trucks, the whole nine yards. The terrans had been fighting with one hand behind their back _all day,_ and now that they had their beachhead secured, they were rolling out the literal heavy artillery.

What momentum they had lost, they were going to get back, and _damn_ soon; there was no way Vale was going to push them out, not tonight, and not with the naval and air forces they had already lost.

 _How can we fix this?_ Aldric frowned.

The terran assault was focused primarily on the docks near the industrial area. While there were landings and beachheads being established along the entire coastline, the primary area of focus - where Aldric could see the most people and the most vehicles coming in for landing - were near Vale's industrial center. That made sense, considering that the best way to cripple an enemy's fighting capacity was to destroy or remove their access to their industry. He could see gunfights in the buildings and the streets surrounding the ports, and soldiers and marines were streaming into and out of the city, but they weren't moving an _inch_ without air support.

 _Again... Makes sense..._ Aldric's new eyes gave him the ability to clearly perceive what was going on down below, and any fights not being fought with air support had huntsman charging them and tearing through the terran soldiers, so they had no small amount of abject terror in regards to fighting without heavy support.

Now, Aldric may not be able to destroy all of it, but he did have an idea: If he could get the jets to focus elsewhere, all that would remain would be the helicopters as a means of close air support, and while not advantageous, such a thing could be manageable. The question of how to remove the jets, however, was a bit more complicated, but Aldric had an idea: Since the Vale air force and their naval ships were capable of holding their own, if Aldric could find a way to get their remaining ships to start climbing, perhaps even above the clouds, the terran jets would either have to follow or risk being blown out of the sky by an enemy they weren't engaging. That would move the jets, _and_ ensure the Vale navy wasn't being accosted by _all_ kinds of fire, only air to air - and that was something they could manage.

The biggest problem with that, however, was the question of if the airships he could see now were _it,_ or if there were others, perhaps out on patrol, cruising around, coming to help. If yes, the initial tactical retreat by the navy would remove the jets from play and the Vale defenders would only have ground forces and helicopters to deal with. Again, not advantageous, but more manageable, and if they could hold off the terran forces either long enough for Vale reinforcements to arrive, or for the rapidly approaching nightfall, they could either bomb the _shit_ out of their offensive line and force a lull in the combat, or force the terrans to bunker down for the night so everyone could regroup. But if there wasn't anything left - if these rapidly shrinking naval numbers were _it,_ then their prospects for holding the line shrank, to the point that Aldric wondered if they wouldn't have to either make a tactical retreat from the coast, or abandon Vale entirely and stage a counter-offensive from Beacon.

Fortunately, Aldric knew exactly who to ask to figure out, and this person made his location abundantly clear when an _enormous_ tidal wave of fire swept across an entire street and incinerated an entire attack force. Aldric rocketed back down to the ground and landed alongside Professor Ozpin, who was hurriedly helping an evacuating family to their feet and ushering them to the east, where Vale's military and the rookie huntsman had established a safe zone.

 _"Ozpin!"_ Aldric called out, looking down the eastern side of the street, which was smouldering and radiating heat from the headmaster's devastating attack.

 _"Mister Etiolate!"_ Ozpin shouted back, as the family ran for their lives. "I sincerely hope you have good news!"

"Uh -" Aldric shrugged, "I _ate_ an aircraft carrier, but without time we don't have, I don't know how to find the others." He called out, over the sounds of explosions and distant war. "That _might_ slow down the enemy air assaults -" He pointed up, "once those jets run out of fuel and ammo. They'll need more time to rearm and refuel, but we've got bigger problems -" He pointed down the street, "they've got tanks ready to roll! We've slowed them down but unless we do something drastic and hit them **_hard_** that will only be temporary!"

"I am open to ideas." Ozpin huffed, "at the moment your fellow students are focused on evacuating -" He ushered Aldric into a nearby building for cover, pulled out a scroll, and opened up a heavily marked map, "everything behind this line -" He indicated a bright orange line a few miles past a red line indicating where the terrans were attacking. "- to behind _this_ line!" He indicated a green line, halfway in the map.

"I'd make a joke about you trusting a goddamn eighteen year old with tactical information and decisions, but now isn't the time!" Aldric indicated the map, "you're telling me this area in here is going to be _depopulated,_ yeah?!"

Ozpin nodded, "we're holding the line here at orange, the noncombatants are being evacuated behind green."

"And how about Vale's forces?" Aldric asked, before they were hit with a powerful shockwave, and they were briefly deafened by a thunderous explosion; they both looked up and saw one of the five remaining massive naval airships engulfed in flame and falling to the ground. "Please tell me that the _four_ fucking ships up there aren't it!" Christ, the terrans were moving fast, Vale probably had an hour - maybe less - to pull a rabbit out of its hat before the entire situation deteriorated so much so that only Beacon and the immediate surrounding area would still be under their control.

Ozpin shook his head, "that's just the home fleet. Vale is not Atlas' near _thousand_ airships, but we've a respectable number." He said, "others were out on patrol, out at sea or further in Sanus - our continent. We were able to get the word out before they crippled the CCT, and they _are_ coming."

"Good." Aldric nodded, "how long?"

"By nightfall."

"Alright -" He indicated the sky, choked by the number of jets and aircraft zooming about. "I know the CCT is out, but does that cripple communications? Can the other ships still speak to eachother?"

Ozpin nodded, "short range. We can't get messages past our walls but the four ships we've left and our forces on the ground can still speak to eachother."

Aldric nodded, "then this is my idea -" He out and up to the sky. "Get those four ships and tell them to abandon the ground. They're getting torn the fuck apart by air ground and sea fire. Tell them to -" He made a shoving motion, "- _climb._ However high they can get - they need to take the jets with them, or escape them entirely, and they need to broadcast on all channels for any ships that get here to do the same."

Ozpin frowned, nodding. "We remove their fightercraft and all they've left is the close-ground hovercraft. We _escape_ their fightercraft, we have limited fleet support."

"Yeah." Aldric nodded, "not good, but it's more manageable."

"But what of the ground forces you mentioned? With their jets or without them, they are moving too swiftly and are too powerful for us to defend against without the main fleet and our army."

"I was thinking a tactical retreat, followed by us flattening -" He chose a point halfway between the orange and red lines, " _everything_ in between the red line and this one here."

"And what if the terran air does not follow them above the clouds, Mister Etiolate?" Ozpin demanded.

"Then we'd get a much better chance to make our no man's land, wouldn't we?!" Aldric shot back. "But if we don't make a stand and form a solid defensive line, the _moment_ those tanks show up they'll steamroll across the city and all of our evacuation efforts will have to start over - if we even _can_ at that point!"

Ozpin was silent for a moment, before shaking his head. "It would take time, Goud."

"How much time?"

"Five minutes for the ships to reach the altitude you suggest... Another ten to give our ground forces sufficient time to evacuate and for our ships to acquire their targets, and we shall be safe and say another five to conduct the strike."

"Twenty minutes..." Aldric frowned at the map. "I can buy -"

 _"No!"_

"- you twenty minutes." He nodded, ideas already zipping through his mind.

"Mist - Aldric, _no!"_ Ozpin slid his scroll inside his coat and grasped Aldric's arms, "as powerful as you are -"

"Holy _fuck_ , with you people AND POWER!" Aldric shoved Ozpin's hands off of his arms, "do you want to know how strong I was when I fought a fucking goddess?! Not even remotely where I am now!" He shouted, "and not even _close_ to how strong _she_ was at the time, and I still _WON!"_ He shook his head, "Me and Pyrrha managed to turn her into a living railgun and we took down at _least_ a dozen fighter jets with nothing but her semblance and some fucking scrap metal! For fuck's sake -" He threw his arm out in a wide arc, "- in ten minutes I destroyed the single most powerful kind of naval vessel on Earth! And right now I'm _screaming_ at a man who knows how to _kill_ me without any real struggle at all!" He poked Ozpin in the chest, "how do you think I did all those things? Trying to match them pound for pound?! Trying to fight a fire by setting off a bigger one?! Hell no - I used my _mind!_ Raw power doesn't mean _FUCK ALL_ when you can out think your opponent! If it did - not your species or mine would have left their caves!" Aldric roared.

"Al -"

"No - you got your chance to shout some sense into me, now here I'm doing the same damn thing. We _cannot_ win a slug fest with these people - not right now! And I can cause a big enough distraction to _keep them from advancing_ for twenty minutes! And it not because I'm stronger than you -" He pointed at Ozpin, "- or other huntsman, or Amber, or the US military - or the United fucking Nations! Because unlike everyone I've met on this goddamn planet, I don't value raw, overwhelming power, I value the _skill_ required to use it!" He held his hand out, "you show me _one_ goddamn person who realized that the 'average', 'not-noteworthy' telekinetic could do _this -"_ And he sparked the air, "- and then turn right around - AND DO THIS!" Aldric then thrust his hand out, and the front door and the wall around it all froze solid, and it took only the lightest front kick from Aldric to send it scattering to the ground. "And _that -_ " He ripped the lightsaber from his pants, "- is keeping in mind that I haven't outright _killed_ a single fucking person today!" Though it wasn't something he was looking forward to.

"And _then_ consider what the terrans have done in hardly even two hours! Not a single one of them has aura, but in less than two hours they've steamrolled across half of your fucking country! Power is only a part of it, Ozpin!" He chided, "so you can _take_ the _power_ you _think_ that _I_ need and _shove it!"_ Aldric clipped the hilt back to his belt, "I haven't died yet and I have no intention of doing so _any_ time soon! If we don't do something quick, fast, and in a hurry, they'll have made enough progress by nightfall that the fleet's arrival won't mean anything!

"If you need twenty minutes to save every single life still in Vale - I will buy it for you!" Aldric levitated into the air and leaned backward, floating out of the building he'd just made a hole in. "And _yes,_ I'm forcing your hand!" And he blasted into the air.

The first and most important thing he had to do was attract the eyes - and the guns - of each and every single person sitting on these docks and getting ready to storm the city. He had to distract them for twenty minutes, and to do that, he needed to do what he did best: Create a spectacle.

So when he made it to the coastline and found Vale's ports, Aldric hung his shield on his back, and then thrust both hands out to his sides. With a loud, and mighty roar, Aldric threw _all_ of his power into his telekinesis, grabbed as much of the air as he could, and set it all ablaze - the white hot flames jetting out for dozens of meters and creating a flash in the sky, almost as though a phoenix had been born and was stretching its wings. His little display could be seen clearly from the docks below and even all the way to the cliffside leading up to Beacon.

The second thing he had to do, was to provide a target, and play on the military's inclination to only shoot when _shot at -_ as evidenced by the fact that they had tried to take him prisoner when he was in their home territory and on their own damn aircraft carrier.

So after he got _everyone's_ attention, he dropped like a rock and landed right in the center of a huge gathering of soldiers, marines, tanks, and humvees, his shield in one hand, and his lightsaber in the other. There were people above in buildings, on his level on the ground, in stairwells and even below below in the speedboats and inside the safety of their tanks and vehicles, and when he landed after his display, in _seconds_ he had hundreds of guns pointed at him from all directions, and could hear all of the safeties being removed and all of the rounds chambering. The hesitation of the soldiers was matched only by their confusion - why was he here? Why was he alone? What should they do? It took a solid minute of him scowling at the assembled soldiers, as more arrived and pointed even more weapons at him, before they received any orders, and someone began shouting out through a megaphone.

 _"We don't know why you are here, but if you're here to fight, you are outnumbered and outgunned!"_ He heard a harsh, experienced voice scream out. _"Drop your weapons, place your hands on your head, and you will be treated fairly as a prisoner of war in accordance with our laws and yours!"_ A beat, _"I say again: Drop your weapons and surrender! We have you surrounded!"_

The third thing he had to do was create an opening, and he knew _nothing_ would stun these people as much as seeing something from their world staring them down. Yes, his shield would give some pause, but only those closest to them would see it clearly, and it didn't command quite the same presence as the weapon he hadn't yet used this entire day.

So he let a few moments pass, stalling for as much time as he could, feeling out as far as he could with his radar as a grin slowly grew across his face, an idea formed in his mind, and he took in a deep breath to make his response. "All _I am surrounded by..."_ Aldric shouted out, his voice echoing throughout the docks, and only fought by the sounds of war, muffled by their distance. _"Is fear..."_ He raised the hand not holding the shield, but rather a more elegant weapon, for a more civilized age. _"AND DEAD MEN!"_

 _Zhoom!_


	37. It Gets Easier

Chapter 36

* * *

Everything Aldric had done during his time on Remnant, he had done with the intention of saving human lives, and preventing loss of terran life. Yet here he was - having wholly failed on both accounts, so much so that he had, and would, actively contribute to both. He was going to have to kill each and every single terran he saw, because like killing Rayne, these deaths were deplorably necessary. He _had_ to kill these people, or else risk losing just as much, if not more, as he would have lost had he let Rayne live. So much like he'd done before, he forced himself to push these thoughts from his mind as he prepared himself mentally for what was to come. Dwelling on it, thinking on it, that would _have_ to come later.

He needed to buy Vale twenty minutes for a plan that, despite the confidence in it that he had to show, he wasn't fully certain would work.

He'd already bought three simply with the prelude, with the spectacle that caught their attention and their posturing to try and get him to give up.

He stood surrounded by hundreds of men and enough ordinance to level a large neighborhood. In raw power, they had him outclassed, outgunned, outnumbered, and surrounded, and they had said as much. But he'd based this entire plan - everything about it - around the fact that raw power was _nothing_ compared to a far more skilled and creative mind.

So surrounded was he, yes.

Outgunned was he, certainly.

Outnumbered, _definitely._

But the one frowning and shivering in fear, wasn't him.

And the ones smiling in confidence, and assured of their victory, wasn't _them._

Especially when they saw a relic of fiction from _their world_ light him up with a bright blue glow, and fill the air with its loud _zhoom_.

 _"OPEN FIRE!"_ He heard someone scream, after the sheer shock of seeing someone from _Remnant_ holding a _lightsaber_ wore off.

Aldric's grin widened as he tightened his grip on his sword, deactivating it with a flick of the button and a light 'zip', before he crouched behind his shield like a Spartan crouching beneath his hoplon, and put _all_ of his power - every iota of strength he had - into one thing, and one thing only: A barrier. All he needed was to survive this first volley, and then have enough left over for _one_ more spark, and then he'd be able to buy all the time he needed.

So the dockside was filled with the flashes of rifles and machine guns, of rocket launchers and tanks, the sounds of bullets blasting, rockets launching, and tanks firing. They all surged straight towards him, and for the briefest of moments before the first rocket hit and masked him in smoke and ash, one could see the bullets reaching him and then stopping dead, as though hitting a brick wall. He was surrounded by enough gunfire to liquefy any normal man, and indeed there was _so much_ that he sensed some bullets slipping past his barriers and hitting the ground next to him, bouncing off his shield, or skipping inches past his body. He flinched and clenched his jaw tighter with every rocket and every grenade that was launched at him and exploded, and as more and more weapons-fire was practically _thrown_ at him, the ground around him was chipped and blasted away, until he stood in the center of an ever-deepening crater.

He counted the seconds as they went by, until a solid ninety had passed, and the air around him was choked by thick smoke and ash, and the terrans firing at him could see nothing more. He heard rifles reloading and heard people shouting for updated orders, trying to discern whether or not he was dead. And to their credit, they did a decent job of trying: Aldric felt a few new wounds and injuries from shrapnel and some burns from fires, all that barely passed through his barriers. His entire body felt like a bruise and his heart was hammering in his chest, but he wasn't dead, and he'd long since established he'd been hurt by worst.

So Aldric stood to his feet and reached out with his radar, sensing each and every single soldier in his immediate area. Specifically seeking out the very thing that Atlas claimed to be their greatest and strangest strength: The sheer amount of explosives each soldier had on their person. Their bullets, their fragmentation, flash, and even smoke grenades, all of them relied on some amount of detonation, oftentimes just a _single spark,_ in order to work as effectively as they did.

And Aldric had turned sparking a fire even without his magic into a _hat trick._

So with another loud _zhoom_ as his lightsaber ignited, and cut a bright blue swath through the choking smoke, dust and debris that surrounded him, showing them all _exactly_ how much effect their guns had had on him, Aldric thrust his shield hand forward, the fingers splayed forward, as he grabbed ahold of all of these explosives, and with a clench of his fist, created a single spark in each and every single one of them.

And just like before, the ports were _filled_ with the sounds of explosions, but now they were joined by panicked and pained screams, and none of those explosions coincided with rounds being sent downrange at him. His grin turned to a frown as Aldric launched himself forward, shield held in front of him and lightsaber reared high above him. He saw terrans in his immediate area scattered everywhere, and blood scattered everywhere else, and those outside of his immediate vicinity were scrambling for cover from the explosions and cooked off ammunition, leaving them _completely_ open for Aldric's attack.

What came next was _easy_ compared to surviving just a moment ago. Aldric arced through the air - some of the tanks and vehicle-mounted machine guns tried to reorient to keep up with him, but he moved too fast, bolting right back to the ground and landing in the midst of five terran soldiers underneath a huge crane. Aldric under-handed his shield to his side to keep the three to his side busy, as he grasped his lightsaber with both hands and thrust forward to the two directly in front of him. It cleaved through the first soldier's sternum with no resistance at all, and the soldier fell to the ground limply when he wrenched it to the side and out of the soldier's back, leaving a fist-sized gap through half of the terran's upper body. Aldric spun into his next attack as the shield hit the third soldier and flew back towards him, and before his second target could react, Aldric cut through him with a single wide horizontal slash, and when his shield reached him, Aldric leapt over and kicked off of it - sending it hurtling forward to a group of soldiers behind a wall of sandbags, as he flipped behind the soldiers he'd stunned with his first shield-toss.

They didn't react nearly fast enough, and Aldric bisected one lengthwise, one width-wise at the waist, and lopped the third's head off, before he sensed guns being aimed at him from soldiers positioned in the crane's stairs. He frowned deeply and lunged backwards as the bullets began to fly, and they harmlessly struck the ground he'd been standing in as he thrust his lightsaber out to the side and dug it into the crane's stairs. He sprinted forward, cleaving through the stairs in a mess of hot metal, grinding plasma, and sparks, before he reached the crane's cylindrical center - and with a baseball swing, carved through _it._

The entire crane began listing over to the side as Aldric bolted forward again; eyes were attracted to the enormous structure falling to the ground below it, and bodies falling out of it and through the air, into the harbor they had captured. When the crane hit the ground, Aldric sensed it having the pleasant side-effect of taking out several of the landing craft with soldiers still in them. Aldric landed on the ground in a dead-sprint, using his semblance to call his shield back to him as his feet pounded into the ground and propelled him forward. The soldiers were fast, but he was faster, and had far greater reaction times - all he had to do was turn their very tactic around on them: Keep up his momentum and deal so much damage, so fast, that the only way they could react would be with unbridled chaos.

So he cleaved through more soldiers, killing one with three rapid chops to the legs, chest, and then neck, before thrusting forward and piercing the heart of the man behind him. He tore the lightsaber out of the soldier's chest and then hopped into the air, bringing his foot forward and ramming it into him, sending the soldier stumbling back and into another group, and as they leveled their weapons on Aldric, Aldric landed and then flicked his free hand to the side, using his semblance to spin them all like tops, and then clenching the triggers of their rifles, causing them all to tear into eachother, just as his shield flew right past them and into Aldric's waiting hand.

Aldric felt a shotgun slug slam into his armor and it stumbled him forward, but he caught himself with his semblance and whipped around, bringing his shield to bear as he sprinted forward. The soldier began backpedaling and shrieking in fear, attracting more attention to himself and Aldric as he uselessly pelted Aldric's shield with more and more rounds, until Aldric got to him, batted the shotgun to the side with the shield, and stabbed the soldier in the stomach with his sword. He ripped the sword upwards, cutting the right side of the man's torso clean off, before he leapt into the air again to dodge another wall of gunfire.

As he arced back towards the ground, Aldric saw Vale's airships beginning to flare their powerful engines, angling towards the sky and climbing with all available haste. He grinned for a moment, but it was replaced with the frown again as he landed next to a small office building, inside of which he sensed three more terrans - these ones surrounding a table and a map. Aldric darted forward, slamming into the office's door with his shield and tearing it from its hinges, and by the time the terrans inside reacted, he was already on them - bisecting two with one swing before kicking the table into the third. It rammed into his groin and he croaked in pain, doubling over and presenting his head to Aldric, who kindly obliged him and burned a hole into by shoving his stick of plasma into the shaven scalp.

Bullets then began tearing through the walls from all directions, Aldric felt one drag across his leg before he leapt upwards and burst out from the ceiling. He gritted his teeth and fought through the pain as he launched himself towards a trio of humvees. All of them were firing at him with their mounted guns, but this was exactly as effective as when everyone else did it: They hit his raised shield, filled the air with flying sparks and the sound of metal striking metal, and did little else to impede him.

Aldric landed in the center of the three military cars and thrust both hands out, before spinning in a wide circle and letting out a loud bellow. With a powerful pulse of his semblance, he picked up each vehicle and swung them around in one full revolution before hurling them away, two landing in the harbor and one flattening itself against a nearby tank and bouncing off in a shower of broken glass and bits of metal.

This tank would be Aldric's next opponent, as it found him, took aim, and fired.

Aldric pushed himself out of the way of the first shell with his semblance, and then used it to kickstart his full-out sprint for the tank. The second shell hit his shield and gave him little else to hear but a harsh ringing, deafening him entirely, and nearly putting him on the ground were it not for the shield's abilities. He deflected the third shell, sliding it off of his shield and pushing it away with a loud, though unheard by him, grunt, as he reached the tank. Aldric reached up and rammed his shield into the tank's barrel just as it fired again, and with nowhere to go, it hit the shield and detonated, destroying the barrel and shredding its operators as the energy transferred inside, but too sending Aldric _flying_ due to his poor footing and lack of any time to brace against the impact.

His head hit the ground with a horrible 'thud', and he was pretty sure the only reason his vision wasn't swimming was because of the machines doing all of it for him. That didn't save him from a few moments of sluggish movement, however, and he was still bleeding from both ears. He was so out of it that he didn't realize his weapons had been thrown from his hands until he felt a bullet ricochet off of his metal arm and dig across his organic one. That helped to snap him out of it enough to call his weapons back and ignite his lightsaber again. He stumbled forward a step or two before regaining his rhythm and rocketing forward in a blur of feet, hurtling straight towards a wall of sandbags and two hastily repositioned machine guns and above and far beyond them, he could see the Vale ships breaking the cloud barrier.

Without being tailed by the terran fighter jets.

Perhaps if he were a bit more lucid and had a bit less head trauma he would have had a few thoughts, or even a witty remark for how he got at least one thing he was looking for, but the best he could summon up was a nonsensical jumble of random syllables and sounds that, if he'd spoken them aloud, would have sparked concern he was having a stroke. So instead he focused all of his brain power on keeping his fighting momentum going, and with a grunt, and a pulse of his semblance, cooked the ammunition of the machine guns before they could even fire. The soldiers surrounding them were thrown by the explosion and were torn into, appearing like bloody pincushions as Aldric ambled over their sandbags, jabbed at a few of the less-injured looking soldiers as he ran by, and kept going, aiming now for another office building, inside of which he could see a few terrans frantically working on computers.

Judging that to not good at all, Aldric lunged forward, using his semblance to sail through the air, whereupon he crashed through the windows. He hit the ground and spun on one foot, his blade cleaving through three of the four engineers and wrecking their computers, before he stumbled towards the fourth and stabbed his blade from one side of his chest clear through to the other. He wrenched the blade out, killed the power to it, and fell against a wall, gasping for air and feeling outside with his semblance. At this point he'd covered so much ground and caused so much carnage that they didn't even know where he was anymore, there was even still a battle raging where he'd been initially, the soldiers there firing blindly in any direction, calling out phantom targets.

Catching his breath, Aldric pressed his hand against his chest and winced in pain.

 _Holy shit..._ Were the first few lucid thoughts since engaging the tank. _When did..._ He felt inside with his radar pulse, and sure enough something had gone through his armor, one of his ribs was broken into bits and it had dragged across his lung.

 _"Fuck..."_ He wheezed, before hearing raised voices shout something like, 'his lightsaber! Contact in the storage room!'

Aldric needed no more prompting to flee the room, and he did so just in time to dodge six soldiers and dozens of bullets tearing through it. He landed outside with a somersault, and on the up-roll he threw the shield at the assembled soldiers, who stood in a firing-squad position as they pumped the office he'd been in full of lead. They toppled like dominoes when his shield rapidly bounced and pinged between the six of them before flying back to him, and he cooked one of their grenades with a clench of his fist to make sure they _stayed_ down.

But before he could move again, a grenade landed at his feet, and Aldric shouted in fear, leaping into the air and crouching behind his shield. He was sent flying by the explosion and his back rammed into the corner of the office he'd vacated, digging into it and cracking a few ribs as he bounced off and back to the ground. It took all of his strength to scramble to his feet and flee another wave of bullets, leaping around the corner and out of the line of fire.

Aldric tried to pulse his semblance to launch himself out of the fray, but he'd used a lot of power in a short amount of time, and the best he could get was a sudden hop thirty feet to his front - inadvertently sending him careening over the dock and into the water. Some soldiers noticed this and lined up at the edge of the dock, guns aimed at the water and pouring lead into the harbor.

Aldric felt a few more bullets graze him, and one hit him in the back, before he used another pulse of his semblance to shoot him through the water and under the pier, before he surfaced, gasping for air. He wrapped one arm around a pillar to keep him afloat, as soldiers called out, seeing his blood but not his body. He gave his agonizing body a few moments rest, trying to push past the feeling of salt water seeping into his wounds, before he lunged outwards, swimming for land.

He almost didn't make it, using his semblance to launch himself out of the water and back onto solid ground. A few lucky - or unlucky, depending on one's point of view - soldiers were there to see him flop out of the water like a flying fish, and he and they had a brief, shocked staredown, before his lightsaber sparked to life with a loud _zhoom_ and they shouldered their rifles. One swipe from right to left cleaved through the barrels and left them molten metal, and then another slice from left to right tore through stomachs and chests, sending the soldiers sprawling to the ground, coughing and gurgling in their death throes.

Aldric's head snapped upwards, his hair streaming seawater. None of the Vale ships were in the sky anymore, and there were far fewer jets than their had been, but no signs of battle above the graying clouds, a good sign: That meant the jets were running out of fuel and ammo, and because of the navy's decreased ability to service them, they weren't able to return as quickly and in as great numbers as they had earlier.

But that was all the time he had, as a huge chunk of the ground was torn away from a sniper round, barely an inch from his boot. Aldric cursed and bolted forward, shield held high as he scrambled for cover. The sniper was smarter than his friends, however, and didn't aim for Aldric's shielded chest - he fired at Aldric's legs. Aldric felt shrapnel tear through the armor and into his right calf before he wised up and crouched down, still running, but now fully shielded. The shield took two rounds before he took cover behind a forklift. The sniper bullets didn't stop coming, they kept raining down, ramming into the forklift with loud 'pings' and the sigh of sparks flying; and as Aldric hid behind cover, he both saw and sensed a mass of soldiers taking up position around him, both from afar and up close.

 _Oh, they're trying_ this _again._ The problem was: This time he feared it would work, he had taken too many hits and was in too much pain to try and make a shield that strong again.

But he could definitely still lift things, _especially_ if they had so little weight as to be negligible.

So the ailing spy grinned, and with a thought, thousands of projectiles - from small bullets to large arrows, to even a suite of spears - made of solid light began to sprout from the viscuous gauntlets on his hands and spread into the air, climbing higher and higher as they multiplied every second. They all oriented and angled towards their targets, who looked up at the softly glowing, wireframe objects, as though not believing their eyes. That second of pause was even contributed to by the sniper, before Aldric snapped his fingers, and the projectiles shot forth, tearing through and impaling their targets and making the area look like a legion of archers and spear-throwers had swept through.

Now standing in the center of a huge, circular zone of destruction, Aldric pushed off of the forklift, gasping for air and feeling a pressure in his chest, no doubt from his injured lung filling itself up with blood and beginning to collapse.

 _Oh... This is gonna fucking suck._ Aldric thought, before clenching his gut and using his semblance to forcibly vacate that blood through his wounds, his reasoning being that that blood wasn't in his veins anyways, so he might as well shunt it from his body.

He'd probably lost a little too much blood to be healthy, though, as evidenced by the fact that he giggled by the squirting sound his blood made as it was pushed out of his open wounds. He chuckled and reactivated his lightsaber, spinning it with a light flourish as he took a step forward.

"Alright... Who's -" But he trailed off as he looked up from his chest, and beheld a dark-skinned, sweat-slick soldier pointing a rifle at him, but not firing, likely due to the expression of equal parts terror and revulsion having formed on his face from having witnessed Aldric literally squirt his own blood out of his body.

Aldric stared at the soldier a moment, as his sword idly hummed. He looked down at his bloodsoaked, shredded armor, his gaze followed by the wide, bulging brown eyes of the soldier, before he looked up at the terran again, the man's jaw practically on the ground.

Aldric shrugged, "you know -" He coughed, "- not the worst thing I've done to myself." He croaked.

The soldier dropped his rifle and held his hands in the air. He shook his head, but said something in a language Aldric didn't understand.

Another cough, "smart man!" Aldric wheezed, before beaning the soldier in the face with a shield toss. "Was that Russian?" He cleared his throat, and cast a glance at Vale from over his shoulder.

Just in time to see a shower of missiles pouring down through the clouds. The jets filling the air scrambled in all directions to flee the onslaught, and Aldric sensed the soldiers in the harbor pausing their relentless hunt of him to watch as the humans rained devastation on their city, blasting everything in those few miles between the port and the line Aldric had drawn on the map with all of the bombs and bullets their few remaining ships had.

And as the bombs rained down, Aldric realized he hadn't necessarily cleared with Ozpin what he was supposed to _afterwards._

Worse than that, was his lull in activity, and the lapse in judgement that implied, gave more soldiers time to surround him.

"Get on the goddamn ground!" One shouted, as Aldric turned to face him.

"Dude..." Aldric gave the man an incredulous frown, "how many have I killed in the last twenty minutes?" He asked, his voice developing a rasp. "Do you _really_ think I'll -" And as he spoke, he used his semblance to sweep the assembled soldiers' legs out from under them, and duck behind his shield, the forklift to his back.

The assembled soldiers' rifles went off when they hit the ground and involuntarily squeezed their hands. Aldric was pinned down for a moment, before the soldiers recovered and stopped firing to adjust their aim and stop putting their allies at risk - Aldric took that moment to strike. He leapt forward, slashing at the ground with his lightsaber and separating limbs and torsos from bodies, using what little control he had remaining of his semblance to jerk the soldiers this way and that and keep them from bringing their rifles to bear, as he sprinted off into his field of arrows and spears. He ducked behind a wall of sandbags, and noticed a box of grenades to his left, and a thoroughly surprised soldier to his front.

They each looked down to the box of grenades, and then to the machine gun resting on a tripod to the soldier's right, then back at eachother. Aldric pitched his shield at the soldier and sheathed his lightsaber. He clipped it to his belt, before snatching one grenade out of the box, and then grabbing the whole box and heaving it at the recovering soldiers. The shield came back to him as the soldier behind him stumbled back to his feet, leaning against the sandbags. Aldric caught the shield as the grenades spilled out and rolled in all directions, and the still living soldiers scrambled to get away, not noticing the final grenade landing in their midst, missing its pin.

And as this grenade went off and took the others with it, Aldric spun around darted forward again, decking the machine gunner so hard he heard the man's neck break with a loud 'snap'. He ambled over the wall of sandbags as he felt flames lick at his back, and as he continued sprinting forward, he noticed a blinding light coming from the west.

Heart sinking to his stomach, Aldric leapt to the ground and shielded himself from impending doom.

But when a gigantic nuclear devastation wave didn't wash over him, he realized how stupid that assumption had been - why even bother invading Vale if they were just going to nuke it?

So he peeked over the edge of the shield as he sensed another tank rolling into position, and then realized what this light was: A giant symbol in the shape of a star, radiating red and blue fire, and glowing white in the center. Ozpin seemed to realize his lack of foresight too, and had improvised accordingly with the _biggest_ signal flare he could imagine.

But when Aldric launched from the ground, he found himself unable to stay in the air, and he came arcing right back to terra firma. He spun wildly and wasn't able to land on his shield, knocking the wind from his lungs as he rammed into the side of a building and then fell to the ground. But he barely had any time to recover, because he heard two loud engines roaring, and sensed the humvees those engines belonged to tearing across the dock - and burning rubber right for him.

 _Well... Always said I could outrun cars._ Aldric croaked, as he scrambled to his feet. _Let's put my money where my mouth is!_ And as the humvees hit the road and came within three meters of him, their machine gunners spooling up the miniguns mounted to their roofs, Aldric took off like an athlete.

The humvees dogged after him relentlessly, their miniguns carving open the ground behind his feet and doing their best to tear into him too. He ran in erratic patterns before ducking into a ruined building, using his shield to absorb the impact as he burst through a wall. The humvees kept at it, driving alongside the buildings and firing inside, forcing Aldric to delegate the shield to absorbing gunfire, and praying his mechanical fist would be good enough to break through walls. He was able to tackle through the walls of plaster easily enough, but when the building's outer, brick, wall came up, he braced himself and threw his fist forward - slamming it into the wall.

It exploded in a thick cloud of dust and debris and Aldric stumbled forward, but didn't recover nearly fast enough to throw a second punch to break into the next building, resulting in him running headlong into the wall of the first building's neighbor and bouncing off of it with a thud. The good news was that if he didn't see this coming, the drivers of the humvees _definitely_ didn't - and they hurtled right on by. The bad news was that they recovered fast enough and Aldric heard tires screeching, as he hit the ground and again thanked his lucky stars that, somehow, his replacement eyes wouldn't screw themselves up if he hit the back of his head.

Worse was that he'd taken so much punishment that it took him so long to recover that one of the humvees skidded around the corner, minigun already spooled up. Aldric's head whipped up just in time for the driver to floor the accelerator and tear right after him.

 _Uh... Okay, dude._ And Aldric lunged forward, grabbing his shield and then rolling upwards.

The shield took all of the gunfire as the car tore through the alleyway barely big enough for it to fit through, and because he was pressed so tightly against the ground, it passed right over him. The driver seemed to be confused by the lack of 'crunch', and the machine gunner was rotating around, but Aldric didn't give them any chance to figure out why he wasn't roadkill - he sprouted to his feet and sprinted back out to the devastated street.

He was met by the second humvee - it having waited for him, in case he made an escape.

Had he any air to spare, Aldric would have yelped out a curse, but instead the best he could do was continue sprinting for the other side of the street, shield raised and taking gunfire as the humvee gunned the engine and tore off after him. Aldric made it to the next alley and continued forward, curving around a corner and taking off in the direction of the orange line, but this driver seemed to have watched the Fast and the Furious too, as he _also_ managed to skid around the building and keep up the pursuit, as Aldric sensed the earlier vehicle bursting out of an adjacent alley and taking off down the street, firing at Aldric whenever it saw him sprinting past alleys.

Even worse was that there was a larger building blocking his path forward, and he was running out of alley.

 _Shit - fuck!_ Aldric did the fist thing to come to mind and _leapt_ , but he didn't make it to the roofs like he would have hoped.

He _did_ crash straight through a window and into the building, however, so he took his victories where he could, and used his radar to navigate himself to a stairwell and up to the roof. It took him two minutes to ascend, and he was greeted by a drone strike - sending him flying off of this building and tumbling onto the roof of the one behind it.

 _Oh... Shit!_ Aldric groaned, laboring back to his feet. _Why'd I let him talk me into this... Oh, yeah! Oktoberfest! You speak German, it'll be great!_ He shook his head and took off again, needing the entire roof to get up to speed so he could make the jump to the next one.

He landed with a yelp of pain and almost twisted his ankle, rolling to a halt at the edge of the roof, and seeing he was barely even at the buildings the Vale Navy had flattened. He let out a deep, agonizing breath, and collapsed, leaning against the edge of the roof and gasping for air.

 _What? Wormholes? Either the other side of our universe or another one entirely? Whaaaaat? No waaaaaay._ He snorted out breathy laughter, sensing the vehicles on the ground below him circling the building he was resting on, no doubt working off information from their drone. Worse, was that he heard, and confirmed with a difficult raising of his head, helicopters approaching.

"Jesus fuck..." He wheezed. "At least... At least the damn city is quiet." And he wasn't wrong: Ever since the missile barrage had let up, the only sounds of battle were those _focused on him!_

He blinked, and saw the sky briefly flash - and then realized another drone missile was hurtling straight for him. He cursed and hauled himself over the edge of the building, using his shield to absorb the impact on the ground but still feeling the breath leave his body as he hit the ground and the missile hit the building he'd rested on. Dust and debris washed over him as he heard the helicopters and the humvees approach.

 _Stick to the alleys, keep cover from the choppers._ Aldric scrambled to his feet and tore off deeper into the alleys, using his radar as a means to plan out his route, and his shield to block gunfire from above and from behind, as the helicopters and the humvees located him and began firing.

He counted himself lucky the attack helicopter wasn't risking its missiles with the humvee trailing Aldric, but that luck ran the fuck out when he reached another dead end, and had to wall-hop up to another rooftop, putting him at immediate risk for missiles from the drones orbiting the city and the helicopters trailing him. Aldric forced his body, screaming in pain and protest as it was, to continue forward, even as the gunships' machine guns tore into the roof behind him. Then, coinciding with another explosion, but this one far above and behind him, he witnessed something beautiful.

The helicopter exploding, as one of the heavily damaged Vale Navy airships broke through the clouds, its main gun radiating heat. Aldric didn't even care to question how the hell they didn't hit him - or if the gunner who'd acquired the target even knew he was there and at risk in the first place - all he knew was that the Navy was here. The euphoria immediately melted away when he saw the other helicopters break off from him and gain altitude, and the drones begin launching their missiles not at him, but at the ship, which was already trailing thick black plumes of smoke and had enormous holes and gashes torn out of its hull.

 _"No!"_ Aldric leapt into the air and blindly reached for its landing skid.

By some miracle, Aldric managed to grab it with his cybernetic hand, and he clenched down on it so hard that he crushed the metal in his grip. He and the helicopter grew higher and higher into the air, and Aldric flicked his free wrist once - vanishing his shield as he reached down for his lightsaber. It ignited with a loud _zhoom,_ though it was overwhelmed by the rapid beats of the helicopter's spinning blades. That only worked in Aldric's favor, however, because that meant the pilot had no fucking idea to expect a bright blue stick of plasma in his ass - which was exactly where Aldric stuck it. He used his radar to aim, and everything.

The pilot immediately lost control of the helicopter as he seized up in pain and was burned from the inside out. Aldric sheathed the saber and summoned his shield again and kicked off from the helicopter. He glided through the air for several seconds, passing well into Vale's self-made no man's land. He hid behind his shield and used his semblance to slow himself as best he could before he hit the long stretch of road that probably served as some sort of main street, or perhaps even a Remnant analogue for the interstate, back home, he didn't know. He bounced off of the ground once, twice, and then began surfing across it on his shield with a scraping noise, as the helicopter crashed behind him and then obeyed its momentum and velocity and tumbled right after him.

"Oh _fuck!"_ Aldric coughed, lunging to the side and rolling to his feet and breaking off into a run.

The helicopter seemed _determined_ to catch him, and he was just as determined to run from it as, above him, he actually seemed to have made a difference - as the airship let out another thunderous shot with its main cannon, destroying another helicopter, as its anti-air laser guns located the terran drones and began firing, burning them and their missiles out of the sky before they could do more damage. Aldric would have cheered, if he didn't need one hundred percent of his oxygen going right to whatever blood he had left to keep outrunning the helicopter. Fortunately the helicopter finally began obeying another law of physics, and friction began slowing it down. It tumbled to a halt, a single burning, twisted mass of metal.

But the universe wasn't done with Aldric yet - and those two goddamn humvees came flying in, one literally - having driven over a hunk of debris angled upwards and ramping it into the air. And they brought _friends -_ big, angry, hulking, Armored Personnel Carrier-shaped _friends._ With no cover except his shield, and so hurt, damaged, and low on power that he couldn't deflect the bullets, Aldric could do nothing but _run_ as fast as he could, and run he did, as the second most beautiful thing since the airship came cresting over the horizon:

The Vale defensive line - marked by _huge_ metal barrier-walls plugging up the alleys between buildings and creating a bottleneck on the very street Aldric was sprinting down, and even better: He saw armored Vale soldiers, huntsman, a few teachers from Beacon, and Ozpin too all waving their hands and shouting towards him. When they saw the vehicles trailing Aldric, however, their cheers and shouts immediately turned into an all-out advance, as the Huntsman _bolted_ forward, weapons at the ready, and the Vale soldiers shouldered their weapons and began firing. In response, the terran guns turned from him, to the Remnant fighters, and fired as well.

There was the briefest second of silence, the calm before the storm, before the two tidal waves of military might and gunfire collided into eachother with titanic force. The Dust ammunition slammed into and shredded the less-armored humvees and bounced off of the APC, while the approaching Huntsmen and Huntresses leveled their own more specialized weaponry and opened fire, with Ozpin at the center, swinging his cane like a baseball bat, two huge fireballs blasting out of it and arcing through the air.

So low on energy that even his radar was beginning to fail him, Aldric poured everything he had left into running - even as he felt shrapnel and a few more bullets dig into the ground around him and parts of his body both armored and less so. But his radar wasn't the only thing running out of energy - he was running out of blood to pump through his body, and since his aura could only take him so far, he began slowing down.

Just enough for the humvee directly behind him to catch up and slam into his shielded back. Aldric was taken for the second ride this day, and the driver tried a few times to shoot him with his sidearm, but enough of him was covered by the shield that - holy fuck was that Srebro?

That thought alone dominated his entire mind as he recognized the _gigantic_ buster sword-esque zweihander charging into battle, held defensively in front of the amazonian woman, it, her armor, and her semblance absorbing any of the gunfire that came her way, before she and the other Huntmsman reached the approaching terrans, and Aldric recognized the others. There was Ozpin at the center, Srebro to his right, Goodwitch to his left, the Raiden professor he'd seen on exam day to her side, Port next to him, and on Srebro's right he saw Ecru, she and her Lovely Lady both screaming with each shot she fired.

The final Huntress revealed herself when she became visible, having leapt into the air right in front of the humvee hurtling right towards her, her arms splayed out open. She hit the front of the humvee and wrapped her arms around Aldric, and instantly he felt himself sliding through the vehicle, as though it were made of smoke. They slid straight through it - the driver giving them a look that mixed confusion and lividity, before the two phased outside and hit the ground, rolling to a halt.

As Myrtle grabbed Aldric's arms and hauled him to his feet, he saw Srebro's titanic blade swinging down and cleave the humvee in two, splitting it in half down the middle and right into the path of an irate Headmaster, who blasted both halves with a powerful gust of wind and sent them flying back. The second humvee didn't fare any better, as Goodwitch used her semblance to halt it wholesale, and Raiden leapt up into the air and came down hard on the vehicle, slamming into it like a cannonball and causing it to flip end over end.

The APC took this chance to skid around to a halt, all of its guns rotating around to face the assembled Huntsmen and Huntresses, but it found itself stared down by two equally massive guns: Port's blunderbuss, and Ecru's Lovely Lady. They tore into it, bit by bit, as it tried to fire back at them - only to find its barrel bent over backwards with a flick of Goodwitch's riding crop. The resultant self destruction only helped Ecru and Port, and the combined weight of all of the defending soldiers at the defensive line, as they all collectively pounded into it, before it finally detonated in a huge, fiery explosion.

And the final vehicle's destruction, as the explosion's thunderclap traveled to the distance and faded away, heralded silence. The dead silence that only ever came in the aftermath of an enormous, cataclysmic battle. Aldric realized, however, when the assembled staff and students of Beacons surrounded him and helped Myrtle get him to his feet, that the silence was also likely due to the return of the ringing in his ears: He couldn't hear a damn thing over the ringing, or the chill in his bones - _damn_ he was cold.

Before he had time to dwell on it, he saw Ozpin's head snap up, and then he started making quick, harsh movements, it almost looking like he was shouting. Aldric was barely able to turn his head to see what it was Ozpin was going on about, and he felt his blood run even colder. This entire time, he'd focused primarily on the terrans' air power - aircraft carriers, helicopters, the whole shebang. Not incorrectly harping endlessly on their integral nature in their offensive. But he'd absolutely failed to realize that there were other terran naval vessels out there, despite having _ridden_ the product of one of these vessels right into Vale itself.

There were three missiles, each the size of a car, hurtling straight towards them, and Aldric felt himself roughly hauled onto Srebro's shoulders - her sword lying abandoned on the ground - as everyone began fleeing, and Ozpin stood alone, cane held in hand as the missiles arced towards the ground. Bouncing up and down on the giant woman's shoulders, Aldric watched as Ozpin reached up and then slammed the bottom of his cane into the ground, a spherical barrier growing around him - and then growing even larger, as Ozpin's shoulders tensed and began shaking as his gaze raised right up to the missiles, as though roaring out in defiance as his shield grew ever larger.

But Aldric wouldn't get to see what happened next, as his consciousness finally failed him, and he faded away, going limp on Srebro's shoulders.


	38. Not Yet, Snake It's Not Over Yet

Chapter 37

* * *

The next thing Aldric knew, he was in a sterile white room, in a big bed, covered in bandages and casts, an IV sticking out of his good arm. His eyes fluttered open and shut for longer than he could count, before he could keep them open and focus his vision long enough to get a picture of his surroundings. He was in a large room in a hospital, sharing it with others in similar states to him. Doctors paced back and forth, checking their patients and speaking to the conscious ones. There was music playing, but Aldric couldn't recognize it; it sounded nice, though.

He laboriously turned his head towards the sound of the music, seeing a small Remnant stereo sitting on a metal tray over to the side of his bed, near the entrance to the room. Closer to him was a nurse, staring into a tablet-scroll, and looking back and forth between it and the medical equipment surrounding him. Aldric wasn't quite sure if he should move the arm with the needle sticking out of it, but when he tried to move his metallic one, he found he couldn't, on account of it not even being there.

He groaned, wondering if he'd lost _this_ one.

But _that_ got the nurse's attention, and she looked up, seeing his eyes half-open, and smiled. "Good morning, mister Etiolate." She said, her voice sounding distant, and muffled. "How are you feeling?"

Aldric answered her question by blacking out again. The next time he woke up, he did so more successfully. It still took an obscene amount of effort just to look around, but he didn't feel like he was going to black out again, and when a different nurse noticed him, and asked him the same question, he tried to give a better answer.

Only to discover they were pumping him with the _good_ stuff. They had to be, because what came out of his mouth wasn't, "like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.", but rather a random collection of sounds and syllables that almost sounded provocative, somehow.

The nurse gave him a piteous grin, "yes... You're still on some powerful medicine, Mister Etiolate." She said, "you actually just came out of surgery just the other day, your doctor has been keeping you on painkillers until your aura began to kick in again."

 _"Dahcka?"_ Aldric slurred, with a lazy arc of an eyebrow. When the hell had he gotten a doctor? Or was she saying that in the sense of, 'the guy who operated on you'?

She answered the question with a nod, "yes - as a matter of fact, here he is now. Doctor Deer!"

 _Who?_ Aldric's head listed to the side, and he grew an impressed frown when he actually recognized the guy: It was the same dude from the Garden who'd been there after the fight with Amber.

So did that mean Cinder, Mercury, or Torchwick had dropped a coin on him? Or did it mean that the doctor was bound to him because Aldric had solicited his services? There was a lot about the Garden he still didn't know, but he wasn't complaining: He remembered this guy. He was _damn_ good at his job, and he gave Aldric the good shit.

"Yes." The wrinkled old man rumbled, nodding as he approached Aldric's bed. "You never cease to amaze, do you young man?"

 _Oh wait..._ Was he in the Garden, maybe? _"Wha ahm ah?"_ Well, he tried.

"You're not underground, if that's what you're asking." The doctor accepted the nurse's tablet-scroll with a nod, "thank you." He turned to Aldric, "the good news is the invaders didn't didn't take _all_ of the industrial and agricultural sectors... Thanks in part to you, I hear." He said, "and since the rest of Vale's military turned up, they've been pretty docile since then. All that to say, you're in one of the better above-board hospitals...

"Which is good, because a person who lost as much blood and had as much shrapnel in them as you did needed a lot more than some bandages and a bed." The man scrolled through the tablet, "had to put you under the knife three times. Last one dug some of it out of your lungs... But that should be the last."

 _"Damn."_ Aldric grunted, before swallowing through his dry throat. "We hear from any of the other kingdoms?"

The Doctor grunted, "heh, same news. Wherever these people came from, they're hitting _everywhere._ Before the CCT network went down pretty much everyone was sending distress calls. Even Atlas. Those poor bastards got hit _hard._ Wasn't any prelude air attack or soldiers landing like with us, they got hammered with missiles and those remote-piloted things until we lost contact."

Well that was fucking great. "Who coined me?" Aldric sighed.

"Marcus Black's kid. Had me take over for the hack that had nearly severed your brachial artery in your first surgery." The doctor shook his head, "dumb bastard. If I'd cared to I could've taken his license, but I guess we need everyone we can get these days, even idiots who hardly know what they're doing."

"Hm." Aldric peeked down at his right arm, seeing that it was, indeed, still there - but with a pulse of his radar, he found underneath the bandages was a new collection of scars, some faded and some still fresh. "How long have I been out?" He asked, wondering when it would be that he'd be more scar tissue than skin.

The man shrugged, "eh, five days. Your friends will be pretty glad to see you're awake."

"They're here, and not out fighting?"

The doctor nodded, "yeah. Don't know everything, but your headmaster is keeping the rookies back."

"Dude's alive? I saw him take a fucking missile."

"Doesn't mean anything. You don't get to be a Huntsman academy headmaster without learning to take a hit or two. He's trying to leave the front-line fighting to the graduated huntsmen and our armed forces. He's suspending pretty much anything that isn't combat training. Putting the rookies and the students back to it, fortifying the academy against further air attack, and slapping the CCT Tower back together." A beat, "almost done with that, or so I hear. Might already be. Never know until the other kingdoms fix theirs." He lowered the scroll, "you need to be more careful, kid. That artery I mentioned wasn't the only damaged one, it was just the only one that hack managed to mess up."

A bone dry, "ouch." Was all Aldric could muster up.

"You laugh, but you needed so much blood you nearly drained that poor girl dry."

Aldric frowned, "girl?" Oh God was he part _Neopolitan_ now?! He didn't need that in his life, he'd rather die.

"Some redhead, didn't care for her name. Jumped at the chance when we said you needed it, had to actually convince her to _stop_ giving once she hit the limit and tried to keep going when one of the aids let slip you still need some."

"Didn't care to get her name, but you cared to remember that." Aldric deadpanned, a snide grin stretching across his face.

"Humor." The doctor matched dry wit with dry wit. "Good. Means you're not damaged." He shook his head, "I cared to remember that because I was worried I might be obligated to work for free if I didn't think of a better way to get her to stop without tearing the needle out of her arm."

"What'd you do?"

"Didn't do anything. Busty chick with blonde hair came through, got her to go, but they and this gaggle of other women come down from the academy pretty much every day." A beat, "gets damn annoying having to answer 'why isn't he awake' every day."

 _And there's the other one._ Aldric yawned, "how long am I going to be in here?"

"Well, you're still on some major pain killers, but you're talking clearly, so that means your aura's back in gear. From what I remember about your healing rate..." He shrugged, "check again tomorrow, if not - you'll be out the next day."

"I appreciate the help, sir."

"You call me 'sir' again and I'll go back in and reopen the artery." The doctor growled, setting down the tablet. "You need me, hit the button to your left." He nodded at one of the wires stretching out from Aldric's good arm.

"Oh, just gonna leave me like that?" Aldric grinned, "am I stuck in bed, at least?"

"I heal killers, kid." He shook his head, "I don't pamper them." He harumphed, "I wouldn't recommend it, but I know you types. Just keep that -" He indicated what looked like a coat rack on wheels, upon which hung Aldric's IV bag. "- with you wherever you go. Meds are in it." He gave Aldric a nod, and vacated the room.

 _Very open about that, Doc._ Aldric let out a hollow sigh, lolling his head to the side. _Wasn't I in a public room last time?_ He frowned, seeing that he was far more secluded than he had been, his last outing with consciousness, his room was small, made even more compact with the medical equipment surrounding him.

Looking to his right, Aldric found a chair upon which was seated a familiar looking bundle of cloth.

 _Well I'll be damned..._ Aldric thought, as he reached out with his semblance and pulled it into his lap. _How did who get this? Thought the building had fallen..._ He felt inside his recovered longcoat, but couldn't find his spare Power Glove canister. The absence of that, his scroll, and his cybernetic arm made him feel vulnerable, but he figured, with him being cared for by an assassin doctor and was in the middle of a hospital servicing injured superpowered -

 _Yeah, you know what? That doesn't fill me with confidence. These people haven't ever dealt with SEALs._ He needed a weapon.

As he rested his head in his pillows, Aldric had a grand total of fifteen seconds to wonder what he'd do with his time before he sensed the Doctor who needed growing a heart, having walked to a waiting area, where he saw, in short order, all of RWBY, what remained of GEMS, and three quarters of JNPR. It only took him a second to realize why he couldn't see Jaune with the others - he was three rooms over, dead asleep, sporting a web of scars on the right side of his torso, only one arm and, upon closer inspection, a left lung that looked entirely too mechanical to be the one he was born with.

 _I think I'll call him Brown until I know better. Doc Brown._ Aldric grinned, as Doc Brown caught the assembled students' attention and told them one of their friends was awake, and then deftly slid out of the way when a stampede of women rushed past him, Ren and Nora being the only ones to stay behind and thank him, though not through lack of trying on the latter's part.

 _Oh...Kay. Here we go._ Aldric let out a long breath, watching his team lead the charge, with RWBY and Pyrrha following close behind. _Brace for impact, Captain!_

And a moment later, Ecru swung around the door and into the room, and Aldric set his jaw, ready for his ears to start ringing again. But when she didn't immediately start shouting, he arced an eyebrow, as the others started filing around the door, their entry blocked by Ecru, who was giving the heavily bandaged spy such a shocked appraisal that it almost made him wonder if this hadn't been the first time she'd seen him since the fighting.

Aldric grinned, "yeah, I know." He said, carefully swiping his stiff hand through his hair. "I can see you now."

Ecru let out a single, breathy laugh, before sliding into the room. "Ash, are you okay?" She whispered, no strength in her voice.

"Well..." Aldric's grin turned conspiratorial "I dunno, I'm kind of surrounded by... One, two, three, four, five... Six seven -" He ticked off each number by pointing at each person filing into his room and surrounding his bed, and when he reached Yang, he paused a moment, and then turned back to Ecru. "Seven very concerned women, and I've been sanctified."

Ecru blinked, a confused frown forming on her face, as Yang let his jab roll off of her with a scoff, a grin, and a roll of her eyes.

"Sanctified?" Srebro, towering over everyone in the room, squeaked from the back.

"Yeah, and feeling good about it, too." Aldric said, nodding to the side. "See, I'm holy, now."

A beat, the entire room silent.

Yang's grin dropped to an unimpressed frown. "Shot full of holes?"

Aldric grinned and nodded, "she gets it." There were a few groans from Ecru and Myrtle, a scoff from Yang, a suppressed giggle from Ruby, dead and stunned silence from Blake and Srebro respectively, and a blank, guilty expression from Pyrrha. "Ah, there they are. I mean, damn, guys." He said, sitting up with a light groan. "I know we're in a hospital but what's with the long faces? Laugh for chrissakes, I'm okay." He said, as Ren and Nora entered the room, which Aldric noticed. "Ooh, new people."

Pyrrha nodded, "yes, this is Ren and Nora. They're part of JNPR." She said, as they each nodded and greeted him.

Aldric's grin widened and he pointed right at Yang, "not a damn word - see, there's a guy, there." He pointed at Ren, whose stoic expression didn't change, as he ushered Nora in and shut the door behind him.

Yang scoffed, "please. Eight - _no, nine!_ Nine Beebee - Nine women in your room and you call attention to the guy. Don't even try, you're not fooling anyone."

"Oh yeah?" Aldric leaned over, "hey Ren can you come help me out? This bed is very cold." A beat, "you don't need your clothes, just your hot man meat."

Ren blinked, but was saved from responding by Ecru, "what, you're not asking _me?"_

Aldric chuckled, "I _know_ better, you've been giving Myrtle fuck-me eyes since you two met."

"You shut your whore mouth, Etiolate!" Myrtle shook her head, laughing as she brushed her blue hair aside.

"Not a whore! I'm a holy man!" Aldric called back, before he leaned back in his bed and looked at everyone. "How about all of you guys? Spend any time in a bed?"

Ruby spoke up, "Professor Ozpin kept the students behind the Orange Line, he didn't want us in any of the heavy fighting."

"Hm." Aldric grunted, "I didn't get that memo." He deadpanned, with a guilty frown.

"Yeah, because someone flew off before they could get updated orders!" Yang raised a fist as though he were going to give him a shove, but then realized that her only targets were his heavily bandaged chest, heavily scarred stump, or his heavily bandaged arm, with needles and IV catheters sticking out of it. "Fear and dead men, Beebee?" She asked, lowering her hand, as Aldric sensed Nora find the only chair in the room and sit not on it, but its back, so she could get a better view.

Aldric blinked, "uh... What?"

Weiss had her scroll out in a second, as a smug grin painting her teammate's face. "VAF has been spending the last week pouring through the security cameras and their recordings, to try and figure out what happened and how, when the Invaders came in. They're hoping to cut them off, and while they didn't like what they found, they did find something that has been spreading like wildfire." She said, turning the scroll to Aldric, stepping in closer, and holding it in front of him.

Everyone was now squeezed in around his bed and looking at the scroll's screen. Aldric saw it was a recording from the ports, and there were marines and soldiers crawling around everywhere, on all levels of the dock, like ants. He saw them setting up machine gun nests, sandbag walls, offloading arms and ammunition, he saw tanks rolling up to the mainland and boats coming in to the piers, until something bright occurred offscreen. The camera feed switched first to one all the way from Beacon, then one behind Vale's defensive line, and then one with a direct line of sight from the docks, all showing the same image: Aldric's little phoenix stunt, perfectly visible even from as far back as Beacon's camera. Then it returned to the first camera, and saw him come rocketing down for a landing, right on the edge of one of the piers.

It all played out far faster than he remembered it going, even those precious few minutes before the fighting had started, leading up to his exchange with Megaphone Guy, and his Darth Vader quote.

 _"All I am surrounded by, is fear!"_ He heard himself shout, _"and dead men!"_ And then his blade ignited, and all of the soldiers opened fire, it appearing for a moment as though the entire planet was throwing everything that could explode at him in an attempt to kill him, and yet once the fire ceased, his blade ignited again, cutting a bright blue swath in the cloud of smoke and dust. He actually saw his free hand thrust forward by the light of the saber, and saw his fingers clench into a fist before all of the soldiers in view of the camera began exploding.

"How did you do that?" He heard Myrtle ask, as Weiss snapped her scroll shut. "Blow all of them up?" The thief specified, as Aldric sensed Ren pulling Nora off of the back of the chair, to her objection.

"Lady, you of all people should know I have no problem whatsoever in setting shit on fire." Aldric laughed, cutting the tension that had grown in the room. "I'd do it now, but -"

"Not sure if you can get it up?" Yang interrupted.

Ecru cast Yang a look from her side of the bed, "I like you." She nodded.

"My worst nightmares are coming true." Aldric buried his head into his good hand. "No - you two aren't allowed to hang out together." A beat, "or, wait, no - do exactly that. Go hang out together with the invaders. No one will survive."

"Why'd you say that?" He heard Ruby ask, as she leaned over the bed.

"You don't know how loud she can get, Ruby. Imagine _two_ of your sisters."

Ruby giggled, but shook her head. "Why'd you say that to the soldiers?"

As Aldric considered his answer, it occurred to him that at _least_ him and Pyrrha, but just as likely everyone else in this room, might have killed someone over the course of that day, and along with the rapidly approaching realization that everyone he'd killed had been from his _home,_ it sobered him up fast. He shrugged, and forced those thoughts from his head. "I figured if I caused a big enough distraction, they'd stop dedicating soldiers to Vale and try to deal with me on the docks." He said, "might be able to give everyone else more time to help the evacuations that way, so I..." He grinned, "put on a show. Just like hope is the strongest weapon for your allies, so too are theatricality and deception powerful agents to the uninitiated in your enemies."

"But you could've died." He heard Blake intone, "it was stupid."

"Blake!" Ruby whined, her head whipping around to the cat faunus.

"She speaks!" Aldric grinned, "but she's not _wrong."_ Aldric waved the issue away, "risking your life is part of the job description. I was out there to protect others, that's what mattered." Albeit he was doing so by chopping a _lot_ of people in half and separating a _lot_ of limbs from their bodies, but he digressed, again having to force his mind away from that dark path.

"But... At that great of a risk to your life, Ash?" He heard Pyrrha speak up.

Aldric nodded, "if I wanted a life without risk to mine, I wouldn't be doing what I do." He said, earnestly. "If it means saving more lives than will be lost, I'm willing to put mine on the line." He nodded.

She quieted down, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms; Aldric noticed she seemed pale, and the Doctor's words came to mind. Just how much blood had she given?

"Well, I'll be damned if it didn't work, Ash." Ecru shook her head, a grin stretching across her dark face.

Weiss picked up with a nod, "indeed, no sooner had you begun your attack than did Vale's navy begin their tactical retreat." A beat, "how long are you going to wait before you admit that it was your idea?"

 _So the Wonderful Wizard told everyone that the 'bomb Vale' idea was mine? Asshole knows what I'm up to, so what's his game?_ Aldric shrugged, "I wasn't going to mention my stunt at the docks." He couldn't help but wonder if he'd done that to give Aldric credit and help Goud's reputation, or to cover his bases if it didn't work.

"You are too modest, Ash." Weiss huffed.

"You pretty much saved Vale!" Ruby piped in, a smile on her face.

"You're already becoming a household name in Beacon, dude." Yang leaned against the wall Aldric's bed was stuck up against. "Give it a week and Vale will start to figure it out, too."

"Oh, that'll be fun." Aldric deadpanned, "but you know what - if it makes trench coats a thing, I'll take it." He had a new mission in life: Get _everyone_ in Vale wearing his Matrix coat. "So..." He turned to Ecru, "if Ozpin was keeping all of the students behind Orange... Just exactly how did you -" But he was interrupted, not by Ecru, but the amazonian woman in the back.

"We threatened to shoot him if he kept us back." She said, brushing some of her dark dreads out of her face.

Aldric stared at her, aghast. "Same dude who shot a star into the sky."

"Ecru described exactly where she'd shove the Lovely Lady." Myrtle deadpanned, with a snide grin and a nod.

Aldric turned his attention to Ecru, eyes wide. "You threatened to shove a shotgun up Beacon's Headmaster's _ass?_ "

"No." Ecru tried and failed to suppress a grin.

There was silence for a few moments, as her implication dawned on everyone, and it was broken by Nora, who gasped loudly and began laughing. She doubled over, and her laughter inspired a slowly growing chorus of guffaws from the others in the room, until the room was filled by everyone's laughter, and the air lightened considerably.

"Hot damn, lady." Aldric shook his head, as the laughter died down. "Okay, this one's for you -" He turned to Ruby, "has Weiss talked to you at all about team battles?"

Ruby gasped, "what?! _No!"_ She shrieked, whipping around to the snow-haired huntress. "Weiss!"

"In my defense, I was more focused on bringing to mind how I was trained in the sword to impart upon you." Weiss waved at Aldric, "and clearly it must have worked, considering."

"I _said_ it's for when I had to get dangerous." Aldric defended, "I did say that, and now you know how dangerous I meant." A beat, "oh, and I think you just wanted to hog me for yourself." He grinned.

"So, wait, you've been trying to set up a fight between us and RWBY?" Ecru gasped, a huge smile stretching across her face.

"Why not us?" He heard Nora whine from the back of the room.

"Because as much as I think you and Ecru might get along like a house on fire-" Aldric pointed to Yang, "pretty much since day one, I've wanted to see Yang duke it out with Ecru." He leaned over, "you can fight winner."

"So we'll fight you?" She shot right back.

"Oh!" Yang planted her hands on her hips, turning to Nora, "oh! You have something to say, Nora?" She demanded, a wide smile on her face.

Aldric watched the chaos he'd sown until it died down and the conversations moved on to other topics, news about Beacon, stories about the 'Invasion Day', how bad Beacon Tower was trashed, that RWBY was helping GEMS move into a dorm that was less exposed from and to missile strikes, and on and on until Blake let slip that it was late at night, and they all still had school in the morning. It took twenty minutes for everyone to say their goodbyes and to leave the room.

Aldric, however, made one last request, as Pyrrha tried to slip out. "Lady." He called out, catching her attention. "Stick around a minute?"

She nodded, and bade her team and their friends farewell, promising to meet up with them later, before coming back into the room, taking a seat on the chair Nora and Ren had been fighting over. She folded her hands in her lap, and refused to make eye contact with him, trying to mask the frown on her face. So Aldric the first thing that came to mind: He unscrewed one of his eyes and threw it at her.

She jumped when it bounced off of her shoulder and into her lap, and Aldric would never admit that he'd used his semblance to make sure it specifically landed iris-up, such that he could say, "see, I have ways of getting you to look at me, even if I have to cheat a little."

She picked up the eye delicately, examining it. "It looks nice..." She said, slowly, before leaning forward and handing it back to him.

Aldric screwed it back in, "there she is!" He said, "entire time you were in here you said... Like... Five words, and you're paler than I am and I'm a damn mummy. Are you okay?"

"I am not the one in the hospital bed, Ash."

"Well, true, but you're also too smart to go try and take out an enemy... Boat, actually, not an airship, and then turn right around and try to fight the entire freakin' army." He grinned, "and you didn't answer my question. What's the deal, lady?"

Pyrrha kept up her silence, momentarily breaking eye contact with Aldric, before looking back up. "I awoke my aura when I was six." She said, "and when I asked my father to enroll me in a combat school, I remember the conversation he had with me. He said that the world we live in is a hard one. The Grimm may be our greatest threat, but they are also the simplest. That they do not have souls, and killing one of them is... In its own way, of no consequence to our own... But then he told me that there exists a threat equal to the Grimm: Humans. Faunus. Other people. He maintains to this day that the Grimm will never be able to wipe out humanity because we will never fall to an outside force... But that does not extend to us fighting eachother. That if we were ever to die out, it would be because we destroyed ourselves.

"I..." She paused, "I don't quite believe in the evils of our people, in the same way he does. Even with these Dustless invaders. I believe much like you do... That there is still good in us, and that it is worth fighting for... But I do understand our reality." She said, "I do know that... Like my father, not everyone believes as I do, even back then, I knew this much. And because of this, his one question for me before he signed the papers was if I was willing to live this life, the good and the bad." A beat, "if... I was willing to kill a person. To watch a person die."

Aldric stared at her, metal eyes wide and jaw hanging. "Your dad said this to you and you were _six."_ He deadpanned.

She smiled dully, "he has never been big on subtlety." She responded, leaning back forward in her chair. "But for as developed as my views on the world was at six years old..." She gave him a thin grin, "I didn't fully quite grasp the gravity of what it was he asked me. At the time, I merely rationalized it as... If I have to kill someone to save someone else, then I should. And if an ally died fighting someone, I would have to finish the fight to help my ally." She said. "But... As I grew older, I realized he meant less 'ally' and more 'friend', when he asked me if I was willing to watch a person die.

"And I told you once I didn't have many friends. Truth be told... I'm not sure if I ever truly had a friend until I came to Beacon and met you, and Yang, and Jaune, and Nora and Ren." She listed off, "so... That helped color that opinion. I guess you could say I was more clinical, before I came to Beacon." She explained, "and when those... Strange airships began bombing Beacon, I didn't hesitate when Ozpin called for us to assemble in the hall. When you halted the missiles, I knew I had to help them, to save the other students... And when you explained your 'rail gun' to me, I knew and accepted that we would be killing those pilots... And when you explained to me that the soldiers would be coming, I knew that we would have to kill them in order to protect Vale... But when you told me you intended not just to defend, but attack, I realized I had been wrong... I thought I had been ready to see someone die, but that was because I'd never had a true relationship beyond my family."

Aldric felt his blood run cold, and he had to keep up a poker face. Was this what it was sounding like? Was this happening right now?

"And... I realized... I didn't want you to die." She finally said, looking down at the floor. "I didn't want to see you die... And worse was that I knew you." She said, "I knew then as I know now, your sense of heroism. Your ceaseless belief in good. I knew that you were willing to lay down your life to save others, and that at that moment you were going to do just that, and then I -" Her voice shook, "- I heard you had taken the fight to them to distract them from the Navy and I was terrified. You're my friend, Ash - my first friend, and I didn't know what would happen if you would die!"

 _Okay, not exactly what I thought this was, good._ Though he still felt a small bit of his soul flake away: Here was his work as Goud _working,_ and here was another reminder that he'd inevitably be _wrecking_ these people through betrayal.

"And then -" She breathed, "and then, I'd heard that you and Jaune had both been hurt and were in the hospital..." Her voice shook worse, "and I - I -" But she found herself silenced when Aldric raised his hand and with a 'come hither' motion, used his semblance to drag her chair, with her in it, over to him.

When she reached him, he poked her on the forehead, and her vivid green eyes peered into his gunmetal gray orbs, her breath caught in her throat.

"Are you calm, now?" Aldric hummed, and she slowly nodded. "Good... 'Cause that took more effort than I'd care to admit." He let out a quick gasp, "now listen, Pyrrha. I do _not_ feel worthy of the faith and friendship you're giving me, of the trust you're showing in me right now." How fucking long had they known eachother? A month? Two? He'd honestly forgotten when he'd showed up at Beacon, the days were running together now. "But I'm honored to have it." He said, leaning over and resting his hand on her shoulder, "I understand what you're telling me... And I think I see a little bit more, but I'm not sure quite yet." He leaned back up, "but... I ask you this: Would you have... Rather me _not_ done what I did?" He drawled.

She sighed, her shoulders slumping. "No." She whispered.

"Can you tell me why?"

"Because you wouldn't have been able to live with yourself."

"Eh - close." Aldric said, pinching his fingers together. "Think a bit smaller, less long term." He said, "I believe in something bigger than myself. You could say I... Hell - believe in destiny." He shrugged, waving his hand. "That I believe I have a purpose... And while I may not know exactly what that purpose is, I know what I want it to be, and how I'll go about discovering it." He said, "much like you... I've made peace with the fact that I'll end up killing people at some point." He shrugged, "fuck - you saw that video, and I'm pretty sure it was a lot longer, considering the editing I saw. I literally lost count how many soldiers I cleaved in two after _thirty."_ He said, "but I believe that in ending those lives, I am servicing the protection of countless more. I believe that, if ever avoidable, one shouldn't kill... But sometimes one just _has_ to get dangerous - explaining..." He nodded, "- why that was probably the first time anyone but Weiss saw that sword. I pull that out, I'm making a statement: Be it me or my enemy, someone's going to die... And that, in a roundabout way, is my point.

"Sometimes, a life has to be traded for the continuance of _far_ more." He summarized, "and... I've made piece with the fact that, if I judge the situation drastic enough... Just as I'm willing to end someone else's life, I am more than willing to offer up _mine_ as payment for others." He leaned back into his pillows, "bring it back to what I said about destiny... I'm pretty damn sure I'm not going to die of old age." And expanding on that, that he'd already met the person that would kill him. "But I've made peace with that, because I'm dedicating the life I have to protecting others'.

"If I die, Pyrrha... I hold no reservations, I know I'll leave behind some amount of sadness. But I would request instead that... My mantle be taken up." He said, with a nod. "That someone picks up my shield and keeps the fire alive, as it were. I don't want to be mourned, that's... A waste of time that could be better spent elsewhere. I want to be an example, in life and in death. That... Against impossible odds, the world can be saved, and is worth saving, that the fire I mentioned - hope - will always exist.

"So..." He hummed, "don't... Fear..." He said, "for my death." A beat, "worry for my intelligence." He gave her a playful shove, and she smiled, "because... You know - all I like to boast about 'skill versus strength', or 'brains over brawn' - if it isn't fucking clear yet, I have no brains!" He indicated the bandages keeping him wrapped up like a mummy. "You're talking to the same idiot who thought it was a good idea to _bite_ the sword of a superior foe one day, and then charge headlong into an enemy army another day." He finally got her to raise her hand and cover her mouth, trying not to laugh. "There she is!" He pointed at her, "damn, lady, depression doesn't suit you. Need to smile more. Laugh more." He shook his head, "world needs more of that. Laughter. It's too serious to be taken seriously."

Pyrrha's shoulders twitched as she stifled her laughter, "you know, Ash... I believe you."

"Oh?"

"I don't think I've ever heard you complain once... At least, in a serious way." She said, straightening up, her smile doing wonders to brighten her face. "You're always trying to make the people around you laugh... Even right after waking up from almost... Dying." She hesitated, before continuing on with, "I believe you when you say you want to... Save the world, as it were."

And once again, Aldric was acquainted with the feeling of his soul rotting away. How much did he have left, at this point?

 _Apparently enough to fuel my aura._ He grinned, "lady, please, that was the pep talk, talking. See, I _really_ believe in two things." He held up two fingers, "never trust a fart, and don't bring anything into a fight you don't want to break."

Pyrrha did a double take, "never trust a -"

"It was a bad day for everyone at school - moving on!" Aldric said in rapid-fire, before devolving into a chuckle fit.

Pyrrha stuck around for a while after that, telling him of the last few days and how she'd contributed a lot of help to fixing the CCT Tower, before finally bidding Aldric adieu, and leaving him alone, with his only request being another visit tomorrow - because if he was going to be here another few days, he wanted his scroll, or something to read. Once she left, he found himself alone, but not tired in the slightest, and as such his inactivity lasted all of ten minutes before he carefully slid out of bed and, sure to keep the IV tower in one hand, almost using it like a walker, he patted down the sweatpants the hospital had thrown on him and sidled out of his room, one step at a time.

Down the hall he went, until he found himself standing outside of Jaune's room, looking in, and seeing him awake, just having finished a conversation with his nurse.

"Knock knock, Johnny-boy." He said, "permission to enter?"

"Oh - Ash!" Jaune's voice sounded a little hoarse, but he nodded, "yeah, come on in - you're here too?"

Aldric nodded, grunting. "Yup. You just wake up?"

"Yeah, just a little while ago." He said, as Aldric took up a position in a chair next to Jaune's bed.

"Damn, dude, should've caused a fuss - Pyrrha and your team just left."

Jaune managed to pale, even though there was hardly any lights on in his room. "Is she -"

"Nah, man, you should know her better than that!" Aldric waved the issue away, "just some bumps and bruises so I'm told... How 'bout you, man?" He nodded to Jaune's missing right arm. "I know you want to join the club and all, but... Dude. You wanna help your southpaw game you've got to lose your _left_ arm, not your right."

Jaune laughed nervously, "yeah, I uh... Did something stupid."

"Pray-tell." Aldric grunted, leaning back in his chair.

"One of those strange airships - the ones higher up, with the bulbous front ends?" He said, running a hand through his hair, digging some of it out of the bandages wrapping around his head. "I saw one of its missiles coming down to this mom and her kids... She reminded me of my mom and my sisters, and..." He pantomimed raising a shield, a guilty, sheepish grin on his face.

Aldric blinked, "holy fuck Johnny-boy, you took a _missile_ for a family?" He scooted forward and raised his hand, "props, dude."

Jaune high-fived Aldric's hand, "I'm hoping that because I'm alive that means the family still is... But the nurse didn't know, and I blacked out when the missile hit."

"I've always seen it like this - if you took a hit for someone else and _you_ lived, they're still kicking too." But Aldric was still stumped by the fact that Jaune had taken a goddamn _missile!_ Only other guy he knew with a similar stunt was Garrus Vakarian, but while he'd caught it with his face, he'd only been hit by a small little gunship's missile - not a high-end _predator drone_ missile; he respected Jaune a lot more, now. "I might know a guy, if you're in the market for an arm."

Jaune blinked, looking both surprised and excited, "really?" He said.

"Hell yeah - dude owes me a favor." Aldric had already forgotten the conversion rate, but he had a quarter-thousand glass coins stowed away, and since those were functional 'IOU's' in the underworld, the prosthetist owed him a _lot_ of favors. "You say the word and I can give him a call... You know - once I swap the bandages for my lucky coat, that is." He grinned.

Jaune was stunned, "wow, Ash, I don't know what to say!" He said, "I was thinking I might have to quit school..."

Was it just him, or did Aldric actually hear hope and relief in Jaune's voice? How could someone both hope they would get out of a situation, and then be relieved that they wouldn't have to?

 _Or do I have that backwards?_ Aldric shook his head. "Dude, anyone willing to play catch with a missile deserves to do whatever the fuck they want, and if I can help them -" He scoffed, "least I could do." He petered off after a moment, saying, "not... Quite sure how I'll replace your shield, though." He had _one_ idea, actually - but he wasn't quite sure if Jaune had some kind of backup plan in place.

"Oh - no, Ash, you don't have to do that." Jaune shook his head, "I can head out, try to get it fixed if I can find the pieces... Or buy a new one, if I can't." He waved it away, "so, uh - so what'd you do to get in here?" He asked, changing the subject.

Aldric grinned, "nothing quite as badass as tanking a missile. My stupid ass ran for the docks and started fighting the invaders." He indicated his own bandages, "see how well that turned out."

Jaune blinked, "why would you do that?"

Aldric shrugged, "seemed like a good idea at the time. Pretty sure my thought process was: They'll _never_ expect it!" A beat, "and I was right! They never expected the dumbass student charging right down main street with nothing but a shield and a sword." He grinned, "element of surprise, you see. On my side, then."

Jaune looked down at Aldric's bandaged chest, then back up to him. "Uh-huh..."

"I mean, I got my ass kicked, but I kicked some in return."

Jaune nodded, leaning back in his bed. "So uh - is there anyone else we know, in here?" He asked.

Aldric hummed, leaning back into his chair and closing his eyes; he felt out with his radar pulse and searched the rest of the recovery ward. "Doesn't... Look like it." He said, leaning his head back forward. "But they might've skipped out." He shrugged, "why? Hoping to recognize someone?" He asked quickly.

"No! No, I was just... Worried." He said, "those soldiers... They were causing a lot of damage. Ozpin tried to keep us being the Orange line, but..." He nodded at his own heavily bandaged stump, and then blinked, and looked at Aldric. "How'd you get past him? I saw Cardin get real mad and try to lead his team to advance, but then Ozpin was just _there,_ like he knew they were going to do it, and he sent them back."

"Oh, I never got those orders. So I couldn't follow them, see." He said, "I started out shooting down the airships, but we ran out of steam pretty fast and shifted to support... And attack, in my case."

"How long did the fighting last after I got hit?" Jaune asked, "do you know how many we lost?"

"When were you hit? And I don't know. Only information I got is from the girls... And Ren." He nodded to the side, "I know that the main fleet is here, the CCT is almost back up and running, and I think Atlas might be on their way."

"Uh... I think I fell around three." He said, "you were out at the ports, you said? Did you see any of their ships? I heard Patch said they weren't airships at all, but _boats."_

"Then a few more hours after that. The home fleet flew above the clouds and bombed everything in front of the orange line, kept them from advancing." And he nodded, "yeah... _Big_ ships, with big guns, and launching _big_ missiles. I don't get it either." He shrugged.

"Why risk building a navy in the ocean?" Jaune wondered, "with Grimm out there? Where do you think they came from?"

Aldric shrugged, "maybe there's... Like... A secret kingdom out there?" He suggested, "I have no clue, dude. Kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, here."

Jaune blinked, and sank back into his pillows. "Right... Sorry."

"No, fuck - ask 'em if you've got 'em, man." Aldric said, waving it off, before he leaned forward, and lowered his voice. "Some advice for you, though? Guy-to-guy?"

Jaune recoiled, "huh?"

 _"Learn to be a lefty!"_ Aldric nodded at his stump, "much easier, and less painful, than the alternative." He burst out into laughter, and Jaune stuttered and tried to fight an embarrassed, amused grin at the same time, leaning away from Aldric and shaking his head.


	39. Who Dares Wins

_AN:_

 _Guys, there's fanart, now.  
Lemme say that again - there's fanart!  
Someone took time out of their day to illustrate (and make a few comic panels) my half-baked fanfiction, and it's fuckin' cool.  
_

 _Check this dude out: many9919{dot}deviantart{dot}com_

 _And now, this:_

* * *

Chapter 38

* * *

Aldric had compared his healing abilities to Old Man Logan on multiple occasions before, in that as long as he survived the fight and got a good night's sleep, he'd make it through whatever he came across. That hadn't changed with the terran invasion, but holy hell did he feel he had to emphasize the 'Old Man' part, because when he was released the next day and given his medications, he made the mistake of not taking the pain meds before the ones he'd been given intravenously had worn off. He felt like a walking, talking bruise - even breathing released a soreness in his muscles, and it felt like forever before the pills kicked in and brought the pain and stiffness down to manageable levels.

Fortunately for Aldric, he wasn't released first thing in the morning, but rather late that night, so his 'care package' delivery from Pyrrha came and went without him needing to explain to her why he wouldn't be returning immediately to Beacon when he got out. The care package itself was mostly harmless items, consisting of some proper clothes - Pyrrha lamented having found his coat, but it being in such a terrible state, that she didn't want to give it to him all shredded as it was - his scroll - the CCT was still out, so it was only local signals and broadcasts - and a little surprise.

"What the hell did you people do to my arm?!" Aldric guffawed, after he unwrapped his arm.

Pyrrha stifled a laugh, "Ecru heard it had been damaged by your fighting, and when Ruby heard she was going to try to fix it herself, we all kind of started putting our own touches on it."

Aldric kept laughing, "I'll say!" It looked less like Venom Snake's arm than it did a black and red easel, covered in so much graffiti that it looked as though he had a sleeve of tattoos.

Whatever damage had apparently been done, Aldric couldn't see it, but he did see 'Fear and Dead Men!', sprayed on with electric blue paint and signed by Yang, Ruby's rose symbol with her name orbiting it, 'GEMS' on each of his knuckles, the word 'GROOVY!' painted across the split in the plates that housed his chainsaw, no doubt thought up by Ecru, 'A Blade In the Hand' on the elbow of all places, and signed by Weiss, 'Light fingered!' on the back of his hand and signed by Myrtle, 'My sword is cooler than yours!' on his underarm and signed by Srebro, 'Never an enemy of ours.' signed by Blake, and the phrase 'I bite!', signed by Pyrrha. Overall, Aldric got the same feeling he had when he'd broken his arm once, back home, and everyone signed the cast.

Aldric shook his head. "Is this _permanent_ paint, Pyrrha?" He asked, "I shower with this thing, you know."

She grinned, as he twisted it into place. "No. Ruby's rose and Yang's contribution may be a bit harder to wash off than everything else - they each used spray paint before Weiss could stop them - but everything else should come off in time." She shrugged, "we wanted to do something special for you."

Aldric let out a long breath of air, "well consider me feeling special." He flexed his robotic fingers, "you check in with Jaune?"

Pyrrha nodded, "Ren and Nora are with him now. I was going to go there next, is there anything you need?" She asked.

Aldric shook his head, "nah, I'm armed now, so I'm good."

Unfortunately, his immature attempt at humor flew over Pyrrha's head, and with another nod and a warm smile, she vacated his room, and Aldric sensed her head down the hall to Jaune's. When the night came around, the Doctor returned to swap out Aldric's bandages and give him another check over, and when he declared Aldric fit enough to leave, he gave him a bag of pill bottles, instructed him on when and how to use them all, and sent him on their way, bringing Aldric to the here and now.

He wasn't going back to Beacon, but rather the Garden. He was using his White Cane, his lightsaber hilt missing from its end, as less of a visual replacement and more of a walking stick. He entered the Garden, which was astonishingly close to the Green Line, he realized, and checked in with the concierge, using her and his radar to locate Cinder and Mercury. Descending the levels, he made a brief pit stop with the prosthetist to place the order for Jaune's arm, telling him to make it the same as Aldric's, minus the chainsaw. Then he made it to the hotel rooms and navigated his way to Cinder's.

He knocked thrice, and on the third knock, she had the door open, a knife hidden behind her back, which vanished in a shower of embers when she realized it was him.

"Aldric." She breathed, "it is good to see you are alive." She stepped back and opened the door.

"Oh, if you were one of my nurses, you'd be saying something different."

She frowned, "why?"

Aldric grinned, tapping at a swollen portion of his mouth, "I was bored and fooling around..." He said, walking into the room. "Might have... Done something stupid." He still tasted the iron taste of blood in the corner of his mouth, but he shook his head. "Doesn't matter that much."

She shook her head, "fear and dead men?"

Aldric snorted, "holy shit that one's not going away, is it?" He shook his own head, "I've got something for you." He said, splitting open the plates on his arm, and fishing for one of the smaller spare Power Glove canisters he kept inside.

"Oh?"

"Yup." He removed the canister and fell into a seat, and with a thought, a lightsaber appeared in his hands, however it was different from his - far darker, looking almost scorched, and with two vents sticking out from each side of the top, just below the opening for the blade. "If you saw _that,_ then I assume you saw the sword I was using?"

Cinder nodded, sitting down on the edge of her bed, hands folded in her lap.

"Well... I'm keeping that one. You say 'lightsaber' to someone from my world, odds are that's the first one that comes to mind." He said, clicking the button on this one, and holding it out, as a bright red blade shot out from the top, and then the vents flared to life, two more blades slowly extending, finishing the cross-guard look; but instead of the loud 'zhoom!', it was the sound of a plasma torch sparking to life and burning the air. The blade also flared and wavered, sparking in the air, giving the weapon a serrated look, halfway between a proper lightsaber and a proper plasma torch. "You can have this one, though." He said, as the blade stabilized and quieted down.

Cinder's eyes lit up, both from the bright red reflection of the blade's light, and from her clear desire to possess it, but then she frowned. "How did you make it?"

Aldric grinned, and flicked the blade again, deactivating it, and resting it in his lap. "When I first made my shields with the Power Glove, whenever someone would hit them it would sound like they were punching glass. But around the time I fought Yang, which was when I added color to it, it started sounding like it was made of metal. I didn't _miss_ that change, but it never really registered as something I should've paid attention to. Until I had a criminal amount of time to kill a few weeks ago, and on a whim I took it to a metallurgist. Want to know what I learned?" He asked, "it wasn't made out of light, but metal... A metal that didn't exist on the periodic table."

Cinder blinked, "how is that possible?"

Aldric's grin widened. "He asked the same thing... And I joked and told him 'magic'." Cinder's frown dropped to a shocked, neutral expression, the implication dawning on her. "Yeah - I only realized afterwards that I'd unintentionally been correct. See, I think what happened was I used my powers unconsciously, funneled them through the Power Glove and used them as the fuel and it as a focus to create things from my memories. My proof came when I went back the next day with those claws I like to make, and they too were made of metal, but a different kind." A beat, "I told him I'd looted a meteor and it was in Mistral, to keep him from asking too many questions."

She nodded, "okay." She said, brushing her hair out of her face, "so the swords?"

"Another thing from fiction. I wanted to see if this was a one-off or something I could do intentionally... And if I could create complex machines or only simple instruments. So - " He brandished the crossguard lightsaber. "I did."

A beat, before she sneered. "And 'fear and dead men'." She said, "that came from where you got those swords?"

Aldric clapped his hands, leaned back in his chair and pointed at Cinder. "You know me so well, Hot Stuff." He grinned. "Yeah. The long and short of _that_ is Ozpin was looking desperate for a plan, I dropped him one, and he needed me to buy the navy time to do it."

"You are on speaking terms with Ozpin?" Cinder intoned, cautiously.

"Hell the fuck no!" Aldric laughed, "well, yeah." He shrugged, "kind of. You make the reputation I do... Second in the class, he tends to take notice... And I'd just finished turning Pyrrha Nikos into a living Rail Gun to take out some of the jets. That kind of stuff doesn't escape notice, even in a warzone. He asked what I thought, and I told him."

"Do you think you are at risk?" Cinder asked.

Aldric shook his head, "might be in a better spot now than I've ever been. If you got 'fear and dead men' down here, imagine how fast it's spreading through Beacon. Might be able to use that." He shrugged, "but back to the sword. See, I intend to give it to you - shit, you can have it now." He plucked it out of his lap and tossed it to Cinder, who caught it deftly. "But I am hoping for a little something in return. Call it back to our talk after the Maiden, about trust." He nodded, locking his new eyes with Cinder's.

"You want to know what happened." Cinder surmised, crossing her legs and examining the hilt. "The button, here?" She at least didn't do like Luke Skywalker did and look right down the lethal end of the device.

"Mhm." Aldric grunted, "just uh... Be careful. That's _plasma,_ ionized fucking plasma. Same shit that makes up the sun. So it'll cut through anything, aura or not, I'm pretty sure." He said, "a knob down on the bottom, flip it to the left and it'll be on safe mode, but less lethal. To the right, and it's lethal like nobody's business." He leaned back in his chair, "and, yes. I know my people have some wicked advanced tech in comparison to yours, at least when it comes to leaving their planet... But we aren't anywhere _fucking near_ leaving our solar system, or going to another goddamn universe entirely. So I've been thinking a lot as to how it could have happened... And then I remembered something." He frowned, though his tone was still civil.

"Oh?"

"I marked up the flight manifest during that week before you guys came for me. Burned the bodies and marked off every one I found. There were five names left, including mine, that coincided with bodies I never found." He explained, "so four other Masters potentially out there. And since I'm pretty sure we haven't found the other Maidens... That means the only people who could have opened up inter-universal wormholes would have been those Masters... And from what I've seen, Ozpin and his ilk aren't the kind to go cracking into other universes and wrecking shit...

"Now I trusted you when you said you didn't know anything at the time." Aldric said, "but it's been a week since then, and I know you've got ways of talking to Big Boss that don't need scrolls and the CCT... So have you learned anything since then?" He asked, earnestly. "Anything at all about why I had to cut through at _least_ thirty terran soldiers? Why there were navy ships and jets hammering the shit out of Vale?"

To his surprise, Cinder nodded, but her answer made his blood run cold. "Not Vale."

Aldric blinked, "well where are we then, Vacuo?" He snorted.

"Not _just_ Vale." She explained, straightening her back. "Vacuo... Atlas... Mistral, too. From what I've been told, Vale and Atlas are the only ones who didn't get pushed back to their academies in the first day."

He hated being right.

"I'd be tempted to say that's a war on four fronts..." Aldric said, slowly. "But I get the strangest feeling it isn't just one country slugging it out against Remnant, here."

Cinder shook her head, "I haven't been told everything, but this is part of the plan." She said, "your world's governmental conglomerate... The United Nations? Now that they've a stable and reliable access to this world, they have declared war on Remnant in its entirety. _Everyone_ there is contributing."

"Well... You don't know about the North Koreans, lady. So _most_ everyone." He said, running his hands through his hair. _"How?!"_ He asked, _"why?!"_

"A part of the plan, Aldric." Cinder repeated, coolly. "As powerful as we will become, the more Maidens we capture and the more power we take from them... They are a means to an end." She said, "and reaching that end will take time." She placed the lightsaber to her right, folded her hands, and leaned forward. "Have you read of the Deity Brothers?" And when Aldric nodded, she continued. "They left behind four relics, and beyond the Maidens, those relics are our true goal. They are hidden in the four Academies, and initially." She said, "our intent had been to raise our own army to attack them and find the Relics."

"But?"

"But I learned after speaking with our leader that, while that still is our goal... When we were able to pull your airship to our world, that planned changed. Was adapted. Updated." She explained, "at the time I wasn't aware of how immensely compartmentalized it was. I thought that because I had been told to watch the ship itself, that that had been the length and breadth of the plan."

"But?"

"But others in our group had been instructed to search for survivors in the outlying areas, and if they did, to recruit and train them separately from you, or the other survivors." Aldric wasn't sure, but from the way she was frowning, he wondered if she wasn't sore about this, as if she was mad Salem hadn't trusted her with this part of the plan. "Three of the four names you mentioned."

"There are _three_ other Masters?" Aldric repeated, "what are their names?"

But Cinder shook her head, "she didn't tell me." She said, "she wishes to keep things as compartmentalized as possible, as I said. I do not even know if they still yet live in the face of terran counterattacks, but she told me she intends to use the other Masters, and the terran militaries, to simultaneously attack all four academies. Something we would not have been able to do had we not successfully opened a connection to your world."

Once again, Aldric felt that his being right was becoming less and less of a good thing. "You think we can _do_ that?" He asked. "I thought we wanted to wait until the Vytal Festival."

"And wait we will." She said, with a nod. "We control the flow of the war between Earth and Remnant, Aldric. Earth's greatest strength is in its mountainously higher industrial capacity, but that access is tenuous at best, they do not understand where it comes from or how it remains open. That is why they all cluster so tightly around the wormholes leading to Earth, and stage their entire war efforts from the coasts, from which they can easily retreat back to their ships and through the wormholes again, before they close."

"Are you trying to say if you kill the wormholes they won't just slam shut?"

She nodded, "three incursions we've launched on Earth, and each wormhole required an hour to close once we cut power to them. The stabilized, self-sustaining ones we have opened near the four kingdoms, they will take longer."

"Uh... Incursions?" Aldric tilted his head.

She nodded, "to spark this war, first we opened one connection and dropped Grimm into one of their cities. Then another, with more Grimm... And then a third, we used one of the Masters to construct an Atlesian warship and a robotic force capable of piloting it, and sent that through, with data to suggest that they were responsible for your flight's disappearance, the two Grimm attacks, and that this technology they were using had been leaked to an unknown party."

Aldric gaped at her, "how did you get an entire planet to buy _that?"_ He asked, _"I_ don't buy that!"

"You're privy to the truth, Aldric." Cinder countered, "and your world has nothing else to believe _but_ that. Put yourself in their position, where one day, out of nowhere, an alien force begins attacking you, and then an organized military force arrives later to keep up the pressure." She reasoned, "with no precedent or source of information _but_ what they can obtain, they can only act upon what they have."

Aldric shook his head, "lady, my people are adept at games political _and_ war. They wouldn't dedicate to this attack without something big, and I guarantee you the point would have been brought up -"

"I don't know, Aldric!" She snapped.

Well that shut him up. "Come again?"

"This entire chain of events has surprised me just as much as they have you, and our leader... I am not a part of the decision making process when it comes to the Earth. If this information confuses you, you can imagine how out of my element _I_ am."

"You're out on the field, and Big Boss isn't giving you everything to work with?" Aldric deadpanned, "holy crap, who is running this army?" He shook his head, "how are we supposed to execute a plan with Vytal if the entire goddamn planet is fighting a war against _another_ entire goddamn planet? For fuck's sake, they keep up like they are, Vytal won't even happen!" A beat, "and why even wait until Vytal if Earth is kicking Remnant's _ass_ right now?!" He added, finding himself unable to resist the urge to play devil's advocate.

 _"I don't know,_ Aldric." She stressed again, teeth gritted. "Earth as a whole is being handled by another associate and another Master." She gritted her teeth, "I have only been told to go according to plan and react accordingly."

Aldric let out a long, exasperated sigh. "This makes no fucking sense, Cinder. Let's say... For sake of argument... We slug it out with the terrans for the next... Oh... Three months." He said, waving his hand about. "Let's say that because I'm here, I fuck up their operations in Vale beyond all recognition, and it actually _takes_ them that long. Then let's say that because Atlas is basically Remnant United States - _god_ that's a fight I want to see, by the way." He honestly was willing to bet a few of those glass coins that that was how everything was working out: A few UN Security Council nations to every kingdom, and Earth's military superpower to Remnant's superpower. "- we can assume they're powerful enough to fend off _their_ invasion too and get the terrans to leave. That still leaves two kingdoms out there that may or may not be fully fucking conquered, depending on how many countries donated hardware to this invasion.

"You -" He pointed at Cinder, "are suggesting that at this point we'll cut the portals, and the terrans will cut their losses and fucking _run_ , or risk being stuck in another universe, surrounded by enemies, with no resources or fuel flowing in, for an indeterminate - potentially permanent - amount of time... And I'm having a _lot_ of trouble believing that all of Remnant will just go..." He leaned back and lightened his tone, "... 'Huh... That was weird'..." He shrugged, "... 'let's party!', and then throw a big enormous Vytal Festival. I mean it's _possible..._ But..." He shrugged, "do you see what I mean? Entire planet was just at war, a shit load of people are dead, entire countries would have been thrashed... Sure I _guess_ they'd want the festival to take everyone's mind off of it but... Really."

"I understand and share your concerns, Aldric." Cinder responded, "but the fact of the matter is that neither you nor I have experience in large-scale war... And the two who do are the ones leading the Atlas campaign, and the efforts of Earth and Remnant."

"Cinder..." Aldric leaned forward, "Big Boss' plan seems to be to artificially keep this war going until Remnant is trashed and Earth's dedicated almost all of its defenses here, so she can destroy them _both_ while they're weak. But you all don't know what they're capable of. If we push Earth too far... If we make them think they've been thrown into a corner..." He shook his head. "You may not like what rabbits they'll pull out of the hat." Aldric was almost one hundred percent sure there were already nuclear submarines spread throughout Remnant, that _would not leave_ even if the surface fleets fled through the collapsing wormholes, and he feared for what Earth's contingency plans were if they thought this war would spill back their way.

Worse was that Aldric knew if there was a loyal Master out there, in charge of rattling the terrans and pissing them off, he was certain that this Master had told his handler about nuclear weapons, which meant Aldric had to reveal that card or risk losing trust with Cinder.

So when she tried to head it off with, "I know, Al -"

He interrupted with, "no, Cinder... You _don't."_ He said, "imagine a bomb... More powerful than any you've ever seen. The kind of sheer, unbridled power we've only ever seen in the Maiden before - and _greater_ than hers, even." He said, "imagine this bomb can wipe out an entire city and kill tens of thousands with just one blast." A beat, "and then realize that this bomb I'm describing is one of the weakest we've ever created, that the bombs we have now..." He shook his head, "Cinder, terrifying Earth was a _bad move,_ because this planet? Over here? It's just a place to them, they don't care about it. And if you make them think even for a second that this war could spill back onto Earth, all four kingdoms, all the Maidens... I'd even wager the relics we're looking for - they'll all be wiped out in their entirety, and they won't regret it.

"Because we've shown them that there's life out there - and that it wants their blood." He explained, "we haven't just put the fear of god into them, Hot Stuff - we've put an existential _dread_ in them. They think their way of life and their very existence as a species is going to be threatened by the four kingdoms or the Grimm, respectively. They _will not hesitate_ to use nuclear force if a conventional war doesn't go their way." He raised his hand, "and to head that off at the pass, the reason I never said anything about this bomb is because I don't know how to make one, with or without magic, and I never thought it would be relevant."

She nodded, her orange eyes lowering to the ground as she leaned back on her hands, frowning in thought. "As I said, Aldric... I understand and share your concerns... But the fact of the matter is, we will not know the full extent of her plan until it is concluded, and we can meet with her personally."

He sighed, leaning over and rubbing at his eyes. "Alright... Alright." He nodded, "oh - uh..." He straightened back up, "have a few names. Was going to wait to drop them but with what's going on now... They may want a Maiden sooner, rather than later."

"Who do you have?"

"Front runner is Pyrrha Nikos. Top of her class, good sense of good and evil, strong moral compass, whole nine yards, she'd made a good enough candidate." He said, "I'd say runner up would be one of Goud's teammates, probably Ecru, due to her fighting ability."

"None from the silver-eyed huntress' team?"

"Those chicks have issues, Hot Stuff." Aldric grinned, "you'd get along fine."

Cinder rolled her eyes, "I'm more than willing to test this on you, Aldric." She said, picking up the lightsaber again. "You say this can cut through anything?"

"You've never used a plasma torch, haven't you?" He asked, "fucking things can cut through solid steel like they're not there, and that's just with a tiny jet like we've got on Earth. What you're holding there, that's..." He snorted, "oh man... _Way_ stronger. Generates heat like the sun, you see, so it can feasibly cut through anything, yes... But if you're holding a material with an _enormous_ melting point, or something incredibly dense, then you may be able to defend against it for a little while."

"How about your shield?" Cinder asked, sparking the blade again and briefly filling the air with the sound of burning plasma, "if I am to understand your implication... You drew it from somewhere in your fiction, and from what I've seen of it... Very durable indeed." She held a hand over the hissing red blade, slowly lowering it until it was almost touching it.

Aldric eyed her hand over the blade, "ain't that a question people want answered?" He chuckled, looking back up, as Cinder removed her hand from the blade and deactivated it, "you're about to ask why it isn't hot." And she nodded, "it's been a damn long time since I've read up on my Star Wars lore... But way I understand it, it's... Perpetual." He said, "blade comes up, goes down, and the energy required to sustain it is fed back into the mechanism, meaning it only ever has a physical presence and a net energy expenditure when the field is broken and something touches it." He shrugged, "so... I _guess_ that's how the heat is contained, and we're not being blinded every time it activates. It radiates no energy unless something breaks the magnetic field containing it."

 _"That,_ makes no sense, Aldric."

"Oh, you want no fucking sense?!" Aldric barked, "let me say again that that thing's a stick of superheated, ionized, _plasma!_ You and I should be _blind_ right now - double blind, for me!" He leaned back and laughed, shaking his head. "I pulled it from a sci-fi movie, Hot Stuff. From the _seventies._ "

"Touche." She ran her finger over the ports on the side, "and why these? I did not see anything like this on the blade you used from the footage."

Aldric shook his head, "couldn't tell you. It looks cool?" He shrugged. "I would've given you a carbon copy of mine but..." He shook his head, "I dunno. Tried to make it with the Power Glove, but it never stuck unless I got rid of the original one. Trying to figure out why that is." He shrugged, "So how do you want me to keep playing this game at Beacon, with Earth being an issue now?"

She sighed, and shrugged her shoulders. "Do as I was told: Continue, business as usual."

Aldric chuckled, "alright then. I had an absolutely stupid fucking idea I wanted to run by you." He said, resting his hands behind his head and grinning. "If it works... It may let me locate the Maiden imminently, and may buy us an information source in Ozpin's inner circle." He paused, "aaaaand if it doesn't... Ho boy, I'll have to get the eff out of dodge."

Cinder frowned, and leaned forward, "what idea do you have?"

"I want to tell Ozpin who I am and what I'm doing."

"So you want me to kill you with this." Cinder brandished her new lightsaber in his direction, "is what I just heard." Though there was a light grin turning up one corner of her mouth, as she placed it on the bed next to her.

"Might be a quicker death, I'll admit." He snorted, "but my thought process... At least before Earth got involved... Was that if I did this, and we had Torchwick set up a bunch of false bases around Vale, make it look like he operated out of them and drop information to other false bases, I could act as an informant, gain his trust." He said, "then... What I was thinking, was I'd tip him off about that shit we've got going on in Mountain Glenn. We make sure Torchwick isn't there, yeah, but Ozpin sends a team of Huntsmen in and stops a potential Grimm invasion, and then he'll trust me completely. Especially now with Earth knocking on their door - a Grimm invasion would fuck _everything_ up. Stopping it would be high on Ozzy's priority list.

"I think this works even better now because of what I could represent as someone with more knowledge on Earth than anyone else on Remnant... Especially anyone else on his side." He explained, "and since now we've got the terrans coming in and wrecking shit, generating fear and empowering the Grimm... We could stand to lose Mountain Glenn, and focus more resources on fucking up the Vytal festival." A beat, "hell, we could double down on that Atlas thing and drop the same intel we gave the terrans. Implicate _them_ in the entire reason another planet is blowing us up, but that's an aside." He said, shaking his head. "The endgoal would be to gain his trust and eventually get him to show me where the Maiden is... And whenever we do what it is we're going to do with Torchwick, the White Fang, the terrans, we'll know exactly where to gun for."

To his immense surprise, Cinder was actually considering this. "And what would you do if he instead deigns to take you prisoner?" She asked, giving him a firm glare.

"I've got a few party tricks up my sleeve to disguise me stabbing the shit out of him as a terran missile attack." Not the least of which being him using his powers to actually make enough explosives to level a city. "I haven't tested it out, for obvious reasons, but I'm willing to bet on that thing being strong enough to cleave through aura, easily enough." He added, nodding to the blade next to her.

"You think you can kill Professor Ozpin." Cinder shook her head, "Aldric, you have grown these last few months... But you are not yet that powerful."

"If I had a nickel for every time someone said I couldn't do something because I wasn't strong enough..." Aldric shook his head, "lady, I took on the entire terran military. They're stronger than me. Guess what the difference is." He nodded, "I know how to use what little I have to the greatest effect. Take... For instance... The fact that you haven't noticed I picked up your lightsaber." And he poked her in the back with it, causing her head to snap down to the bed, seeing the lightsaber missing, and then turn around, to find it hovering behind her, just a button-push away from impaling her.

"Is that what it's called?" She asked, plucking it out of the air. "Appropriate." She turned back to face him, "offer one hand and arm the other."

Aldric blinked, staring at her with a dumbfounded expression. "I said it earlier, hot stuff. Losing your memory?"

"No, I've just learned to tune you out."

Aldric rolled his eyes, "well it's not my only idea, either. There's this other movie I loved. Long and short of it was this government organization that dealt with and kept secret the presence of aliens on Earth, and they did so with these things that let 'em wipe peoples' memories... I'd love to mess around with that one day, but I'm not sure if I'd have the chance to use it on Ozpin, with how much danger I'd be in." He shook his head, "Point being: You don't get as far as I have now through raw, overwhelming power. You need skill in order to use it effectively." He nodded at her, "you could probably kick my ass six ways from sunday even as I am now."

"Are you intimating you think you are stronger than I?" Cinder gave him a coy grin.

But Aldric stood his ground, "in raw power, sure." He said, "since we're assuming I've got the same power as the wizard who gave his powers to the Maidens, it's not too much of a stretch to assume I have that kind of raw power inside of me, whereas you have a quarter of it." He said, "buuuuuut... I've already made my stance on power versus skill clear. You actually know how to consciously _use_ yours, whereas the best I've gotten is... A handful of seconds in non-combat conditions."

Cinder blinked, "you've accessed your powers? Without the glove?"

Aldric grinned, "I told you I had some party tricks up my sleeve, Hot Stuff." He said, "but back to point, you outweigh me completely in skill. You've fought far longer than I have, and know how to use your powers better. So while I should be stronger than you on paper, in reality?" He shook his head, "you'll kick my ass - ah, don't you fucking deny it."

She nodded her head to the side, at that. "This is what I shall do. I will contact our leader again, tonight, and inform her of your plan." She explained, "after which I shall contact you with instructions, and if we move forward with it, we shall coordinate with what information we shall give, when, and how."

* * *

Aldric's return to Beacon granted him the first look at the school he'd had since the battle, days ago. He'd had to take the long way up, riding an elevator as opposed to flying, because he wasn't quite ready to start trusting his aura after all the damage he'd taken during the fight. All of the main buildings had had pieces blasted out of them, and were in varying states of repair and disrepair. The grounds had chunks torn out of them and there were still piles of debris everywhere, though considering the size of some of them, Aldric suspected that they had all sprung up in the wake of the cleaning and repair efforts. Beacon Tower still stood tall and clearly had been given the most attention out of all of them, which Aldric understood: Fixing the CCT tower to connect with the rest of the world took priority. The dorms looked like they had been hit almost as hard as the tower, and as Aldric looked at them, he realized how well his night vision was with these new eyes: He could still see with perfect clarity.

Standing on the landing platforms, Aldric looked from the main tower, to the dorms, the physical manifestations of his duty versus his desire. He could either go to the dorms and get some sorely needed sleep, or ascend the tower and speak with Ozpin. He let out a long, exhausted sigh, and started towards the tower. Only to be stopped hardly even halfway there

by something he hadn't predicted.

"Goud!" He heard Yang call out, just a second before she entered his radar range.

Aldric turned to face her, "Yang, what the fu -" And he stuttered when, upon fully entering radar, he saw what she had hanging from her shoulder: A cinch-bag, inside of which were items intimately familiar and less so. First was a tablet he spent hours each night writing in, and on top of it was his cell phone and the RWBY SD strong box, and then there were three patches, which looked like they'd been torn from uniforms, one of a British flag, one of Russia, and one of China, as well as a few glass Garden coins. In her back pocket was a smart phone, separated from the rest. "- uh... Hell are you doing up so late?" And where the _fuck_ did she get a collection of his stuff and some terran war trophies?

Worse was that, on closer inspection, he realized she was armed, too: Ember Celica, while collapsed, were both secured to her arms, merely waiting for her to clench her fists. "I was going to come down and see you..." Yang called out, as she approached. "Had some questions for you."

Aldric gulped, but kept his posture neutral, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Like?"

"Well, what are _you_ doing up? And out of the hospital, even?"

"I got discharged and I got cabin fever. Not a good combination." Aldric blinked, "wait, did you call me ' _Goud'?!_ " Oh yeah, he knew where this was going.

Yang didn't respond to that, instead saying, "I know you took a few hits to the head, but the student dorms are that way." She nodded over her shoulder, coming to a stop six feet away from him, one hand on her hip, one holding onto the cinch-bag's strap.

"Wanted to talk to Ozpin." Aldric responded, "figured I'd face the music sooner rather than later for my stunt, last week."

"Wouldn't he be in the staff dorms?" Yang asked, looking over Aldric's shoulder. "It's pretty late..."

 _Oh, I know what you're implying, lady._ She was leading him, she was going to accuse him of working with the terrans, and was going to somehow help them target Beacon Tower for another attack. "Well... I _have_ taken a few hits to the head, lady." He chuckled, "what's this about? You're a lot... Quieter, than usual."

Yang's expression didn't change. "You know Ozpin told the students with dorms on the outer edge of the building to move deeper inside?" She asked, "and your room specifically got hit with a rocket. My sister, team, and I spent today helping yours move. I found something under the floorboards. _Hidden."_ She slid the bag off of her shoulder, and then hurled it at Aldric, who caught it deftly, his expression slowly dropping to a frown. "I'm not normally the one to suspect people, Ash... To be honest, it didn't even cross my mind when I saw it at first. But then I was cleaning out my _own_ room, and I found some of the things I'd picked up from the city the other day - things I'd forgotten to give to the VAF garrison so they could study them.

"I turned one of the invader's scrolls on..." She pulled the phone out from her back pocket, "And..." She turned on the screen, and Aldric's heart sank as he was greeted with a picture of Captain America, shield held proudly in front of him.

 _Yup._ Aldric sighed. _Fuck._ "In my defense, I _am_ from-"

"A small village, right?" Yang interrupted, "I thought this guy must have been from the same one... But you told me your village got ruined by Grimm. That there hadn't been many survivors... And I realized you never really talked about what happened afterwards. You were just... There at Chancel. Then you were at the bar where we met... Then you got your arm cut off... And with barely any time to recover, then you came here." She sounded morose as she spoke, almost as if she didn't want to believe the conclusions she was leading them to. "And then add the two scrolls I found in _your_ bag..." A beat, "you know - it _still_ didn't occur to me. Not until Blake saw me looking up the symbols on those coins in your bag and panicked, thinking _I_ was involved with the 'Garden'." She broke eye contact a moment, looking out to Vale, out to the coast, "I didn't know what to do and lied to her, Ash. Told her I'd seen it during the fighting and it just came back to me, and I was wondering what it meant." She turned back to him. "But after that a lot of pieces started falling into place... Enemy technology... Enemy weapons... Weiss herself said your sword doesn't exist anywhere else, not even in Atlas... Enemy _symbols..._ And coins from an underground assassin ring?"

Beat.

"Tell me I'm wrong and I'll believe you, Beebee. Look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong." She pleaded, Aldric noticing a moisture building up in her eyes, as her expression melted into a frown of equal parts fury, pain, and sorrow.

Aldric sighed, and turned to Vale, looking off to the horizon. "His name was the, uh... Strangest thing I've ever heard." He said, "said it was Steve. Steve Rogers. I _still_ sometimes try to find the color in it." He'd have to improvise better than the cast of Who's Line if he'd want this to work. "The - shield was his. Scrolls too." He said, jostling the bag. "He was rolling through our village round about when the Grimm attacked. I was chatting him up, 'cause I'd seen him spar with some of our guards and I was trying to figure out how he'd bounced it off of three different guys and caught it again like it was no big deal.

"Now, to condense several long and terrifying hours, by the end of the day, the village had been destroyed, I was hiding outside of it, and covered in a shit load of blood, with most of it _his._ " He said, "he fought the entire day, but the Grimm never stopped coming. He took one hell of a cut to his gut, and that inspired him to take the first person he could see and _run._ " He shrugged, "guess who won that lottery?" Yang's expression was softening, and the previously tense grip on the smartphone slackening. "I tried as best I could with the stuff he had on hand to bandage him up... Bought him... A _day..._ Ish." He said, with a shrug. "Long enough for him to give me his shield, said the 'old girl' would keep me safe. He told me to take his stuff, and go to this place in Mistral proper, called 'The Garden'. Give them his name and one of the coins, and they'd take care of me. Said if I ever ran out, the shield would fetch a _lot_ of coins, and the scroll would too... But I kind of lucked out.

"Ember saw this... Scrawny, half-starved kid, with a shield strapped to his back, so big that it looked like a red, white, and blue turtle shell. So short that he couldn't reach up to the desk to give the bemused concierge the shiny coin in his hand. She bought my way in and gave me food. She knew Steve, and said that if I promised to do some work for her when I grew up, she'd take care of me."

Yang blinked, "Ember - your sugar - the woman at the bar?"

Aldric nodded, "see... I haven't been lying to you guys, just haven't been giving you the full truth. It was a summer job... But also a fall, winter, and spring job, too. Whenever I wasn't in Chancel, I was watching her back. I'd graduated that year, and she brought me here to Vale. Saw you wrecking shit, and thought you'd be a good benchmark for if I should go to an academy or if I was good enough as-is." A grinned, "turns out, the answer was yes to both... The latter 'cause I won, the former 'cause I _also_ won, just not that fight, and not nearly as spectacularly." He turned to her, and then indicated his myriad of injuries, noting that the suspicion and hurt from earlier were being crushed by relief and concern, as she closed the gap between the two.

 _Is there no fucking end to the things I can lie my way out of?_ Aldric wondered, as his gunmetal gray, cybernetic orbs locked onto the violet eyes reflecting the moonlight.

"And to answer your unspoken question... I'm going to speak to Ozpin, not to try and spearhead some kind of attack, but because I think, because of Steve, I might know something about our enemy." Aldric continued, "you ever heard of a place called America?" Yang shook her head, "well... Steve and Ember said it was hidden away. I asked where, but they only ever said 'to the west'. A land clear of Grimm, but also without any Dust, whatsoever - my sword is based off of the ideas this American, they said his name was Lucas, had a few decades ago. They were never able to make it, since they didn't have the Dust to power it, but I could, since I had access to it. So when the invaders came -" Aldric turned to, and pointed out towards the horizon, with Yang following his gaze. "- and I recognized some of their iconography, I knew we were in for some trouble. That I may not have much on them, but anything is better than nothing.

"I promise, Yang. You were over reacting. I'm not working with those people. I'm not some spy, and I'm not trying to... Destroy Vale." He said, with a shrug of his shoulder. "I'm just the right guy in the wrong -" _Crack!_

Aldric felt and heard the bullet whiz by, and in the time it took him to blink, Yang fell to the ground, gasping for breath as she pressed both of her hands to her freely bleeding hip. The second Aldric registered the blood pouring out from between her fingers, he felt white hot pain lance through his sternum, and he stumbled back, coughing, as his gaze shot up -

And he saw five men in dark clothing, crouched down low and surging forward, one of the sound suppressors on their rifles smoking.

Once again, Aldric found himself becoming increasingly aware of how often his being _right_ was a bad thing. Case in point: During the fighting for Vale, he'd been worried out of his mind that it had actually begun days or even weeks _earlier,_ with special forces scouting out the city and painting targets for drone, jet, and missile strikes, and that even if they pushed the terrans back, their special forces would still be there, likely paving the way for an even more devastating counterattack.

And would you look at that: He and Yang both had holes in them, and if the patches she'd recovered were any indication, Aldric was either staring down a squad of Terran special forces.

 _"You..."_ Aldric coughed, feeling some blood trail back up his throat, _"fucking..."_ He grunted, as he rushed towards and stood over Yang, raising his arms in a defensive posture. _"Assholes!"_

 _"Put your hands on your head!"_ He heard one of the commandos call out, in an English accent, as the five of them, Aldric, and Yang, were all lit aglow by the bright moonlight, which was slowly finding itself choked by the gathering clouds above.

"You guys... Fuckin' know... How this went last time." Aldric said, with a clench of his fist, as Yang squirmed beneath him, trying to crawl behind him and out of the way, but paralyzed by the foreign feeling of an injury literally bleeding through her aura shields.

Unfortunately, his attempt at intimidation was interrupted by a cough, that sent a dollop of blood flying out of his mouth. He and the five commandos each looked down at the speck of blood that landed on the ground, before going back to eying eachother. Aldric tried to reach out for their explosives as he had done at the docks, but the combination of the medicine, his previous injuries, and now his new one, meant he didn't have access to most of his tricks, and he could do nothing but posture defensively, as one soldier took a threatening step forward.

 _"We have time."_ Said the soldier, from behind his rifle. _"You and your friend there don't."_ He indicated Aldric, whose shirt was sticking to his chest from the blood, and Yang, whose hands were now red with her own blood, which streaked underneath her on the ground. _"Come with us. We'll getcha medical attention. Treat you according to our rules of war and yours."_

Aldric gritted his teeth, glaring at them as he tried to think of a way out of this, but unarmed, outnumbered, outgunned, and healthy as he was - or wasn't, as the case may be - meant he had few options, and even fewer feasible ones.

The commando seemed to know what he was doing, _"most of the staff here are down there."_ He nodded to the west, _"watchin' the front. No one's comin', and we're willin' to wait."_

 _Think... Think..._ But even as Aldric tried, he knew that most solutions would require something creative, and he was in no state to be creative, at the moment.

So instead, he picked his battles, slowly straightening up. "Let me help her first."

 _"Negative, kid. We know about the nanites."_

"Sure you do." Aldric sighed, looking down at Yang, who was glaring up at him, her expression having regained the distrust he'd worked to lie away, but now being mixed with something new: Fear. He saw the fear of a wound she wasn't sure of the mortality of, fear of the man standing above her, of the men standing in front of them, and of what the outcome of this would be. "Welp... I know you don't... But I need you to trust me." He breathed, as he collapsed to his knees, the blood loss and pain finally getting to him.


	40. Moral Event Horizon

Chapter 39

* * *

Aldric woke up in a nondescript room with a mattress in the corner, and white walls only broken by a door on the other side of his room, and a camera above the door. He groaned and straightened up, finding, in short order, his chest covered in more bandages, his left arm missing _again,_ a muzzle on his mouth, blinders on his eyes, thick earmuffs on his arms, and his right arm handcuffed to the wall.

 _God damn..._ Aldric thought, leaning up against the wall. _People don't fuck around... Where the - fuck._ Stretching out his radar pulse, he found that the SAS had picked him up, but based on all of the Cyrillic lettering everywhere, he'd been dropped off on a _Russian_ ship.

 _Smart... Move, actually._ He thought, as he searched for Yang. _I bet they've got a copy of the manifest from the flight... They ID'd me, and know I don't speak anything but the Queen's English._ So on the off chance he broke out, he wouldn't be able to steal anything useful from the ship.

The good news, fortunately, was that Yang was elsewhere on the ship. The bad news was that she was in even more restrictive bindings than he, on account of her having both arms and thus being capable of being fitted into a straight jacket. She was currently being worked over by the ship's Captain. But, there was one other piece of good news: They had taken his arm and his weapons, yes, but he wasn't disarmed. Earlier in the day he had made a joke to Cinder about the nurses of the hospital probably wishing he had died, but hadn't explained why. The reason why was the same reason he still tasted blood and his mouth was still a little sore: Thoroughly convinced that he never wanted to be disarmed ever, ever, ever again, Aldric had decided to ensure that even if his arm was stolen and his spare Power Glove canisters were gone, he'd always have just a little Power Glove on him.

He'd done so by taking a few more pain killers than he should have, used his semblance to tear one of his teeth out of his jaw, and replace it with a white hardlight shell the same size and shape of the tooth, but containing a small colony of Power Glove nanites inside of it. Even with the painkillers, it had hurt like _hell,_ and that had tripped his heart-rate monitors and scared the shit out of his nurses when they ran into his room and saw what they thought was a rookie huntsman tripping so many balls that he'd torn his tooth out of his jaw.

But, who was laughing now?

Definitely not the Russians he'd be cutting in half, especially since they'd given him a good night's sleep and medical attention. So while he wasn't at full power, he had far more access to his semblance than he'd had when he had been shot.

This in mind, Aldric pulsed his semblance and broke his restraints, and then again to destroy the camera watching him. Aldric slipped the blinders, mask, and ear muffs from his head and pried the fake tooth out of his mouth, dumping the nanites into his open palm, before replacing it in his jaw.

 _Well... I can't eat this ship. At least not initially... I doubt Yang would like being dropped into the water, ass naked, like the rest of them._ He thought, as he made the replication command and waited for the nanites to build to a respectable size, just as he sensed soldiers thundering through the brig towards his room, and the Captain being interrupted in his interrogation of the blonde huntress. _And I've still got to deal with her, actually..._ He frowned, as the nanites finished replicating and he covered his hands with them. _But, first things first..._ He'd long since figured out he couldn't make two of the same object exist at the same time with the Glove - the second one would take on the wireframe appearance, which he had concluded would mean it would lose its magical properties.

So, in the event that he'd given Kylo Ren's lightsaber to Cinder, and lost access to his Anakin Skywalker lightsaber, he'd crafted a third, last-resort blade, which appeared in his hand now, as the Russian Marines stacked up on his door, and in the time it took him to blink, they threw a thick smoke grenade inside. He grinned and took in and held a deep breath as the thick black smoke filled the room. The Marines waited until visibility was zero before they streamed inside, but they found themselves immediately slammed against the wall, each with a loud grunt of pain, causing the marines outside to back up from the door and indiscriminately open fire.

His shield still MIA, Aldric had to make due with what he had, and brought his closed fist back to his chest, bringing the three struggling terrans close to him, as bullets streamed into the room through the door and the walls. His human shields struggled and then twitched and grunted in pain as bullets began pelting them, and Aldric gave them a sympathetic nod of the head.

"What's Russian for 'I'm sorry'?" He croaked, before the gunfire finally stopped.

He lightly dropped his shields on the ground, and stepped in front of the door leading to the rest of the brig. He heard hushed voices speaking in a language he couldn't understand, no-doubt trying to figure out if he was still alive. Well, he answered that question by filling the air with a loud _zhoom,_ and a bright green glow. He then thrust his hand out and with his semblance, grabbed the rifles of the soldiers in front of him, and then tore them away as he stalked forward, slowly letting his breath out and swinging his green pillar of plasma left and right, carving through the chests of the Marines to his right and left, and then thrusting forward, impaling the final one in the center.

Then, them dead, Aldric pulsed his semblance again, and the air was cleared of the smoke, allowing him to see his handiwork. Three dead with grievous, still glowing burns, and three dead from friendly fire.

 _More dead... My people. My hand._ Aldric frowned, feeling his heart slowing down as the weight of his actions threatened to fall onto him, but just as he'd done in the hospital, he pushed these thoughts as far away as he could and stalked on, aware of the blood covering his face and the red staining his bandages, but doing nothing about it.

He heard shouts from voices nearby and over the ship's intercom, and sensed people in corridors and hallways running to and fro, no doubt arming themselves or fleeing from him. He kept Yang in view of his radar as he reached the gate that led out of the brig, and with a swing, he melted the lock and then kicked the barred door open.

An armed Marine swung around the corner and opened fire with loud barks from his rifle, but found himself horrified when Aldric just kept walking, the bullets stopping around them and flattening themselves, as though they had hit a brick wall. Aldric dropped them all at once as the Marine backed up, his grunts of fear filled the air as Aldric pinned him against the wall merely by pointing the saber in his general direction, and looked left out of the brig, to a group of fierce-looking soldiers, three crouching on their knees and three standing above them, all pointing rifles at him.

"You have bomb in chest!" One shouted out in a thick accent.

One pulse from his semblance told him the man was bluffing, so Aldric said, "no I don't." And poked the sword through the throat of the man to his right, leaving his head attached to his body by two thin strips of skin, one of which tore when the man fell to the ground.

The men in front of him opened fire, but these bullets met the same fate as the first Marine's. One launched a grenade, but found that it didn't even make it two feet past the barrel, not even giving it time to arm.

"I swear to god, boys..." Aldric said, stalking forward. "You give me the girl and our stuff, and we'll leave like nothing happened." He brandished the lightsaber, "you don't, and I can't be held responsible for what I do next." Their response was to abandon trying to reload their weapons and instead draw knives.

He'd give them some credit: They had balls.

They didn't have arms, though, because he cut them off in due course, followed by their heads, and as he walked over their bodies, one Russian rushed down the stairs leading up to the next level of the ship, spraying shotgun shells everywhere. These ones hit his barriers harder than the bullets from the rifles, but Aldric kept on forward, his frown deepening to a scowl as he cleaved the rifle in two and then knocked the Marine out with a chop to the back of his head, leaving him to tumble down the stairs as Aldric climbed up.

 _"Goud Etiolate!"_ He heard over the ship's intercom; a quick look with his radar pulse told him the Captain was in the bridge, surrounded by men with guns, and with one to a struggling and heavily bound Yang's head, as he looked down at a computer screen, showing Aldric from the point of view of a nearby camera. _"Stop this at once or we will -"_ Aldric decided to get a little creative, and used his semblance, from deep in the bowels of the ship, to force the captain to put his gun to his own head.

"I have a better idea." Aldric said, looking up to a camera as he passed by, though well aware he may not be able to defend himself as easily, keeping this up. "You give me the girl, and our stuff, and we'll leave without killing any more of your boys!" He thundered, as the soldiers surrounding the Captain turned on him, lowering their weapons and trying to figure out what he was doing and why.

 _"If it is you doing this to me, I warn you that if I die my men will kill her themselves!"_ He heard the Captain's unflinching voice call out.

"Fair enough." Aldric responded, before turning the others' rifles on them. "Check."

The Captain was silent long enough for Aldric to find another stairwell and ascend another level; he ran into another group of Russians, but when they didn't fire first, even after he took a step towards them, he let them be and continued onwards, though he did destroy their weapons. _"Goud Etiolate, if I do not report in, in the next two minutes, an American Nuclear Submarine will launch upon Vale. Consequences be damned."_ Though at least Yang had the presence of mind to _book it_ now that there weren't any guns on her.

Aldric _knew_ what this ballsy motherfucker was doing: Trying to trip him up by mentioning a nuke, and getting an appropriate reaction. So Aldric responded with, _"I don't know what that is!"_ At the top of his lungs, and continuing his trek through the tight, blue-floored corridors of the Russian carrier. He could sense sailors hiding behind their sealed hatches, some with guns on them, waiting for him to try and break through, and likely praying he would just pass them by.

 _"Yes you do, Goud Etiolate."_ Said the Captain, _"the SAS heard your conversation with Yang Xiao Long. We all saw your attack on our attack force. You are **holding** a relic of our fiction. You know what that is and you know what it will do."_

The guy was calling his bluff, and to make matters worse, word had spread that he was ignoring everything not on the path to the next staircase, so when he made it to the next one, he found it guarded by no less than a dozen soldiers, and they opened fire on sight. He wasn't willing to bet on his barriers at the moment, and immediately ducked back behind the corner, pinned down.

 _"If you heard!"_ Aldric screamed over the gunfire, " _our conversation!"_ It began to die down, as they heard him speak. _"Then you know what my position on all this is!"_ He brandished his saber at the camera, _"I got the idea for half this shit from the chick that brought me up!"_ He took two quick breaths, and then bolted around the corner, hurling himself at the group of Marines and tearing into them in a shower of sparks and green light.

He took a few rounds for his trouble, and when he was done he had to physically dig into his gut with his semblance and carefully remove one of the bullets that hadn't gone all the way through; the precision required for this made him have to drop a few of the Captain's guards, and he immediately ordered them to find Yang or kill him. Yang, meanwhile, was blindly sprinting through the ship with a pistol she'd stolen from one of the Marines on the bridge.

Groaning in pain, Aldric ascended the stairs as the Captain spoke again. _"We believe her, Goud Etiolate. You are lying."_ He said, as Aldric reached the level of the ship with the armory, and started towards it, seeing a safe inside with his arm, and Yang's gauntlets.

"It's just like I told her, strange man. It's a motherfucking coincidence." He growled.

 _"Then tell us the name of the man you took these from."_ The Captain demanded, redoubling his efforts in struggling against Aldric's telekinetic hold, inspired by the two having seemingly broken free.

"I'll tell you what I told her - it was Steve Rogers!" _That_ got the Captain's attention, so much so that he stopped struggling against Aldric.

 _"A strangely familiar name, isn't it?"_ The Captain growled, _"and with that shield... And that sword... We **know** what she cannot **prove."**_ The man threatened.

"You want to keep going like this? Let me ask you something - are you watching me?" Aldric asked, as he rounded the corner and carved through the thick metal door leading to the armory, where the quartermaster held a rifle in each hand, both leveled on him. "You've got balls, dude." Aldric nodded, raising his sword. "But you don't have brains." And he flicked the sword to his right like a conductor's baton, and made the man shoot himself. "That!" He raised his voice, "that is what will happen if you don't let us off this ship! You'd be _amazed_ how easy it is to get people with that!" A beat, "case in point..." And he smacked the Captain with his own gun, but he was starting to feel the strain of holding so many people for so long, perspiration was beginning to accumulate on his head.

When the quartermaster fell to the ground, Aldric sheathed the green blade and called his arm, and Yang's gauntlets over to him.

"Seriously, Cap. You let us off this ship and all this - _all_ of it! - will stop!" He gasped, as grabbed his arm.

 _"I find it difficult to believe you... When we have seen your tablet. We broke your code, Mister Al-"_ With a small amount of panic, Aldric closed the Captain's throat, just long enough to get him to shut up; though considering how he started convulsing, he was pretty sure it was a painful process.

 _"Fuck..."_ He whispered, twisting his arm into place. It made sense, though: Aldric wasn't a cryptologist, any code he wrote in would more or less _instantly_ be broken by someone dedicated and experienced enough. "Captain... If you keep talking... I'll have to do something we both will regret." He said, turning up to look at the armory's camera as he let the man breathe again; this could not have gone worse. First Yang had found his stuff, then suspected him, then he'd lied to her to clear that suspicion, and not two seconds later he was caught in those lies, and now she had his exchange with the captain as _proof_ of them, _and_ he had an entire fucking aircraft carrier of pissed off Russian Marines he was going to have to carve his way through, a task that, with his myriad of injuries and steadily depleting stamina, was certainly feasible, he thought, but did not bode well for the fight he'd certainly have with Yang afterwards.

And as he had his staredown with the camera and the Captain, a Marine came sprinting into the armory, stopping at the door and leveling a rifle on Aldric. _"Freeze!"_ He screamed, only to be ignored by his target, who merely ignited his lightsaber and tossed it at him, impaling him in the chest and then snapping it back into his hand, not breaking eye contact with the camera.

Aldric noticed Yang had more or less stopped moving at this point, staring intently at a speaker above her, waiting to hear the Captain's response, even if she was only hearing half of the conversation. The Captain, meanwhile, was frowning at his screen, still struggling against the gun still pointed at his head. Aldric was finding the effort to keep it there growing with every passing moment, it beginning to feel like he was pulling a muscle to keep it going. He also noted that it had been two minutes already, and though his radar couldn't stretch that far, Aldric _could_ still see distant, powerful sources of light - like the rays of the sun, or the beam of a flashlight - even if they were outside his range, and since he didn't see the bloom of a nuclear explosion, he knew the Captain had been bluffing.

 _"Will you kill me, boy?"_ The Captain finally demanded, in a cold voice. _"Will you kill me to finish your mission? To stop us from obeying that woman's will? Will you kill me to avoid having to risk_ your _safety?"_ Aldric frowned. _"If you testified on Earth, **Aldric,** you would be a source of information far more reliable... And far more easily believed than the ship we recovered - the ship you yourself can prove was fake. Sent by our enemy."_ He rumbled into the microphone, his voice broadcast throughout the whole ship. _"You can stop this war in its tracks... Focus the entire might of two... Entire... Planets... Upon one woman."_

"It's not that easy..."

 _"Because of the Masters? The other survivors of your ship? Yes you are perhaps the youngest and weakest... But you could raise an **army** of Masters."_ And there it fucking was. _"We could destroy her in a **day.** Solve this world's problems in a **week.** Solve **our** world's problems in a month!"_ The Captain almost sounded like he believed in it, too. _"No more climate change! No more fuel crises! No more nuclear fallout! No more war! No more famine or disease! No more starvation! We could even leave our planet for others, Aldric!_

 _"But here you are - standing there in my armory."_ And as one, all of the soldiers in the ship started running, even Yang, who followed behind them, staying out of sight. _"Corrupted by the very power you fear... You would kill me, Aldric. You would condemn the lives of our soldiers, of Remnant's people. Of the characters we thought to exist in fairy tales."_ Aldric scowled, turning to the armory's entrance and igniting his lightsaber, rolling his shoulders. _"When you could be the man... Who saved all worlds."_

Aldric shook his head. He knew what the Captain was doing - he was playing him. He wanted to sway Aldric, to get him to give up, to do _everything_ he'd expressed desire for in the Record, so he could be further manipulated into giving terrans access to their power. But to what end, the Captain didn't say, not really. This war would be ended, yes. They'd save Remnant, kill Salem, yes. They'd sweep across Remnant like a tidal wave and destroy _all_ of the Grimm - each and every single one of them - assuredly.

 _But..._ Thought Aldric, as he sensed every single man with a gun on the ship charging down and up to his level.

But what if he _did_ say yes?

With the entire planet Earth on his side, there wasn't a chance in hell they would _lose_ this war. He would have everything - literally everything - he would ever need: Earth's scientific knowledge and infrastructure, Remnant's militaries, and the means to obtain the entire collective resources of _two planets,_ and indeed an arsenal of such lethality and power that the chance for him, personally, to lose, would close to almost nothing. He could _stop_ this war between Earth and Remnant, stop the senseless, needless bloodshed. He could force Earth to leave Remnant - convince them to put on the face that they will only wage their war defensively, that these attacks were shows of force. He had the chance to force Salem's hand and _make_ the White Witch go with the plan he needed her to, to give him the chance to find her.

If he took this Captain's offer, victory wouldn't just be possible, it would be guaranteed. The lives he _desperately_ wanted to save, _would_ be.

But what happened after that?

How could he avoid the _wars_ that would inevitably follow? How could he avoid having to give the entire population of terrans access to their powers? How could he avoid the resource-starved first world countries of Earth access to a nigh-untapped _paradise_ on Remnant? How would he save _those_ lives? How would he prevent _that_ future?

His face twisted in equal parts sorrow, fury, and helplessness, he realized he knew exactly how. The only way he could have his cake and eat it too, would be if he made it the last metaphorical cake he'd ever eat. He'd have to cut Earth off entirely from Remnant, he'd have to go there and personally seek out and recover or destroy _all_ of the Roman Dust in the world. He'd have to kill each and every single Master on Remnant, and any terrans who refused to go home, and close the portals to Earth. He'd have to stay where all the Dust in the known universe was to make sure it was never used again to connect the worlds. He'd have to stay on Remnant.

Forever.

His expression turned to one of such an existential torment and agony that could only well up from one's heart and soul, as his breath came faster and faster, because he knew he had to. He couldn't do anything else.

 _He_ had to. No one else.

He _had_ to. There was no choice.

It was the only way to get it done without risking _everything - **literally** _ everything - in the process. Because if he didn't, if he refused the Captain, he would put at risk more lives than he could save if the man were telling the truth - and wasn't that, in and of itself, the one thing he'd used to justify everything he'd done so far? Saving more lives than would be ended?

So Aldric fell to his knees, his blade sheathing with a zip, and he let go. The Captain, his soldiers, they all collapsed as the ground shook underneath Aldric's knees. Aldric sensed the Captain recover quickly and lunge for the phone, he didn't understand what was said, but he didn't need to, as he sensed soldiers and marines stopping dead throughout the ship.

A phone rang, Aldric turned to look at it, as the rumbles and shakes beneath his knees died down. It was a landline phone hooked onto the wall, and it felt like it took all of Aldric's strength to get to his feet and drag himself over to it. He sensed soldiers stacking up and taking position around the armory, just _waiting_ for the word to go in and kill him.

Aldric picked up the phone, feeling an emptiness in his chest, the kind that came when one knew they were making a horrible decision, that they knew would set them down a path they didn't want to be on, but they had to make anyway - because it was the right thing to do.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, hardly any strength in his voice.

 _"I know, my boy. I_ know." Said the Captain, though Aldric was so lost at this point that he honestly didn't know if the warmth in the man's voice was genuine or not. _"I did not lie, Aldric."_ He continued, his deep, accented voice now right in Aldric's ear, rattling around his very soul.

What was left of it, at least.

 _"I read your 'Record'. I have seen your struggles as you have struggled through them. You are a very strong and very brave man... Forced into a very terrible position. But you are making the right decision."_ A beat. _"Your father would be proud."_

"This..." Aldric croaked. "If... If we do this." He murmured into the phone, his body trembling. "I need to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it's being done for the right reasons. I won't..." He forced back tears. "I..." His voice wavered, "I won't... Give... _Anyone... **Any** thing..._ If I suspect national interests behind it." He said. "This isn't... One nation or the other. It's not..." He shook his head. "It's not about rivalries, or anything the like. I need you to understand that."

 _"Of course."_ He _sounded_ earnest, at least.

"And let me be clear." Aldric swallowed. "I already _ate_ one aircraft carrier, and I've already cut down a good dozen of your men." He said, gaining enough steam to make it at least _seem_ like he'd recovered from his existential crisis. "If you fuck me on this... I swear to god, Captain, I'll fight with _them,_ and I'll kill _you_ last."

He sensed the Captain smile, _"I would expect nothing else, my boy."_

"We'll talk more when I've dealt with the girl." He said, before hanging the phone.

Aldric took a second to himself, closing his eyes and taking a long, deep breath. He didn't let himself think anything for as long as he did so. As he took this moment, he heard the Captain's voice over the intercom, speaking some rapid-fire Russian, and then he heard a _lot_ of angry shouts and pissed off grunts. No doubt the Captain had just dropped the bomb: Aldric was a friend now.

He let out his breath, and opened his eyes. Back in the safe he grabbed the few items he hadn't deemed important in his mad-dash to get rearmed, and slid on his shirt and his boots. Exiting the armory - cautiously, as he simply did not fully trust either the Captain or his men to keep to their word - he was greeted by a lot of _furious_ glares, which he understood: How many had he _just_ killed? How many of their friends? But he counted himself lucky he was only greeted by fire in the eyes, and not from a gun.

But he ignored them, he felt out with his senses and found Yang in seconds. She was doing the only sane thing in an insane world, and was obeying instincts ingrained from a time where a human's safety was determined by their ability to climb trees: She was going up. The stairwell she'd found and the route she was going was leading her straight to the flight deck, but Aldric had a faster method. He found the first door to the outside and was immediately assaulted by the rapidly growing monsoon outside; he stepped over a railing and flew up to the flight deck, and just as Yang got outside and found herself surrounded by Russian Marines, he landed on the deck, quickly finding himself soaked.

He caught Yang's furious, red eyes as he came in for a landing, and she only grew angrier when she saw her gauntlets clipped to his belt, next to the hilt of his blade, but she blinked when Aldric stepped up to the Marines and placed his hands on their rifles. He pressed down, trying to impart upon them that the situation was under his control. They all exchanged glances, before slowly following his lead and lowering their weapons, backing away cautiously.

Aldric approached her, hands held out, non-threateningly. "The irony here, Yang, is that you made your suspicions true by confronting me about them."

Yang clenched her fists tightly, but Aldric noticed the red fade from her eyes. "These people... They're not from our world." She called out, slowly.

"No." Aldric shook his head.

"Are _you?"_

"No." He called back.

She let out a hollow breath, before she gulped. "Did you lie to us because you... You led them here? To win?"

"No." Aldric shook his head again, now less than a foot from her.

"But how can I trust you?!" She demanded, rage flooding her voice. "How can I believe you, when you..." Yang called out over the monsoon. "Right there, at Beacon, you lied to my face!" She called out, fists shaking in anger, and violet eyes narrow in fury and betrayal. "Was _anything_ you've said to me true, Ash - no, what did that man call you? Aldric?! Or did he find another lie and _that_ isn't even your name!?" She demanded, still standing underneath the cover of the bridge above her, leading her to be high and dry, versus Aldric, soaking wet. "What -" She shook her head, "what is it, you _bastard?!_ How far does this go? Were you responsible for all of this?! For what's happening in Vale, right now?! You led them here - or..." She shook her head, "worked with the people who did, and you did _nothing_ to stop it!"

Aldric scowled. "No I didn't, Yang. You don't know what I know, and you don't know what I've done, or why." He was trying to reman as calm as he could, considering the situation, but he could feel the anger and frustration of a lot more than just tonight simmering up, threatening to lash out. "I can tell you with absolute certainty - I can _swear_ to you that I had _nothing_ to do with this invasion!" He called out, "everything I've done has been to stop something like this!"

"And how well has that worked out?!" Yang demanded, stepping forward, her boots making splashes in the standing rainwater on the flight deck. "How much damage have you caused? How many lives have you ruined?!" She clenched her teeth in fury, hair growing matted against her head as it was now beset upon by the intense rainfall. "How many you've _ended,_ on our side and theirs?!"

"Don't you -" Aldric bit back a scathing five-letter word. "I know what I've been involved in, I haven't forgotten anything I've been responsible for and I never will. I regret every life lost, Yang."

But Yang shook her head, _"DO_ you!?"

Aldric felt his heart skip a beat, "Of _course_ I do, god damn it!" Aldric dropped his hands to the side. "I am..." He gasped for air, suddenly feeling short of breath. "I am _not..._ " But was he really?

And Yang caught onto both his words and his slip-up. "Another lie!" She challenged, "and you _paused,_ right there!" She yelled, picking up steam. "Because you _know_ you're wrong!" She pointed right at him. "You _know_ that you're responsible for all of this! You _**KNOW!**_ And you _lie_ anyway!"

Aldric's teeth groaned, he had his jaw clenched so hard. "If you stop me, Yang, you'll condemn far more lives than I've been responsible for. Now calm down and let me _talk -"  
_

But Yang shook her head, "the last time I _let_ you talk, you lied to my face!" She growled, "now look at you!. Look at how hurt you still are. How many new injuries you've gotten." She said, nodding to the still gasping Aldric, "if you put down _your_ weapon, I'll take you to Ozpin!"

Aldric knew she had a point. He'd barely kept up with their slug match when he'd been completely healthy, and had had his shield. Now, though? With all of these injuries, with the pain meds from the hospital having flooded from his system, and with how tired he was, the only advantage he held was in the fact that the Russians would help him if it came to blows. He had _one_ contingency in mind, but it was ugly. "You do that, Yang, you'll be surprised what happens." He warned. "You're stepping into something _much_ larger than yourself! What's going on here - it's larger than you, me, Ozpin, Vale - fuck, Lady! It's bigger than _their_ world -" He indicated the bridge, looming behind her and above them both, _"- AND_ ours!" He dropped his hand down to indicate her.

Yang scoffed, "do you really think this world is yours?" She demanded, "do you even think _theirs_ is?! You killed people on the docks - and I can see the blood on your clothes! You killed your way through this ship!" She paused, "do you even value them as people?! You only stopped killing when they made you an offer! And now _I'm_ giving you the chance to turn yourself in and you're turning it down! You'd rather let people from both of those places _die,_ like they don't even matter! Like they aren't human beings!" She shook her head, "what about all that stuff you say about sacrificing your life for others? Your team told me about that night in the training hall! Where did that go? Or was that another _lie?!"_

He could feel a heat replacing the chill in his bones made by the rain, the fires of rage welling up from his stomach; but if he was angry because she wasn't getting it, or because he knew, on some level, she was right, he didn't want to find out. Instead, as with always, he found his best defense was to go on the offense, and he shot back with, "au contraire, Yang! You throw my words back at me without understanding them. Nothing has just one meaning, lady! I said I believe that sometimes a life has to be spent to save more." He called out over the raging rain, "I said that I'd sacrifice myself if I had to! _Your_ interpretation, my team's, Pyrrha - _everyone's -_ was one of heroism! But you can turn it right around and realize that it still applies to what _I_ ' _m_ doing! I sacrifice hundreds today for thousands tomorrow. Thousands tomorrow for millions next month! Millions next month for _billions_ in the coming years!" He roared, his defeated expression masked by the deep shadows cast by the lack of light breaking through the rainfall, his coat billowing in the wind and rain. "And if I have to die, I'm willing to! And if I don't, I will _live_ with the guilt of what I've done - and make no mistake about it, despite what I have done and what I will do, I _will_ feel guilt over it all! But what I want to do is to _take_ that evil onto me so someone else doesn't have to!" He fired forth, "or are you saying you'd rather risk the _countless_ lives that I gamble with every day? That you'd rather put your sister in the position where _she_ has to make the choices I make?"

"Don't you bring Ruby into this you asshole - you're rationalizing _genocide!"_ The expression in Yang's eyes melted from one of anger to one of fear and shock.

"That you say that means you and I live in two different worlds, Yang. You live in the light, but I live in the dark - I _work_ in that darkness so the light would shine brighter! I do evil things so people better than me don't have to!" Aldric snapped back, _"nothing_ you say to me isn't something I've already said to myself!" He lowered his arm to the hilt of his blade. "Another time... Another place. Another world..." He gasped, feeling more out of breath now than he had after slaughtering his way through this ship, or his fight on the docks. Even fighting Amber hadn't left him so drained. "If there was just _one_ thing different... God damn, Yang. I'd do it." He said, "I'd believe you. Turn myself in and try to work things out legitimately. But let's count them off, why don't we - you know what - No!" He held up a hand, before pointing to her. "Let's put _you_ in _MY_ shoes! You want to challenge my philosophy? Then let's put the shoe on the other foot.

"First let me tell you _what_ I fight, because I've already done the _why_ of it." He turned towards her and began advancing, the rain howling nearly as loudly as he yelled, "I want you to think back a _long_ time! Before you strapped shotguns to your fists and before your sister started fighting demons with a gardening instrument. To the first time you ever met the Grimm. If someone asked _you,_ you'd say _you_ fight _them,_ but that's a losing game and it's a short-sighted goal. I fight the bitch that _makes_ them, that hijacked the whole process with the tools of _GOD - with a big 'G' -_ and quite literally controls every single Creature of Grimm on this planet.

"But she's not like any run-of-the-mill supervillain, Yang." Aldric growled, as he grew closer, and she retreated a step. "You see, she _learns_ from her mistakes. She _tried_ the 'amass an army of demons and conquer the world' thing before, and the guy in Beacon's tower kicked her ass. So now she's trying a different strategy, going for _quality_ over _quantity._ _Strategy_ over _force._ She's the only person on this whole planet who seems to have gotten it through her head that _skill_ means more than raw power - and while Ozpin and his people have been _sitting,_ doing _nothing,_ letting their victory defeat them, she's been spreading her reach, recruiting people who have power, in both a physical and metaphorical sense. People whose mere _word_ can decide the fate of countries." Now halfway to her, he waved his hand wide, indicating the aircraft carrier, and the Marines a respectable distance away. "People who can not only open portals to another world, but can go so far as to influence _that_ one too!

"She's been gathering these people and has been planning for god knows how long. This ship, these invaders, me, my planet? They're all a part of that plan, and they all serve one goal. You say _I_ rationalize genocide?" And now he was mere feet from her, "you don't even fucking _know!_ She'll kill every _thing_ , and every _one,_ and I shit you not - she knows how to do it! She knows that wars aren't won with armies, but a single blade - or in this case, _four -_ skillfully placed. Everything she does is to gather relics of literal godlike power, and once she has them -" He snapped his fingers. "Gone. Heads, she wins, tails, we lose. I'm not fighting the mindless, idiotic creatures that roam these lands - I'm fighting the wicked witch that coordinates them." He gasped, leering into her violet eyes.

He let a moment pass, before he straightened up and stowed his hands in his sodden pockets. "Now for your choices!" He about-faced and marched away.

"Consider what you've seen of these people." He indicated the ship. "They're a people who don't have Dust to solve all of their problems, Yang, and that's as much of a blessing as it a curse. Alone, someone like you or I could destroy any of them without trouble. But give them time to rally? To pick up the _machines_ they've made for their only universal pursuit - which is _exactly_ what's happened?! Once again let me note the irony of me becoming what you thought I was because you confronted me about it Yang - because if you hadn't, I never would have been able to open a dialogue. Not as fast as I have now, and if I didn't join them, they would kill _everything_ \- you, me, the Grimm, the kingdoms - _EVERYTHING!_

"And then, with the resources of not one - but two entire planets, and the ability to unlock power that only existed in their _religion,_ I guarantee you they would kill themselves! And whoever was left would die out, angry and afraid! So if I refused that man..." He shook his head, breathing heavily. "In the long term I would risk creating a much stronger enemy!" He clenched his fists in his billowing coat, "and then consider Ozpin! If and when he learned I abandoned my planet, what would he think?! Would he have _any_ reason to think I would stay with him, if I was so willing to refuse my _home?_ My _PEOPLE?!_ No! No he wouldn't!

"And that's just _one_ choice, Yang!" He continued, as she remained silent and frowning. "How about if I went with you? If I turned myself in?! The Grimm _feed_ on despair, Yang! Fear, despair, sorrow, loss, regret, anger - all emotions that would well up _en masse_ once word got out that you took me in under suspicion of _spearheading_ a global fucking war! That happens and the Grimm would feel brave, and suddenly both Vale and these people would be fighting wars on two fronts, and they _all_ would lose! People would die, lives ruined - all the things you just damned me for! Worse is that I _guarantee you_ if they lose control of the situation here in Vale - especially to Grimm - _my_ people would use weapons that would literally obliterate the entire fucking kingdom _!_

"So if I turned myself in and worked to right myself morally, this barely stable war would deteriorate in a _day!_ Anywhere from thousands, to millions, to _tens_ of millions of lives would be lost inside a week! An entire kingdom would fall - and because an entire military would have no kingdom to fight - or _three_ if those patches and this ship are any indication - they'd help the others and your world would only fall faster. And without me there to act as an intermediary between my world and yours - not only would they win, but they would _conquer -_ and I think I've already explained what would happen then! Only now it's worse, because there would be even fewer survivors when everything was done! Vale would be a nuclear wasteland - and as opposed to the _chance_ of them surviving earlier, here I guarantee you _everyone_ you know and love would be dead!" He screamed, his voice hoarse. "Tell me Yang - would you make _THAT_ choice?!

"Or maybe door number three?!" He continued, "would you realize that as piss-fucking-poor as this situation is, letting it play out until you can find a better - _LONG TERM -_ solution is preferable to just about everything imaginable! Even if it means lives! Even if it means your soul! Even if it means -" He laughed, shaking his head."- you might have to kill someone you _genuinely_ have come to care about! Because I'm telling you, right here, right now - the _only_ way you get _EVERYTHING_ you say you want. The only way to spare your morals, to not doom multiple planets, is if YOU, _KILL_ , _**ME!"**_ He roared, actually managing to make her relax her stance just a fraction, as he realized he hadn't been threatening her with her life, but had rather been placing his in her hands. "Because that's the third option, Yang!

"If I die, right here, right now, these people, their planet - they'll realize that even _god_ bleeds, and that they can't rely on your Dust and the powers they buy! They'll retreat to their machines and their science, and they _will_ win the war, but so too will they win the next one! The greatest war you or they have ever fought! They will find the very woman that controls and creates _the creatures of Grimm themselves -_ and kill her! _Victory_ in the endless war your people have been fighting since before they crawled out of caves! _Peace,_ at the cost of your freedom! Your technology, and your planet's resources! But they will _fear_ the Dust, enough such that they won't use it to unlock their power! And a new status quo will be found, as they use it to fuel science and industry, and not eldritch abilities!" He roared, "and they _will_ win! No matter what I, or you, or anyone does, they _will!_ I know because these -" He gasped, "these are people who poison their air and water to weed out the weak! Who set off fission bombs in their only biosphere - and who nailed their god to a _stick!_ Your people cower behind walls and survive - _MINE FIGHT AND WIN!_

"I am the path of least resistance, Yang Xiao Long! You kill me, and I guarantee you - you will _hurt,_ you will _bleed,_ you will _cry_ and you will _hate,_ like you never have before! You _and_ your people, as well as me and mine! But you open up the door to the brightest future of them all! One where you get to take pride in having kept to your morals and achieved your victory - at the cost of so many more lives than if you would have plunged your hand into the filth and squalor of _my_ reality. Of _my_ door. Your victory would be hard, but its future wouldn't be tainted by lies, deceit, or intentional sacrifice. Potentially the brightest of them all...

"But only if you kill me, Yang." He scooped her gauntlets off of his belt and threw them at her. "Because that is the _only_ way I can bring myself to stop fighting the darkness by living in it. Only by fighting... and dying, for what I believe in!" He declared, as her gauntlets clattered to the ground at her feet, and she quickly dropped to a low stance to scoop them up. "I am not a good man by any means. I would go so far to say that I am a bad one... But that is the world I live in. The choices I make _daily._ Evil, yes... But _necessary_ evil." He raised his hands to the side in a messianic pose, coat billowing wildly, and inactive lightsaber clenched lightly in his right hand. "And now _you_ get to make that choice..." He said, "do I reject _incredible_ power, but doom us to an apocalyptic end? Do I turn myself in and _inevitably_ lead to all of Vale being wiped off the map with nuclear fire? Or will you _kill_ me?! The choice is yours, Yang - now _MAKE IT!"_ He screamed, so loud that his voice briefly cut out.

Yang was silent for what felt like an eternity, still hiding behind her customary fighting stance. She blinked, turning her violet eyes down from Aldric's gray orbs, staring down at the rain-covered flight deck as she grappled with his words and her thoughts.

This eternity passed in the blink of an eye, and when she looked back at him, there was only one thing in her eyes: Sorrow, as she gave him her conclusion. "Do you _want_ to die?"

And after a few moments, his expression melted away, changing from one of anger and fury, of hatred and resentment, to one of utter exhaustion, as his entire posture deflated, his back slouching, his arms lowering until his elbows rested against his hips, and his eyes appeared to age decades in the span of seconds, and amidst the backdrop of a an alien aircraft carrier covered in rain, the both of them surrounded by a wide ring of distant soldiers, an unconscionable monsoon, the raging wind, and his once mighty and confident, but now weak and frail countenance, with blood drained both from his body and from others streaming off of him, washed away in the rain _._ His chest rose and fell with each ragged, gasping breath, as this moment of indecision betrayed months of endless existential crises.

And for once, instinct told him not to lash out and resist, but rather to give in and surrender.

And he spoke the truth, "like you wouldn't believe."

Yang's arms dropped lower, now barely above her stomach. " _why?"_ She breathed, her fists no longer clenched.

Aldric scoffed, and shook his head. "I've seen things, Yang. Things you wouldn't believe. Grimm that don't kill on sight. Gods and goddesses. Hellfire in the city of angels. I've _done_ even worse. Killed a woman I've never met in the bed in which she slept. Gored another one because I was told to. I slaughtered by the dozen the people I wanted to protect more than anything else... And the _lies_ I've told." He shook his head, letting out a long, hollow breath, and leaned back, letting the rain wash over him. "At this point I barely even know who I am. I take weapons from fiction, concepts from science I barely understand and haven't earned, names from people who don't exist. I look up to and praise symbols of righteousness and good while wholly failing to live up to their ideals. I work for and assist people who have aims to destroy all known life, gather their trust, only to betray it. I live with and fight alongside people who have no reason but to trust me, gather _their_ trust, only to betray them." Aldric swiped his hand through his hair. "And I sacrifice and set aside ideals I claim to hold sacred so much and so often that I cannot truly claim to believe in anything.

"Yeah, I want to die, and I might even look forward to the day I do. But unless you kill me, or to be less specific, unless I _am_ killed, I'll keep going, Yang. Because my legacy won't be suicide. My legacy will be having either secured, or having died for, the future of three different and distinct species, and two entire planets." He shook his head, "and I can see it in your eyes. You're honestly considering a fourth option: _Letting_ me go, knowing what I will do. I commend that kind of hellish choice... And while I would wonder if you could live with it... I think you'll be able to live with it just fine, if you do... Though perhaps not for the reasons you expect." He lowered his head, now looking at Yang. "So what's it going to be, Yang? Because I'm _tired,_ and at the end of tonight I'm going to sleep. Whether or not I wake up is your choice... So please..." He begged, again approaching her. _" **Make it.**_ " He demanded, closing the distance until they were inches apart.

Yang stared into his eyes, her own wide and her jaw slack, her expression one of utter betrayal and loss, as though her entire world had been thrown into disarray because of this one night. He could see the conflict in her eyes, so many things fighting against eachother - her sense of duty to turn him in, warring against her sense of justice in wanting to put him down, and both warring against the faintest belief that perhaps he was _right,_ and needed to be left to his own devices. Aldric felt for a moment as though he were looking into a mirror, wondering if this wasn't the look that grew across his face every time he had to make his own moral decisions.

He only felt even more deja vu as he saw a look of determination begin to settle in. First with her brows, closing in on her eyes, then her eyes, steeling themselves for what was to come, then her mouth, as her lips thinned in a tight frown and her jaw clenched. She raised her gaze again, one blink sealing their fates as her eyes went from lilac, one moment, to a deep and angry red the next. He knew what her choice was, just as she knew that, exhausted and injured as he was, he wouldn't let her try without a fight. What she didn't know, however, was how much of a fight he would give, and when she threw her right arm up to try and begin and end the fight with a single wrist-mounted shotgun shell to his chest, she found that while Aldric had been completely honest in that he wouldn't be able to last, or even survive, a fair fight between the two of them, he had neglected to mention that he'd never quite learned _how_ to fight fair. Nearly every single battle he'd had since stepping foot on this planet had been a struggle for life and death, and those struggles had taught him how to prioritize his survival over everything, from pride to style. The result was that, when it came to combat, he only really knew one things: How to fight _dirty._

Worse, was that Yang was used to fighting Goud Etiolate - a student whose every fight had entailed by necessity a _lot_ of power held back, so as to not seriously injure or main one of his friends. A gentle soul who had only ever gone lethal _once._ She'd never once fought _Nebo Aldric._

And nothing proved this greater than, as she threw her fist at him, he used his semblance to slow it down. Her head snapped to the right, watching her arm slow to a crawl, before it shot down at the _zhoom_ coming from Aldric's own right hand. In the instant she had before Aldric's retaliation, she looked up, her eyes wide as she realized, but didn't quite believe, what was about to happen.

With a wide upward arc, the green blade went up and around, burning the rain it touched to steam until it reached Yang's arm, and filled the air with the smell of flesh burning. The resistance made by Yang's aura was negligible at best to the heat and cutting power of his blade, and no sooner had it made contact than had it cut straight through until reaching the open air on the other side, and as Yang stumbled back, body shaking from fear, pain, and no small amount of shock, her head snapped back and forth from the stump that was her arm, to Aldric, whose cybernetic hand snapped up to catch her severed limb before it fell to the ground.

But as the reality of what he'd done began to set in, Aldric found his attention stolen by the blade in his hand as, unbidden, he witnessed the green begin to burn away, shifting to a deep red, as though the blood from Yang's arm had covered and stained it, until it no longer glowed and pulsed with a vibrant green light, but rather shone with an angry, appropriately blood red light, and filled the air with a low thrum.

Now bathed in deep red light and cast in hard-edged shadows, Aldric turned his gaze back to Yang, head tilted down and face set in a firm frown. Her free hand was pressed tightly against her cauterized stump, her breath still caught in her throat, as she continued stumbling back, until she reached the hatch that would have led to the bridge, had it not been for the rifle she backed into, revealing the soldiers who had taken up position there. Compounded with the soldiers surrounding the two of them on the flight deck, albeit at a distance, Yang found she was boxed in with a man who looked apt to kill her, approaching slowly, each stomp sending water flying about.

With no other choice, Yang shoved herself away from the soldiers blocking her escape and awkwardly threw up her only remaining hand, but something flying past her head gave her pause. She then saw Aldric drop her severed hand in the standing water with a light splash, and hold out his metal hand. A pistol, stolen from the soldier she'd backed into, tumbled through the air and into his hand with a light twang. Yang knew what he was going to do and tried to preempt it, throwing her sole remaining fist forward and pounding the air, blasting a projectile out of her gauntlet and launching it at Aldric. But her guided missile met a similar fate to her earlier punch, with it slamming into Aldric's telekinetic barriers and slowing down just enough for him to bat it away with his sword. It happened so fast that, for a moment, Yang thought she might have hurt him, what with the cloud of smoke enveloping him, but those hopes were dashed with a thunderclap, and a tiny projectile shooting through the smoke and into her shoulder.

Yang gasped in pain and fired again with another punch, but this one didn't even make it to Aldric, instead appearing as though it slammed into a brick wall and detonating before it was even halfway there, and as Aldric walked out of the cloud of smoke, Yang was then yanked forward, her gauntlet - and only means of defense - being torn from her good arm and flying over to her former friend. Aldric fired again, this one hitting her arm and causing her to stumble back, and before she could recover, he fired again, and again, and again, each gunshot briefly overpowering the monsoon around them with the sound of a thunderclap, each flash of its barrel briefly illuminating him. Had Yang been in any less pain, she may have realized that the frown on Aldric's face wasn't one of malice, but rather one of resignation and anger, though at what, only he knew.

No, what she was focused on was the rapidly mounting pain as he fired again and again, until finally his gun clicked on empty and he threw the pistol away with a flick of his hand. She fell against the wall and slid to the ground, her breaths coming in rattles as he stalked over to her, his now empty hand held out to the side, and his body briefly becoming enveloped in silver fire. When the fires vanished, she saw that where once the space in his cybernetic hand had been completely empty, now there was a silver cylinder the size of a cigar sitting snugly in his palm.

As the man she thought she knew grew closer, soon the only thing she could hear was the low thrum of his bright red blade, until he came within feet of her and finally shut it off with an ear-screeching _zip._ He clipped the sheathe to his belt and knelt down in front of her, both halves of his face now covered in darkness, and the monsoon being the only sound in the air, as he knelt there, an expressionless mass of shadows pointed at her paling face.

"You'll get another chance some day, Yang. I'm sure." Aldric called out over the rain, though she couldn't hear anything - not the tone of his voice nor the inflection he put on the words - over the monsoon or the ringing in her ears, all she could hear was the words he said, and all she could see was he himself, as he raised the cylinder in his hand, and hit a button on its side, causing it to extend with a metallic snap. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry." He said, as he shut his eyes and turned his head away.

Gasping for air, Yang gurgled out a _"fu -"_ Before the device in his hands flashed with a blinding blue light, and her mind went blank.


	41. Poor Communication Kills

_A/N:_

 _You all have no motherfucking idea how many versions of the last chapter exist._

 _Seriously.  
 **Seriously.**_

 _I have a document filled with rejected material for this story, either never to be used or to be used at a later date - it clocks in at over 100,000 words (and for comparison's sake, this story as of right now is at **300,000)** , and I would say that anywhere from ten to twenty thousand, perhaps even twenty five, of those words are the titanic number of ways I wrote and rewrote that chapter.  
_

 _Also, I **did** warn you all that it would only get crazy from here.  
And I'm not done yet.  
Still have a thing or two to do before this arc is over.  
_

 _Matter of fact, let's get the endgame started:_

* * *

Chapter 40

* * *

It had never occurred to Ruby Rose just how much things felt different with just one single change of scenery. Maybe the reason she'd never noticed - like, _really_ noticed - the transition from her home to Beacon was because it had happened so fast, and because Yang was still there when they had gotten assigned their dorms. Okay, there was a _little_ weirdness at the beginning, but it went away so fast that it hadn't really registered to her.

Not like now, not with Vale under attack and her not being allowed to sleep in her normal dorm. Anyone who was sleeping at Beacon and not down in Vale - which was pretty much the Beacon Junior year and below - couldn't be found in the outer-most dorm rooms. She hadn't known at all what that meant until Yang had just said 'any of the rooms with windows', and then it made sense: Those rooms could be hit by the 'Terran' - such a weird name! - kingdom's missiles, and anyone in the rooms probably wouldn't wake up again. She hadn't thought much of it, until she'd spent her first night in her new room, and found that enough was different about it to make the entire ordeal just feel strange. People were fighting over the limited beds, some sleeping on the ground didn't have blankets or pillows or sleeping bags, and everyone was armed, too!

That was the weirdest part - not the fact that everyone was walking around with their weapons like it was combat training day, but the fact that there were just _so many!_ She hadn't seen so many weapons in one place since the initiation, but for some reason no one wanted to talk about them. That was another thing - no one was talking, anymore. It was a lot quieter, around here. It was so gloomy, even Yang, or Ecru Lily, didn't really break the silence, and with people like Ash and Jaune in the hospital, or upper-classmen down in the city, it kind of felt like the life had been sucked out of Beacon.

But, Ruby reasoned, Ash had woken up yesterday, and Jaune said he had the hookup with getting him a replacement arm, so pretty soon all of her friends would be in the same place! They'd liven things up, surely, and after that it wouldn't be hard for them to figure things out. Everything seemed bad now, what with how fast the terrans broke through Vale's borders and steam-rolled across the industrial sector, but she knew everything would turn out okay. Good things happened to good people, right? It was karma! And the terrans were out there, picking fights with a kingdom they'd never even met! So this would all have to turn around, it had to.

These thoughts comforted her each night as she fell asleep, her team having been lucky enough to scrounge some supplies from their dorm to get blankets and pillows, though with how tightly packed all of the dorms were now, often with upwards of three teams to a room, that didn't necessarily mean they had space to sleep. Slowly sitting up as the fog stuck firm in her mind, Ruby found herself still stuck right smack-dab in the middle, right in between Blake and Weiss, with Yang on the -

Hey, wait, where was Yang?

Ruby blinked her big, silver eyes, tilting her head as she saw Yang's blanket cast aside and her pillow mostly untouched. But once she saw that Ash's bag was missing too, Ruby let out a silent 'oh' of understanding, as she nodded and picked herself up. Yang must have gone out early to give Ash some of his things; Ash was funny that way - he _always_ had to be doing something! Like, _all_ the time! It didn't matter where he was or what it was he was doing, he was doing _something._ Sometimes Ruby found herself having to hold back laughter when she saw the fighter staring intently at a book or his scroll, the prospect of a blind man reading being pretty entertaining to her. Yang must have thought something similar, because the bag she took was the one that had the weird-looking scrolls Ash was always typing into, like a journal.

 _Maybe she knew he likes to write his journal and wanted to make sure he didn't miss any!_ Ruby thought, as she picked up a small cinch-bag, in which was her combat gear and her scroll, and with the other hand she grabbed Crescent Rose, before kneeling down.

 _"Weiss!"_ She whispered to the snow-haired teammate. _"Hey, Weiss!"_

Weiss groaned lightly, turning to Ruby, "hm?"

 _"Hey! I think Yang went down to Vale to go give Ash his stuff!"_ She explained, adjusting the position of the bag on her shoulder. _"I'm going to go down too! I want to see what he thought of his arm!"_ She giggled.

The heiress nodded lethargically, "okay... Give me a sec..." She whispered, lethargically rolling over to grab her sword.

Ruby shook her head, _"no, don't worry about it! I'll be meeting up with Yang, so it'll be okay!"_ She appreciated Weiss wanting to wake up to fulfill Ozpin's 'two people at all times' mandate, but since she was pretty fast and the hospital wasn't far, she wouldn't have to be out in the open, and alone, for very long.

Weiss, mostly out of it, groaned something resembling an, "okay, stay safe." Before promptly losing consciousness again.

Now alone, Ruby slinked off to the nearest bathroom to change into her gear. Now in her comfortable combat skirt, and with the familiar weight of her collapsed scythe hanging from the mount on her back, Ruby deposited her belongings back with half of her team, and left the room. Out in the hallway, she saw a few of the juniors who had taken unto themselves the job of patrolling the dorms. No words beyond a kind nod were exchanged, and soon Ruby found herself outside in the early morning air. It smelled of a very recent rain, and the clouds above were still a deep, dark grey, making Ruby wonder if this wasn't merely a calm in the storm.

 _Only more reason to move fast._ She supposed, with a carefree smile, before activating her aura and vanishing in a cloud of rose petals.

It took her all of one second to go from one end of Beacon's grounds to the 'emergency staircase', as was called the non-aircraft methods of getting down to Vale. She needed a few seconds after that to recharge, before again sparking her semblance and descending down to Vale proper in a fraction of the time it would take her, normally. She wasn't that fond of taking the slow route - especially when she had company, and couldn't expedite the process. She'd seen Srebro Lemarac once _jump_ from Beacon to Vale, and wished she'd had her semblance so she could do that too. It would look so cool! Jumping from the top of a _mountain,_ to land in the middle of a battle with a three-point landing, she'd look just like she were in a movie!

These thoughts brought a smile to Ruby's round face, as she pushed open the door to the base of the mountain and was greeted by the VAF checkpoint. She didn't put up too much of a fight and presented her scroll to the two soldiers, and they jotted down her having come down. Needing a checkpoint here made no sense to her - why write down who leaves and enters Beacon when the only people who would actually go this way would be the people that _actually could?_ \- but then again, a lot of things adults threw at her didn't make much sense. She didn't even want to get started on Professor Ozpin putting her as team leader, or Professor Port somehow never managing to teach, ever, and yet still maintain a mostly passing rate for his classes.

 _Wait... Isn't Ash an adult? Technically?_ Ruby blinked, as she idly strolled the nearly-silent, early morning streets of Vale, her reflection in the puddles on the ground being her only company. Y _up._ She nodded, suppressing a giggle. _Adults make no sense, confirmed._

Some of the things Ash could do ranged from violating everything she knew and held dear, to being so absolutely ridiculous as to be unbelievable if she hadn't seen them herself. She supposed that it was a good thing people like him existed, though. If they didn't, people like those Terrans would be free to do the things they did without anyone to fight against them. A world without heroes - that wasn't a place Ruby even wanted to conceptualize, let alone live in.

As the clouds above grew just a shade brighter with the sun's rise, Ruby made it to the hospital and signed in - this 'checkpoint' making much more sense to her than the one at the base of the mountain - before strolling on inside. She remembered the way to Ash's room, and was there before too long, but found herself stopped by something peculiar. Or rather, the lack of something peculiar.

There was no Ash. Or Yang, for that matter.

Ruby frowned, peeking inside the dark room, but finding no signs of life. The doctors and nurses had already come through and replaced all the sheets and sterilized everything back down to that creepy-hospital atmosphere. She didn't like hospitals - her Dad always liked to joke and say that _no_ Huntsman liked hospitals. One hundred percent of all people who went to a hospital _died,_ he said, so it was typically a good thing to avoid going to one if ever possible. Plus they smelled like cleaning chemicals and most of the nurses didn't seem like they wanted to be there, or were tired, or both.

Ruby leaned back out of the room, resting an elbow on her scythe and cradling her chin with her hand in a thinker's pose. She leaned back again and checked the room number - yup, right number; and over to the left was Jaune's room, and a quick check showed her he was still inside, but he was asleep, with a few wires grossly sticking out of his chest, so he wouldn't be much of a help.

But, stepping away from Jaune's room and turning around, Ruby caught sight of a somewhat familiar face, just as he rounded a corner: Doctor Deer, Ash's doctor. With a delighted gasp, Ruby zoomed over to him.

"Mister Deer!"

"Eh?" The wrinkled old man turned around, and then looked down to Ruby. "Oh, it's you. Rose, right? He's not here." He grumbled in his typical gravelly drawl.

"I saw - I was wondering if you knew where he went?" She asked, folding her hands behind her back.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed even more than usual, almost becoming two thin-slits that Ruby was amazed he could see out of. "Why would I know where he goes in his free time? I patch him up, little lady, I don't babysit him."

That made sense, she supposed. "Hm... Well, when did you let him go? This morning? Was my sister here? Did they say -"

"Jeez, kid, slow down. Let me answer one question before you spew out ten more." He shook his head, and ran his hand through his thin gray hair. "Yesterday night. Yesterday night. No. No." He listed off, "one thing I pride myself on is that I don't get involved in my patients' affairs, kid." There was that word again! Why did everyone call her kid? She'd take 'little lady' over 'kid'! "It keeps me out of their problems and keeps their problems away from me." Well, okay - she let her uncle call her kid. But he'd known her since she was one, so it was allowed!

Ruby sighed, pouting. "You don't have any idea?"

"Negative, kid."

Ruby's teeth gritted in her head, but she nodded. "Okay. See you!"

"Wanting to see a doctor isn't the best idea, kid." Deer called out, though Ruby had been long gone by the time he'd gotten two words out.

Now back outside under the cold gray sky, Ruby looked up to it, a light frown creasing her brow, as she was absorbed by her thoughts. Where could Ash and Yang be, then? They couldn't be at Beacon - the rest of GEMS was in the same communal dorm as RWBY, and Ruby was certain she hadn't seen him there. The crimson-haired rookie hummed, wondering where that bar Yang had trashed was, in regards to the defensive lines. _Maybe_ they could have gone there, and while it didn't make _much_ sense, or really any at all, that was the only idea she had.

 _I think..._ Ruby thought, leaning against the wall and pulling out her scroll. _That - yeah._ She nodded as her map of Vale booted up. The Terrans had focused most of their assault on the industrial and agricultural sectors, the residential sector, while not untouched, was much less damaged and conquered than the former two, and Junior's Bar was pretty far inland, so it wouldn't have been touched anyways. However, even with a pulse or two of her semblance to speed things up, when she made it to the residential district and then found the bar an hour later, she found that it had been locked up tight, its business hours not beginning for another three.

Now she was beginning to worry a bit, but, if she were to be honest, not too much. Ash was crafty, always seeming like he had control of everything he came across, and Yang was Yang, so they probably weren't in too much trouble. She was probably just thinking too much, and besides, she at least had a way to confirm whether or not they were at Beacon. She spent another hour getting back to the VAF checkpoint, but asking the soldiers there gave her worrying news.

"Nope." The soldier shook his helmeted head, "says here Yang Xiao Long should still be upstairs, and Goud Etiolate never checked in period."

"Well..." Ruby nodded her head to the side, "Ash can fly, so -"

"Can Yang Xiao Long?"

"No..."

"Then if she came down here she should at the very least have checked out, but there's nothing." The soldier waved his hand at his computer. "So they're probably both still up there."

Ruby guessed that made sense, and as she ascended the stairs to Beacon, she came to the conclusion that maybe Ash was at Beacon Tower? His team liked to say how he always liked to throw himself into things whenever he needed to not think, and putting the tower back together would certainly qualify. A destination now in mind, Ruby's smile returned as she continued upwards.

Before she made it to Beacon Tower, however, she was stopped by something peculiar on the way there. Approaching the fountain in front of the tower, she found something on the ground, a small bullet casing, heavily weathered and beaten by the night's rains. It didn't look dissimilar to a Dust round, but looked like it was made of brass, and smelled more of explosives than anything else. Picking it up, Ruby examined it, turning it this way and that, as though the strange thing would -

Whoa.

As she lowered the bullet, she happened to look to the right, and found half a foot print, where the grass patch bled to the concrete. It was big and wide, like a boot, and almost completely filled in with rainwater. Looking around it, she found that there were several more - and that a few pairs were deeper than others, as though the people who had left the prints had been standing there for awhile.

 _But why would a bunch of people be standing in the bushes?_ Ruby wondered, as she looked in the direction the tracks led. _And... Shooting..._ Her frown faded away to a neutral look of stunned realization. _Things..._

Uh oh.

Not willing to believe herself, Ruby looked around the bushes more, finding more boot-shaped puddles in the dirt, and soon finding tracks that led in the opposite direction, away from the fountain. Cradling her scythe in her arms, Ruby cautiously followed these tracks. While not at all her forte, she found that it was remarkably easy to do so, as two pairs of the returning tracks were markedly deeper than the others, as if the people had gained a few hundred pounds.

 _Or... They're leading me somewhere._ Ruby frowned, looking around, but not seeing anything, or anyone.

Her journey took her to the cliffs leading to Forever Fall, before they abruptly vanished at the edge of the cliffside. Such a thing would have confused the young rookie, had she not had been staring at the ground while she followed the tracks. Thus, she found the thick bundles of rope hammered into the ground with pitons easily, and then pieces started falling into place. The tracks leading away from the cliffs were difficult for her to find, but the tracks leading back were easy, as though they had gained weight. Then there was rope that led down to the forest, and off in the distance she could see the coastline - and the terrans were staging their assault from the coast. Perhaps not Forever Fall's, but still.

Ruby let out a hollow breath of fear. The terrans had come in from the northern coasts, and had kidnapped someone - or two someones - right out from Beacon; and she was _looking_ for two someones she specifically could not find, and had no times or locations for them since she'd gone to bed last night. Worse, was that with the bullet casing she'd found, that meant at least one of them could be hurt.

 _Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic._ She repeated to herself, as she stood up and peered through the scope on her rifle, scanning the forest, though not entirely sure _why_ she was doing such a thing. What did she expect to see? One of them holding a huge enormous sign, saying they were there? The terran soldiers that had taken them, sitting around a campfire? _Oh no..._ She lowered the rifle, eyes wide and lip quivering.

 _Okay... Um..._ She swallowed through her suddenly dry throat. _Think think think..._ There were only two places she could think now, to search for them: Down there in the forest, or out on the docks.

She quickly eliminated the forest, however, when she realized that no one in their right mind would voluntarily set up camp in a Grimm-infested wood. So that meant that if anyone, anywhere, would have information on where Yang and Ash were - if they were the two who had been taken, granted - then it would have to be there. But she couldn't just waltz up to the terran offensive line and _ask_ them where they took her friend and her sister, and as much as she thought she'd grown since coming to Beacon, she knew well and good that trying to pull an Ash and fight the entire army head-on was a bad, potentially suicidal idea. But she wasn't sneaky! She couldn't stealth through the -

Ruby gasped.

 _"That's it!"_ She screeched, before vanishing in a cloud of rose petals.

* * *

Perhaps there was a better thought-out way of waking up her team and Ash's at the same time, but at the speed at which Ruby's mind was going, she acted on the first thing that came to it, and that happened to be 'throw her scythe at Weiss and run up and shove Ecru.' While it certainly worked wonders in waking the two of them, and by proxy, their respective teams, up, it also had one unintended side effect.

That being waking up the _other_ team in the room.

As much as Ruby would have loved, and had indeed tried, to have paired her and GEMS up in JNPR's dorm, theirs got filled up remarkably fast, leading to Ruby having to look elsewhere. Luckily for her, space was offered by a team of second-years, but unluckily, it was a team she'd never interacted with before, and was now about to involve in the proceedings. So as Weiss coughed from the sudden shock of having a dense mass of metal and munitions plow into her side, and Ecru nearly smashed the crimson rookie into the wall with her bat, the third team leader sensed the activity and heard the noise, and was awake just in time to see Ecru inches away from throttling Ruby, and Srebro desperately grabbing ahold of the dark-skinned rookie's ankle to keep her from advancing any further.

Brushing her hand through a head of well-kept chocolate hair, Coco Adel stared blankly at the slowly rousing room. "It's seven in the morning." She drawled, eyes flicking between Ruby and Ecru, before settling on the former, as she seemed far more dressed and aware of whatever it was waking up the room. "Please tell me there's a good reason."

"Uh -" Ruby shook her head, "I think Ash and Yang have been taken by the terrans!"

That, in short order, got Ecru to stop trying to murder her friend, Srebro to let her grip go limp, Myrtle to wake up, Weiss' head to snap up, and Coco's eyes to narrow, the lethargy earlier present now washing away in a tidal wave of duty. In the following seconds, everyone not awake had had that problem promptly solved, and all eyes were on Ruby, who recounted the events of the morning, from waking up until now. True to form, Ecru was ready to spring into action immediately, her Lovely Lady in hand and a fiery look in her dark eyes, whereas her counterparts on what remained of RWBY were ready and rearing to search for their missing teammate as well, the atmosphere in the room rapidly turning to one of a powder keg waiting for a spark to go off.

Coco, however, proved instead to be a small rush of water, with which she drowned the bomb and thoroughly defused it. "As much as they both appreciate the sentiment." She said, attracting the eyes of the two incomplete teams, as well as her own. "Think for a moment of the opponents we would face. At least twice in this week alone VAF, with huntsman as backup, have tried to mount counter-offensives into the industrial district. Neither one worked, even though the second attempt had fleet support. If we go charging down main street to kill our way through the docks - and -" She interrupted herself, with a cold look at the freshman teams. "- we _would_ have to kill." She stated, firmly. "- we would at best tear through perhaps twice our combined number before the weight of their numbers and weapons crashes down on us and kills _us_ in return. From wherever it is they derive their strength, the terrans are simply indomitable when it comes to forward assaults. Worse is that we've seen everything they've been bringing to the coastline and the docks. Their offensive line could be considered but a _fraction_ of their full power, and the only place they would logically hold Ash and Yang is in a place where they could easily contain them - and _that..._ " She stressed, "is assuming they are still in Vale to begin with."

Srebro frowned, "you're talking about the boats?"

One of Coco's teammates nodded, rubbing some of the sleep out of his eyes. "That would make more sense. They control their ships even moreso than they hold our land. If I were them I would have firing squads waiting -"

"Yes, Fox." Coco interrupted coolly, "they would be well guarded."

Ruby thrust a hand into the air, prompting Coco to blink once, then twice, before saying, "Yes?"

"Um -" She lowered her hand, "I kind of thought... Something like that. That's why I woke up GEMS! I thought that since Myrtle had that invisibility semblance, she could sneak us all into the docks and we could look for clues!"

The blue-haired woman in question chuckled nervously, "Ruby, I'm good, but it took a lot out of me just keeping _them -"_ She indicated Srebro and Ecru, "invisible for our last sparring match. And to say nothing of making us intangible - I can't keep that up for more than a few minutes, and that's if it's just me. I couldn't have us _all_ sneaking around in enemy territory like that, I'd burn out and we'd be found before we could blink."

"But -" Ruby sputtered, "we can't make you go alone!" Her eyes were wide and her expression was aghast at the thought of sending the thief into enemy territory on her own.

"She wouldn't." Blake picked up, "while I am not as skilled as she, I am not inexperienced in the art of stealth."

"We could send you two in and have us fighters waiting as backup." Ecru suggested, itching at her scalp.

"Whatever we do..." Coco took the reins back, "realize that if we were caught, we would have to leave. Period." She said, "we would first have to fight them to distract them from the person attempting to steal their secrets, and then fight again to be able to run away. For this search, we would only have one chance. The question shouldn't be if we send in Myrtle alone, but rather if the added benefit of a second scout is worth the doubled risk of exposure." She said, "because remember: They have a different written language than us. That means we must capture one of them for interrogation purposes." She laid her hands in her lap, "more risks."

The tan sophomore next to Fox hummed, "I know Velvet got a healthy number of pictures during the fighting." He said, turning to the rabit-eared woman seated cross-legged with her back to the wall. "Did you get any mortars, by chance? Perhaps we could feign an attack in one area, and while they send defensive forces to respond, Myrtle could find someone with rank and take him in the confusion."

Before she could speak, however, Ecru countered with, "that assumes _all_ of their soldiers will drop everything they're doing and run to the gunfire."

"Guys -" Weiss interjected, "am I the only one who has noticed we've not mentioned Professor Ozpin _once_ in this conversation?" She asked, looking around at everyone. "I want to save Yang and Ash as much as all of you, but it almost sounds as though you're deliberately keeping him out of this."

"Well... Not _deliberately..."_ Ruby nodded to the side, shrugging her shoulders meekly. "But this isn't Atlas. Professor Ozpin would only let us do this with military support, and he doesn't have control over VAF." She leaned in close, "you guys heard about the things he had to do to get them to make the no man's land so suddenly?"

Fox nodded, "quite a few generals in VAF have lost trust in Ozpin after that. And consider that many of them may see Ash's disappearance as him being a hot-headed teenager seeking glory. So for Ozpin to return a week later and ask for bodies and ships to assist in Ash's rescue, when they don't even know if taking back the docks will _lead_ to such a thing? They would refuse outright."

"Their rescue plan would be winning the war." Said the tan boy next to him, "leaving Ozpin with only two options: Conceding their point, or asking other huntsmen to attempt the mission themselves. And even that is not likely to go over well, as the only huntsmen and huntresses he truly holds rank over are the students and staff at Beacon. The rest listen due to respect, but are not required to at all, and I believe many may share the VAF's opinion that the battle should have been fought instead of stalled, resulting in them refusing to throw themselves into the meat grinder for the boy whose word flattened millions of lien of the kingdom."

Ruby looked lost, mouth hanging as her breaths quickened. "But they can't do _nothing!"_ She breathed, "it's - they - they can't!" She stressed.

"They can, Ruby, and they will." Coco said, morosely. "As powerful as Ozpin is, a great deal of his word has weight during peace time and in the matters of the Grimm. This is neither, and he burned a great deal of his good will to create the no man's land." She leaned back on her hands, "the fact of the matter is that we only have what we ourselves are capable of bringing to the table. At best, that is us, and perhaps JNPR - but I would hesitate bringing a _third_ weakened team into the mix."

"Pyrrha _does_ have the magnetism semblance, though." Myrtle brought up, causing all eyes to fall to her. "What, you never figured it out?"

 _"No."_ Weiss murmured, aghast. "How did you?"

"I actually pay attention when she fights. Put it together with her fight with Ash in the entrance tournament." Myrtle waved it away, "point is, a magnetokinetic could be a great force multiplier against an army of no huntsmen and explosive, metal weapons."

"But another weakened team, regardless. As well, if the idea is stealth, bringing in three more people would make it only the harder for those of us not sneaking through the docks to remain hidden." Coco spoke, bringing the conversation back on track. "The goal would be to avoid combat, at least until we could locate Ash and Yang. Bringing a third team into the mix would help, perhaps tremendously due to the addition of numbers, if it came to exchanging gunfire with the terrans, but finding a place that would hide all of us, nearby to the docks, that would not result in us being caught, would become difficult."

Ecru frowned, "I don't hear you saying _no."_ She pointed out.

Coco shrugged, "because I know Ruby by reputation, and I was _there_ when Ash caught those missiles. The two of them are remarkably similar in many ways, but chief among them how much they are willing to give for those they care for. I can conclude that their teams would have a similar drive, if not the same kind. As a result, I know there is little I can do to stop them from being hurt but _help."_ A beat, "and I'm pretty certain if he and Pyrrha don't hook up by the end of the year, then they _will_ be by the time we see them next year. So bringing her would just be fun."

"Oh no she's starting." Fox dropped his head into his hands, digging his fingers into his hair.

Ecru grew a wide grin at these words, "oh so you _clearly_ aren't in the loop!"

The only other male in the room's eyes grew wide, "there's two of them - Fox, she's encouraging her!"

"Escape Plan Alpha." Fox grunted, hauling himself to his feet. "Let's go get dressed."

With the teams she had assembled all either throwing gossip, getting dressed, or some combination of both, Ruby set out to find the last of their minor merry army.

 _So what would we be called?_ She wondered, arms swinging as she descended to JNPR's floor. _We've got CFVY... RWBY without the 'Y', GEMS without the 'G', and if they help us out, we'll have JNPR without the 'J'._ Looking at it purely like that, it merely appeared like a gigantic jumble of letters that she couldn't make any sense out of. _Maybe we should have something like a... A big group name. Something that refers to all of us as a whole._ She frowned. _But that brings me back to the first issue..._ She wondered, opening the door to the floor she'd used to sleep on, finding it just as eerily quiet as the rest of the dorm.

 _I mean, I guess it isn't really important... But it's the thought._ She reasoned, as she walked the once-familiar halls and navigated her way to JNPR's dorm.

To her surprise, though, as she reached it, she found someone sliding out, a familiar, if quiet, face, and one of the increasingly small minority of boys in all the teams she knew. Ren, like the crimson-haired rookie before her, seemed to have woken up and gotten dressed before the rest of his team, though what prompted him to head out was anyone's guess.

 _Maybe he's getting some food from downstairs? He's out alone..._ She shook her head and sped up, jogging up to the green-clad fighter. "Hey, Ren!" She called out, breaking the silence of the hallways like a cannon.

Ren, for his part, barely reacted, merely turning to face her with his usual blank expression. "Ruby." He nodded to her, as she jogged up. "What makes you up so early?" A beat, "you seem stressed." He added, his calm, quiet voice a stark contrast to her usual boom.

Ruby slowed down as she reached her, "well..." She began, before throwing herself into an animated recounting of her morning up until now.

Once she was finished, Ren stood there, a small frown on his face, eyes lowered as he digested her tale and the request. "This is most troubling." He murmured, "but I wouldn't disagree with Coco Adel's assessment. Of the minor army you are assembling, only one would be at full power, add that none of us have experience fighting with the other teams in the first place, and our prospects for a battle with the terrans would necessitate a very short engagement. Otherwise we risk more injuries." He said.

Ruby nodded, "yeah, but -"

"Mind you I am not saying _no."_ Ren continued, "but I press this because it seems you all have failed to consider Yang and Goud in this."

Ruby blinked, "hm?"

"Your sister even without her weapons is a remarkably capable fighter, Ruby. Little but the entrance exams is needed as proof of this, and as for Goud - he may be tired and recovering from battle, but his greatest weapon is and always has been his mind for battle - without it, I very much doubt he could have fought Pyrrha for as long as he did, or achieved what he did on the coastline, last week." He explained, "with his tactical knowledge and Yang's strength, I am certain they could break themselves out of any bonds in which they may be held. We mustn't discount the two of them. This could very well be a problem that fixes itself."

Ruby felt lost, "but we can't do _nothing!"_ She stressed, feeling her heart begin to hammer in her chest.

"I'm not intimating we do nothing, Ruby, far from it." Ren shook his head, "merely saying that just as it is unwise to underestimate our friends. They may be capable of things we never thought them of." He said, "return to your team, I'll wake mine, and we'll come to you."

Ruby nodded cautiously, "okay..." She said, "thank you, Ren." She added, before rushing back upstairs to deliver the news.

* * *

Assembling the small army, getting them up to speed, getting volunteers, and then equipping everyone for war would turn out to be the easiest part of the day. Once everyone was fully prepared and situated, the next goal was to actually get to the docks where the terrans were staging their war, which was where things began to get difficult. The easiest and most direct route would simply be going through Vale, but the issue there was with the emergency defensive walls erected by the VAF. Designed as a last resort against a full-on, out-and-out _Grimm_ invasion, the only ways past them were either through them, through VAF checkpoints, or over them - and in order, even with their collective strength they couldn't break those walls, avoiding VAF was their entire goal, and going over them would trip any number of sensors that would alert VAF, and through them Ozpin, to what they were doing.

That left them with two options: Trying to go down Cya River, or going outside of vale Entirely. Since the former option would run the risk of them being seen by _everyone_ they wanted to avoid, that left the teams with only one route, and found them in southern Forever Fall. Their goal to skirt vale as far west as they could wouldn't quite put them on the docks, but it would allow them to penetrate past the No Man's Land and into terran controlled Vale, which gave them much more room to maneuver, as they knew from mere exposure that the terrans were focusing almost entirely on their attack, and as a result any areas they had taken were more or less abandoned and empty, left to be picked back up and occupied once they were presumably done with their invasion, with only the occasional patrol to mark their presence anywhere but their front and rear lines.

Unfortunately, such a trip took a few hours to fully undertake. A few minor Grimm encounters, as well as unforgiving terrain, meant that by the time they found themselves again within eyesight of Vale's formidable defensive wall, the sun, once hiding behind the thick gray clouds and the distant horizon, had fully risen to meet them, though failing to fully break the last gift left by the night's heavy rains, resulting in a thoroughly gray atmosphere, muting any of the natural greens and blues that surrounded them into one uniform gray.

Climbing this wall also proved to be something of a challenge, though this was solved almost as soon as it was presented when Weiss painted it with her semblance, allowing the assembled rookie huntsmen to literally walk all over it. At the top of the wall the group took a break, both to recover from the day thus far, and to prepare for what would come next, as the team leaders - both official and de-facto - stood at its edge and looked out at Vale.

The image was, in a word, depressing. They were in the agricultural district, and while it hadn't been hit nearly as hard as the industrial one, that was primarily because what little VAF presence had been here in the first place had been stampeded through with little resistance at all, and before the bombing had halted their advance, they'd nearly taken all of it. Just as the terrans had crippled almost all of Vale's industry, they had also effectively set it up to starve to death, no doubt to either force them to attack and carve themselves apart in a final battle, or to make them stay put and whither away until they had to surrender, or face their entire country falling apart.

Beyond the mostly flat plains of the agricultural district could be seen the ruins of the industrial district, and what hadn't been flattened by the bombing had been torn apart, burned, or otherwise horrendously damaged by the fighting, leaving scarred streets and bombed out husks of buildings, and past that, they could see the ocean, and the docks. Standing in stark contrast to the other districts, the docks were crawling with invading soldiers, it seeming that they had taken any available inch of space and either put a person or a vehicle there.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say it looks like they're gearing up for another attack." Said Coco, peering through a pair of binoculars.

"Are they?" Ruby asked, one eye pressed to the scope of her weapon, trying to see what it was Coco could see. "I can't tell."

"It's their vehicles." Pyrrha responded, herself looking through another pair of binoculars, and all three of them crouched behind the lip of the wall. "The ones without weapons or armor are their engineers, and there are a lot of them looking over their vehicles. They're checking them to make sure they're ready for an attack."

"Well, okay, but why does it look like they're putting them all in cages?" Ruby piped in, examining a trio of soldiers constructing a large, metal cage made up of both tessellating hexagonal bars and wire mesh connecting them all. "Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of preparing them for an attack?"

"That I couldn't tell you." Coco responded, "but whatever their reasoning, that'll actually only be _good_ for us. More of their vehicles are in cages than aren't." She pointed out, "so if we have to fight them, we may stand more of a chance than we thought... Do you two see that big brick building a mile or two to the right of the crane Ash cut down?" After a few moments, she got a few affirmatives, "I vote we stage there. It's got a decent vantage point for our marksmen, but isn't so high up that they would prefer it over other potential snipers' nests."

A few more affirmatives, and soon enough the groups were gathered up and dashing through Vale. As they'd earlier assessed, there were few, if any, soldiers patrolling the parts of the kingdom they had taken, and as such the only thing they were limited by was time, and cover from any of their aerial forces. By the time an hour had passed and the morning was inching closer to the afternoon, they had found themselves in the industrial district and sneaking into a three-story brick building. Ruby found her attention momentarily captured by the gaping hole in its north-western corner, before Blake hurried her inside.

Once the four groups found themselves a large office room in the center of the building to claim, Coco stood up to bat. "At this point, there isn't much more I can say we haven't already heard." She said, adjusting her sunglasses, and resting her briefcase on the table. "Myrtle, have you decided if you'll be going alone, or with a partner?"

"With a partner." Said the woman in question, after she brushed some of her bright blue hair behind her ear. "If the idea is to just take _one_ guy, it would be easier if I went in with someone else. With my semblance, I could make sure the way forward was always clear once we knocked him out and they picked him up."

Blake stood to her feet, nodding to Coco and to Myrtle, signifying her readiness.

Coco nodded, "then on your leave. Don't hesitate to sound the alarm if you have to."

* * *

After having spent the morning planning and maneuvering a rescue operation for Ash and Yang, Weiss Schnee found that the next part of the assembled teams plan could be best described as 'hurry up and wait'. Myrtle was their only and best stealth expert, and Weiss was somewhat relieved she'd decided to go at it alone - while not inexperienced, there was a certain thing she lacked in comparison to the specialist, invisibility aside. While Weiss wasn't nearly as good a scout as Blake, she was confident enough in her ability to secure their perimeter, as the others found entrances and exits and set up shop. The only person without something immediate to do was Ruby, and that was because, as the only one among them with any extreme-long range weapons, she'd been stuck in an improvised sniper's nest to keep an eye on Myrtle, and guide or assist her when needed.

Finding a window on their base's north-facing wall, Weiss surreptitiously peeked out, using the camera on her scroll as an improvised mirror, such that she wasn't standing out in the open like a buffoon, waiting to be seen. Not being native to Vale, she had had far less of a reaction to seeing it leveled and trashed by the terrans, one of pity rather than sorrow. The once vibrant and lively kingdom was now cowering behind hastily erected defenses and terrified that any moment more bombs and mortars would rain down from the sky, heralding another titanic advance from the impossibly powerful invaders.

It was that subject, the one of their power, that Weiss found herself wondering about as she scanned over the streets and buildings in their vicinity. These were a people who, so far as they knew, simply didn't use, or didn't have, any dust whatsoever. None of their weapons, none of their vehicles, none of their people or devices, nothing at all had any Dust, and yet here they were, at this point kept at bay merely because they didn't _want_ to be fighting. Their replacement for Dust seemed to _just_ be copious amounts of explosives - literally anything that could explode. Oil, gasoline, gunpowder, magnesium, if it could explode, these strange people took it and used it in unsafe, and frankly _excessive_ amounts.

 _But can that_ really _be it?_ The heiress wondered, briefly turning the scroll to face the docks, and watching as more of the strange cages were erected around their vehicles, and some even around the buildings they had appropriated. _There must be more to it than that._ There was the fact that neither she, nor anyone, really, knew _anything_ about these people - not even which country they hailed from.

Their uniforms were foreign to the four kingdoms, their armor seemed designed solely around protecting against gunfire, not Grimm, and it even seemed to her that some of them came from different kingdoms to _eachother,_ if the patches she'd seen and languages she'd heard were any indication. Perhaps that had something to do with it? That whatever lands and kingdoms they came from, wherever they were, had crafted them into these mighty warriors? If that were the case, Weiss truly feared whenever their Huntsmen would enter the fray. All of this had been done solely with their conventional, aura-less forces, and if that were any indication of their baseline strength, a Huntsmen could probably give an academy Headmaster a run for their money.

Though that did beg the question as to if they even had any huntsmen in the first place, and that thought prompted another in the heiress: That perhaps they had none at all. Without another aura user to do so, Dust was intrinsic to unlocking one's own aura, and it seemed that these people were dead-set against using Dust at all. Perhaps, in a roundabout way, that was where they drew their strength from: Not from any one thing, but simply due to the fact that without Dust, one would need unparalleled killing power in order to survive in this world. Thinking on it further, Weiss felt this made a certain amount of sense - with no Dust, this kingdom, or kingdoms, would likely have put more money into weapons development and military funding than even Atlas - perhaps even creating a one hundred percent martial society, spending more money on their militaries than the four kingdoms did _combined,_ resulting in the weapons and technology they brought to bear here. Add on their numbers and they could make fights with Grimm trivial at best, and simply difficult at worst.

 _And perhaps that explains why they are here..._ Weiss thought, turning the scroll back away from the docks and looking over the surrounding area again. _In the absence of Dust, they need so many resources that they drained their respective kingdoms dry to combat the Grimm, resulting in a war that would grant them access to the resources of other kingdoms._ An extension of that could be that these people had no Dust _period,_ and conquering the four kingdoms would grant them access to a resource they'd never had, resulting in an exponential explosion of power that -

Weiss blinked, as a subtle flash of movement caught her eye and sent her train of thought screeching to a halt. She hugged the wall tighter and lowered her scroll, waiting for a few moments, before raising it again cautiously. After a few scans of the area, she found the area she'd been looking at earlier, expecting to see terran soldiers on patrol. What she found, however, wasn't terran at all, nor was it Vale Armed Forces, or an allied huntsmen, or anything of the sort.

She saw someone garbed in light armor, peeking around the corner of a nearby building, looking down a wide street towards the docks. On its own, this wasn't necessarily strange, but it was several smaller factors that someone without her eyes may not have noticed, that painted a much more harrowing picture for the young Schnee. First was the armor, or lack thereof - primarily dark and light colors, with a dull gray coat hanging over the man's torso, a black hood peeking out from its neck and covering his head, upon which, firmly secured, was something meant to instill the kind of abject, existential terror into any and all living things that they'd needed as a means of creating a rallying cry and a unifying symbol. Something unique to each who wore it, but simple enough to be built and even mass produced, something that could mask the wearer and give them that faceless, inhuman quality decided necessary for their goals, as well as, ironically, to both mask their identity and to give them something by which their ideals could be identified.

On this man's face was the mask of a Creature of Grimm.

Weiss was staring down at a member of the White Fang.

Then she heard the explosion.

* * *

 _"Whoa!"_ Called out Ruby Rose, after seeing a mortar arc through the air and slam into one of the cages being set up by the terrans, obliterating what was inside and sending people flying in a cloud of smoke and fire.

Coco and Ecru were up in her sniper's nest scant seconds after the first explosion, which was joined by another, and another. "What's going on?!" The dark-skinned fighter shouted out, taking cover close to the crimson-haired rookie.

"I have no idea! Everything just started exploding, and -" But interrupting her wasn't another explosion, but the a chorus animalistic howls, as though a pack of wolves had arrived arrived and begun calling out to the moon.

Ruby watched then as, rampaging out from their side of Vale, were thousands of faunus men and women, all garbed in dark and light clothing, and all with Grimm masks strapped to their faces. Ruby watched with fascination and a gaping mouth as they charged straight towards the terrans, who immediately surged towards their sandbags and machine gun emplacements, and began exchanging fire with them. Bullets of both explosive and Dust instantly began filling the air, arcing over to one side or the other and tearing people and asphalt alike apart.

The faunus instantly began taking casualties, but they seemed to be well aware of how weak the terrans were whenever battles were brought to a melee, be it because they'd learned from watching Ash's fight with them, or from getting reports from the VAF, and it wasn't as though they were blindly charging into gunfire: Just as many masked, howling faunus were staying back in fortified buildings, firing down at the terrans and keeping them suppressed so their allies could charge easily. The result was that for every one faunus hit by a terran bullet, several others went unharmed, sprinting towards the terrans and firing wildly at them with automatic weapons in one hand, and swords in the other.

"Ruby!" Coco called out, snapping the rookie out of her reverie. "What do you see?"

"Uh -" Ruby stuttered, "a bunch of faunus in masks are fighting the terrans!" She called out, over the distant, but loud, gunfire.

"How are Myrtle and Blake?!" Ecru demanded, risking a peek around the broken wall she'd hid behind.

Ruby snapped her scope over to where she'd last seen her friends, but found that they'd taken advantage of the chaos and had breeched further into terran territory - so far, so fast, in fact, that she'd lost them entirely.

Her heart quickening, Ruby swallowed through a suddenly dry throat. "I - I don't know!" She said, before one of the terran tanks not in the metal cages roared to life and shot at the approaching army - obliterating many of them in a thunderous explosion.

"It's okay, Ruby." Coco assured, as she peered out a window, and then leaned back inside. "If they were in trouble, they would call for help."

"So what do _we_ do?!" Ecru demanded, "because it's going to be a lot harder for them to sneak around with the docks lit up like that! They'll all be on alert!"

"As will it be easier for us to enter the battle should things come to that, Ecru." Coco held up a hand in a placative gesture, "we must wait."

That didn't sit well with Ruby, who found herself watching the battle with morbid fascination. It seemed that the terrans had an answer for everything the faunus army was coming up with: The moment soldiers entered a melee, the terrans retreated under the cover of the few vehicles not in the hexagonal cages, keeping range on their side and thus allowing them to continue to rely on their weapons, and while the faunus were bogged down fighting one on one battles with whoever they engaged, the others gunned them down and freed up their allies to start shooting at anyone else who approached or had arrived.

It was barely controlled, bloody, explosive, loud, _chaos,_ and worse was that for every one faunus that made it to the terrans, there seemed to be eight terrans ready to fight them. This was both an advantage and a weakness, as the faunus were capable of cutting through the terrans with relative ease when they entered melee, but also meant that they had a _lot_ of people to fight - and a lot of gunfire to avoid, leading Ruby to assume that their cues must have been taken from the VAF, as if they'd learned from Ash, they would be staying on the move no matter what, so the terrans couldn't get clear shots on them.

Despite the mounting losses on both sides, the intensity of the battle never waned - even when the faunus managed to make a break in the terran defensive line. If anything, it grew even fiercer, as then the terrans fought in close quarters, with appropriately short-ranged weapons. Ruby watched as terran after terran were speared by swords or blown into bloody chunks by guns, and in return those faunus would soon be blasted apart by shotgun shells. Ebb and flow, give and take, for every kill the terrans scored, they had several bodies to show for it, but every inch the faunus took was taken over the blood and bodies of their comrades. Ruby saw things she'd never imagined before - bodies without limbs, intestines pulled from stomachs, more blood flowing than she thought was possible, and just as she thought the faunus might manage to prevail, as more and more were breaking the terran defensive line and the battles were saturating the docks, she saw the first missile arc down from the sky.

Looking up, she saw that the small terran airships had begun orbiting the docks, and were throwing their missiles and explosives down at the attackers. The terrans wholly _gave up_ the areas most heavily contested, marshalling their forces around their vehicle cages and their command centers and holding the line there, while the planes up above blasted apart the faunus who had been fooled into thinking they'd gained ground. But, just as she thought that the terrans had found their ultimate advantage, she saw some winged faunus _take flight_ and launch themselves into the air, gaining altitude and hurtling towards the missile-launching airships, soon turning this into a battle in the air and the ground.

But Ruby knew from that first day of the invasion that this - this defense the terrans were mounting - it wasn't even remotely close to the height of their power. Where were the hovercraft? Or the sleek fighter ships? Why hadn't they started using the vehicles they'd locked up in the weird cages? Why were they even _in_ cages - they weren't very durable, the faunus mortars and sniper fire were cutting through them with ease, so it couldn't have been for protective purposes. Why were the terrans fighting with one arm tied behind their back?

And how were they still winning despite that?

Because for all the progress the faunus were making, the terrans gave up the ground they didn't need and wouldn't move an inch where they felt they had to. The practical walls of guns and machines they had built and assembled meant that they cut down any melee attackers in droves, soon bogging down the faunus in ranged battles - where they held the ultimate and immediate advantage. Despite having been taken completely by surprise, the terrans were still holding firm, and worse was that Ruby knew, somewhere in there, were Blake and Myrtle, now in more danger as they had to contend with hyper-alert terrans, and faunus who may not recognize them and attack on sight. Potentially even worse than _that_ was that Ash and Yang might both be in there, unarmed and held prisoner.

Ruby frowned, watching this battle happen. She knew that the fact of the matter was, none of the faunus knew how to use their aura - and without it, they were fighting on equal grounds as the terrans, and that meant the terrans held pretty much _every_ advantage, since they seemed so absolutely well trained and adept at fighting, whereas these faunus seemed to be rag-tag at best, their greatest strength their bravery and determination. If there were even just _one_ aura-user in there, just _one_ huntsmen, perhaps the terran advantage wouldn't be nearly as great.

 _And if there were thirteen..._ Ruby frowned to herself, hand tensing on Crescent Rose's trigger.

"Ruby, no." Coco spoke, eyes on Ruby's hand. "We can't expose ourselves."

"But they're _dying_ down there, Coco!" Ruby argued. "We can't just _let_ them!"

"They've a different mission than us." Coco responded, "we can't jeopardize ours to help theirs."

"To be fair..." Ecru pointed out, "if we helped out those faunus and we _won..._ Wouldn't it be easier to take prisoners and find Ash and Yang?"

"Perhaps." Coco acquiesced, "but I cannot be the only one who has noticed that the terrans seem to be holding back, am I?" She asked, as the smoke from the distant battles began to choke the sky above, darkening the morning even further. "We enter this battle, we may find that they will abandon this idea, and then we will be alone, fighting the full might of their war machine." And as if to prove her point, as she spoke missiles - far larger than the ones that came from the airships - flew in from the western horizon, burying themselves into the buildings the faunus were staging themselves in and shaking the ground with their detonations. "Case in point, they've fleet support... And these White Fang do not."

Ruby blinked, "wait, _that's_ White Fang?" Weren't they supposed to be terrorists? Why were they fighting for them?

"Few faunus armies wear masks, Ruby." Coco responded, as Pyrrha came up the stairs and into their nest.

"What are we doing?" She asked, as quietly as she could, given the battles outside. "Downstairs is getting restless."

"Coco wants us to stay. Ruby and I want to go." Ecru summarized, a frown on her face. "If Ash were here -"

" _Would_ he, though?" Coco cut in. "Truly stop and ask yourself that, Ecru."

Ecru stared at Coco a minute, "uh... Yeah, he would." She said, "maybe you don't, but _he_ believes in fighting for people other than himself. In saving lives if they don't have to be lost." She said, confrontationally. "In _good."_

"She has a point..." Pyrrha murmured, as she took up her own position on the wall, crouched down low, her rifle cradled in her arms and her shield hanging from her off-hand.

"That may be, but allow me to tell you what I believe in. It's rather simple: I believe that I don't know any of them, and while I respect their changed agenda, that doesn't change the fact that I value our lives over them." Coco argued bluntly. "If given the choice I would rather those two tear eachother apart so, if we _had_ to fight, we would be dealing with a thoroughly weakened and tired terran army. I believe that _that_ is a fight we would survive, and potentially even _win._ I believe that the Vale Armed Forces are having this same conversation and the generals and fleet admirals are saying the same as I: Wait for their battle to be over, and then pick apart who is left." She rested her briefcase in between her legs and adjusted her glasses. "It's basic warfare strategy."

"But we'd have to let them _die!"_ Ruby argued, glaring over at Coco.

"That comes with the territory, Ruby. The sooner you learn that - "

"No!" Ruby crawled backwards out of her hidey-hole and slid over to where the wall was whole, to glare down at the seated sophomore, who blankly looked back up at her. "Isn't the point of war to fight over who's right and wrong?" She demanded, "isn't that why _all_ wars start?!"

"That's incredibly naive, Ru-"

"But it's not _wrong!"_ Ruby argued, "if we're fighting because we think we're right, but we let people we care about - people who fight with us, or for us - die, when we can prevent that, does that make us right?!" She shook her head, hair whipping back and forth. "No! No, it just makes us as bad as them!" She leaned back on her heels, looking as lost as she was angry. "If we're fighting because we're right, that means that we believe the way we think is right! That means we're fighting because we think their way of thinking is wrong! But if the way we think is to let our people die just because we don't know them - when _they_ look like they're different kingdoms entirely all fighting side by side, who's righter then, Coco?!" She pointed outside, "my sister said those people were wearing different patches on their uniforms! That means they come from different kingdoms, or tribes, or wherever they come from! So they don't know eachother - but they're still fighting with them! And protecting them! And dying _for_ them! So... So - no!" She shook her head, "if that's what it takes to win a war, then I'd rather win my way!"

"You'll probably die, fighting your way, Ruby."

"Maybe!" Ruby nodded, "but then I'd at least die doing what is _right,_ Coco!" She pointed outside again, "those terrans outside, they don't have aura! And neither do the White Fang! But we do! We can help them!"

"Ruby, we're here to rescue your sister and your friend - her team leader." She nodded to Ecru. "We're not here to -"

"I'm siding with Ruby on this one, actually." Ecru cut in, "and I'm pretty sure Ash and Yang would kill us if they were here and heard us agreeing with you."

Pyrrha agreed, "I know Yang and Ash would throw themselves out there without hesitation, Coco." A beat, "really, Ash already _has..._ And I'm certain if he were fit, even Jaune, _my_ team leader, would be saying the same."

"Why did you come here in the first place if you didn't want to fight?" Ruby asked, "why do you go to Beacon if not to become a huntress?"

"Ruby, I don't know if you can tell, but I'm not necessarily in this game for entirely altruistic reasons." She said, indicating her clothes. "And I've been advising caution since the beginning." She said, "put another way: If three people give you the same answer, it is the duty of the fourth to put forth an opposing viewpoint, if only to play devil's advocate." She added, as the got to her feet. "If you want to fight I won't _stop_ you. I've merely been saying why I desperately believe we should _not._ "

Ruby's frown didn't fade at this, as she exchanged looks with Pyrrha and Ecru, both of whom nodded back.

* * *

In the entire battle for Vale, there had only been one instance of direct battle between the United Nations' and Vale's respective navies, and unfortunately for Vale, their choice of target had been a guided missile destroyer. Ninety missiles and what had been described as 'fifty motherfucking spaceships' later, in perfect English no less, the destroyer had finally been crippled and declared not worth trying to save. Its crew had evacuated, leaving a horrendously mangled, bombed out husk of a warship.

The good news was that its engines worked.

The bad news was that it had absolute _shit_ for fuel and oil after being left to leak and rust in the ocean for three days, leaving it not only a bombed out husk, but an incredibly hot one that screamed in protest the longer it was forced to move its ailing corpse of a body to carry its two sole occupants to Vale.

Fortunately, of those two occupants, only one was conscious - the other sleeping off a combination of twelve bullets, an amputation by plasma, and more pain killers and anesthetics than should be healthy for a human body to take, the lattermost actually haven been taken mostly from what had been given to the _conscious_ occupant for injuries he'd sustained much earlier than she. Though, the good news was that he'd had a chance to fill up that stock by raiding the destroyer's medical stores; he'd _never_ seen so much morphine and antibiotics in one place.

The conscious one of them, however, didn't count his lucidity as a blessing, as that meant he was alone with nothing but his thoughts, a _screaming_ warship, his stolen twice-over belongings, as well as a few new gifts given to him by his new 'friends' from Earth, and with how slowly this ship was limping across Remnant's ocean, he was in for a _long_ trip, doubly so since the goddamn air conditioning was dead and the entire ship was heating up, and _triply_ so if the engines died on him and he had to use his semblance to get out and push. Because he couldn't steer or propel this thing any other way.

Fortunately, his silent torture was ended by a new noise: The squawk of his new satellite radio, the mere existence of which confirmed what he'd thought a while back: That the Earth had shat out satellites into Remnant's orbit.

Somehow.

Unfortunately, when he heard what was going on at the docks in Vale, his heart sank into his chest. He'd hoped to have a week to prepare for this. A week to recover, update his journal, get some things set up to mitigate the side effects, but now it was looking like he'd probably have, oh, an hour. Or two.

So with a heavy heart, he nodded. "Open the red folder, Ilyich. Wait 'till I get there." He grunted into the radio, before stuffing it back in his bag, giving one look at his unconscious traveling companion, giving one look at his unconscious traveling companion, who was covered both by a few coats he'd stolen from the Russian Carrier, and so many bandages she'd practically been mummified, and sighing, before he got to his feet and made for the mess hall, hoping he'd be able to find some aluminum foil.

"I'm going to have to do something really fuckin' stupid..." He murmured to himself.


	42. Ready To Die

_AN:  
_

 _A bit shorter than usual, but I've found that enormous dozen-plus man battles against entire armies, especially Huntsmen vs the terrans, can get grating and old. It's also a lot more difficult to set up the geography of the fight in situations like these... At least when working from a literary perspective.  
And besides, I already had one chapter that was 10k+ words of an OP superman cutting through squishy terran soldiers, so I figured I'd do the next one a bit differently, and shorter._

 _With... Well, I'll let you see it for yourself:_

* * *

Chapter 41

* * *

The terran advantage was in numbers and firepower. For every one of them, there were anywhere from five to even ten terrans ready to gun them down. They had copious amounts of explosives, bullets, heavy ordinance and rockets, all of which they were using and to great effect. But, the advantages were not _all_ held by the invading army, as not a one of them had huntsmen. Whereas few, if any, of the White Fang attacking them had any use of their aura, they would soon find themselves receiving the help of those who held advantages of their own. At the top of the list was their mobility - any one of the assembled rookies was exponentially faster and more mobile than a terran; next was their strength in a melee - so long as they could get inside melee range, any of the terrans they would be fighting would find themselves unable to effectively use their weapons and would find their battles lost almost as quickly as they began. Used together, so long as the rookies kept on the move and closed ranks as fast as they possibly could, they stood a chance - but only just - of surviving, and winning, the battle ahead, and with eleven rookie huntsmen and huntresses ready to fight, and two more hidden somewhere inside the enemy line, the hope and the prayer of all of the assembled was that their numbers would be effective enough as a force multiplier that they could get the job done.

Soon after the decision was made to join the White Fang's assault, the rookies inside their brick impromptu base were geared up and charging for battle, with their de-facto ringleader, Ruby Rose, at the head of the pack, scythe extended face set in determination. She knew that she was going to do things in the next few minutes that may stay with her for a long time, but she held steadfast to her belief that what she was doing was right, and that she could live with these next few hours as a result.

But that was all the thought she was able to give to the prospect of killing a man, as it took no time at all for them to reach the terran defensive line, slamming into it like a cannon. A few terrans manning the defenses were all that were there to greet them - so many more were off elsewhere trying to fight the Fang - and as a result, they weren't prepared in the slightest for what was about to hit them. They, as did all of them, raised their weapons to begin their struggle, but found that those weapons were stolen right out of their hands by the magnetic powers of Pyrrha, whose body was enshrouded by a black glow, and barely a second later they were carved into by rapid-fire rounds from Coco's gigantic gattling gun, whose automatic spray carved the path the rest of them needed to breach the line.

Ruby leapt over a barrier of sandbags, spinning around with one full revolution, building up the momentum she'd need to swing her scythe fast and hard enough such that it would cleave through a trio of machine guns, and their gunners. She felt the physical recoil of the metal blade hitting each object, stalling for a moment as it split them all in twain. She felt the grinding sensation of her scythe cutting through the metal tripods, and then the tearing feeling of the blade cleaving through the flesh of each soldier. Her momentum carried her forward and past the sandbags, and for a moment after landing, there was stillness. This moment came and went in a flash - or, more appropriately, a spray, specifically of the soldiers' blood as the upper halves of their bodies fell to the ground and the blood in their bodies oozed out of their veins and sprayed out of their arteries.

Ruby might have spent a moment to react to what she'd done, to realize that the world seemed to be slowing down as she watched the blood fall from her scythe, but that only would have happened if her situation were any less chaotic than it was now. As it were, what forced her mind to not stutter and stall was a bullet, streaking through the air, so close to the bridge of her nose that she felt its heat radiate against her face, heard it whiz past her ear and felt the air waver in front of her. The split-second brush with her own mortality snapped her back to reality, calling to the forefront of her mind all of the lessons she had learned both in Beacon and back home in Patch, to set - or, if need be, _shove -_ aside anything in the midst of battle that didn't have to do with the battle itself. So as horrific as she _knew_ what she'd done was, her life was in danger, the lives of those White Fang were in danger, the lives of her friends and her sister were in danger, and the safety of her kingdom was at stake. She couldn't afford to think about any of this, she could only do what she'd trained for for fifteen years.

Well, okay - not _fifteen_ years, there'd been a few before she'd actually gone to school but - not important!

In the time it took to blink she shook all thoughts from her head and threw herself back forward into battle. She surged forward, rolling into a concrete barrier and taking cover, waiting for a lull in the fire, until Ren leapt past her, gun spraying bullets wildly, suppressing more than they were hurting. Ruby realized what he was doing, and took advantage of the soldiers hiding from the gunfire, swinging her scythe in a wide, downward arc, burying the blade in the ground just past the concrete to steady it. Then, with each pull of the trigger, a thunderclap briefly overwhelmed all of the sounds of war and a huge anti-material round blasted through the air, soon accompanied by her racking the slide and chambering a new round. Before she broke off to reposition, a dozen gigantic slugs, each nearly the size of her thumb, hurtled through the air, slamming into people and walls alike, blasting everything they touched into smithereens.

She dashed away in a flurry of rose petals, leaving Ren to reach the soldiers he'd suppressed. He collided with the group of soldiers almost like a bowling ball into a group of pins. His green, bladed guns clenched tightly in each hand, he threw a rapid flurry of punches, each accompanied by the sound of a crack of thunder, and the sight of flesh tearing from both bullet and blade. Compared to other brawlers his punches were less jabs and uppercuts than they were hooks and slices, the blades on his guns more important than the guns themselves, the bullets not blasting through the men he cut, but the people off to their side, maximizing those he would injure with the absolute efficiency. It didn't take long at all for his green guns to become stained red.

But, as with all who chose to pursue such an extreme close-range fighting style, whenever there were more opponents than he could safely dealt with, their quantity would inevitably lead to an increase in their quality. Though he cut through the soldiers around him like they were wet tissue paper, racking up a body with each passing second, there were so many of them that while he was dealing with those in his immediate vicinity, those outside of that vicinity were taking aim, screaming and begging their friends to get out of the way so they could clear up a line of fire, while some weren't even trying - they were taking aim, damn the consequences.

Unfortunately for them, the only consequences they had considered were those of friendly fire, they hadn't at all thought of the orange fireball that came crashing into them before they could open fire. Her hammer slammed into the ground and detonated with a fiery explosion right at the densest area of soldiers, sending those closest to her flying and stumbling the rest. She picked up the hammer and with a wide grin, she charged forward, swinging it in a horizontal arc and caving in the chest of a soldier with a shotgun, sending him flying towards her lifelong friend, who heard the gurgling of the man's dying breaths and leaned out of the way, letting him collide with a soldier charging him with a bayonet and flooring the both of them. Both Ren and Nora retreated three paces, quickly coming back to back, as the former slid fresh magazines into his pistols and the latter collapsed the haft of her hammer, transforming it into a grenade launcher.

The soldiers surrounding them were either scrambling to their feet or not even bothering, simply shouldering their rifles from their prone and supine positions, thinking they had an advantage, now that their enemies were surrounded with their backs to eachother and no means of entering a melee. Just as they opened fire, however, huge, jagged chunks of metal fell out of the sky and slammed into the ground, planting themselves in between the bullets and the two fighters. Hardly a second later a third warrior came rampaging in, a shield securely fastened to one arm and a long spear spinning in the other. She threw the spear with a grunt, it literally exploding out of her hands and burying into the back of a soldier readying a grenade launcher of his own, and as he stumbled forward she landed on the ground. After rolling to her feet she tore the spear out of the man's back, spinning it lengthwise in her hand, transforming it from a spear to a rifle, which bucked and barked as she spun on her heel, and as she shot down man after man, bullets burying into the unarmored portions of their bodies. Her two teammates stormed past the barrier she'd made, one by leaping over it, pistols blasting so fast it was as though they were automatic weapons, one by slamming her hammer into one of the jagged hunks of metal and sending it flying through the air, now a deadly projectile moving so fast that it tore clean through the front and back walls of a building, which she promptly destroyed with a follow-up grenade.

The three quarters of team JNPR didn't remain in this position for long, each of them sporting a wound of some sort or another and knowing that staying in one place was tantamount to courting death, what with the numbers they were dealing with. They only stayed here long enough to cause their wanton destruction and then retreat further into the docks, throwing the defending terrans off their balance and keeping them that way. The Beacon rookies' rampage had the intended side effect of pulling a lot of heat off of the attacking White Fang, as now the terrans had to split their attention between a conventional force they were used to fighting, and a highly unconventional force they'd _never_ fought before the previous week.

As a result of this, where once the terrans had been holding their ground, albeit precariously, now they were losing it. It was clear in how , slowly but surely, they were all retreating. Where once they had full control of the docks, all the way up to the exits and the roads leading out, now under the combined assault of four groups of huntsmen and huntresses and an army of faunus terrorists, they were falling back. One squad would hold the line and fire on any enemies they saw while another would sprint back, find a position, and secure it so the first could do the same. This game of leapfrog was repeated nearly everywhere, as three three-quarter teams and one full-strength team rampaged through them. The four huntsmen groups stayed close to eachother - with Ruby and Weiss and Ecru and Srebro having both paired up and then again stuck to the other team, since they each were down not only one member, but a second, hidden and operating somewhere in the maelstrom of chaos. NPR was able to operate with a limited amount of independence, but it was CFVY that was at its fullest strength, and was operating with the most autonomy.

Coco, with her massive gattling gun, was tearing through terran after terran, using its high-speed and high-caliber fire to chew up their hardened positions and suppress any brave terrans long enough for her to either eat through their cover, or for her teammates to come charging in. Fox and Yatsuhashi were the primary melee fighters, each executing perfect pincer attacks, hitting the terrans hard under the cover of Coco's machine gun fire, tearing up their cover from within their lines, and then dashing off. The uniquity was Velvet, whose arsenal found her performing any number of attacks - slicing apart any gunners who got too close to Coco with a hardlight copy of Myrtenmaster, blasting away enemies from long range with Crescent Rose, and often even assisting Coco directly with a copy of her handbag. She had tried for her worth to use her camera on the terran weapons and get a copy of them to use, considering the sheer number and variety she had to select from, but had found that her camera couldn't recognize, and thusly copy, any of them. Unfortunate, but she could work around with it - for range and melee combat, she had all of her bases covered, and could even provide heavy weapons support through Nora and Coco's weapons.

What none of them realized, however, was that their steady advance was a ploy by the terrans. The aliens from another world were doing two things: Shoring up their defenses around the hexagonal cages they had assembled around their vehicles, and retreating in specific, pre-defined paths designed to funnel in the attackers in directions more advantageous to the terrans. These paths were _wide,_ wide enough that one wouldn't be able to see one end from the other. They had to be, due to the destructive power and maneuverability of their enemies - as well, they needed to be convinced that they were making progress, not being led. Led to where, though, was where the entire plan came into play.

Both the White Fang and the Beacon Students, slowly but surely, were being directed into a single location in the center of the costal docks. Several buildings, a crane, and a few docked Remnant ships all surrounded this area and, unbeknownst to the attackers, were all lined and packed to the bursting point with weapons, men, and equipment. The center of this zone was their killzone - when the enemy armies arrived, the terrans would close ranks and have them wholly surrounded and in a massive crossfire. Any reinforcements would be completely unable to reach them, and provided they entrapped enough, this decapitating strike would at least half the attackers' strength, resulting in an instantly disoriented and weakened assault, and thus the terran counterattack would begin, pushing back the Fang and the Huntsmen and killing them through sheer overwhelming firepower and numbers - the only two advantages the terrans always universally had.

No one on the field had the requisite large-scale operations experience to realize what was going on, to connect the dots and to see the ploy for what it was.

So the person who did would have to enter the field, to take charge and take command, to try and ruin the terran counter before it could happen. He had little time to begin with, and had even fewer men to operate, but he would have to make due and hope the remainder of his assault force would provide enough of an impact to throw the terrans off balance again.

This man, his overcoat billowing in the wind, looked out at the docks with a determined frown on his face, and a flutter to his heart that only came in the waning moments immediately preceding battle. He ran his gloved hand through his bloody red hair and then turned his masked face to the towering giant of a faunus next to him, and with one nod, the giant yanked at a wire connected to his enormous sword, it instantly revving to life with the sound of a chainsaw. The two of them and the remaining White Fang soldiers charged down the rubble-filled, dusty street leading to the coast, and let out loud battle cries as they did.

What few terrans were still manning these defenses turned to face them, but found them cut down rapidly by the two leading the charge - the few among the forces stationed in Vale, who could access their aura. A rapid slice from the red blade of the swordsmen, and a loud smash and a spray of gore from the chainsword-wielding lieutenent destroyed a machine gun, its gunner, and the sandbag barrier that was blocking their advance, and as they dealt with the others in the immediate vicinity, they opened up the floodgates for the remaining Fangs to charge, all howling like a wolf at the moon.

For their part, they did well - punching a hole deep into enemy lines, and even making contact with some straggling or pinned down Fang groups, rallying them, and penetrating further. But they found their efforts were in vain, turning out to be too little, too late, as just as they made it within eyesight of the killzone, said killzone was rapidly filling up with the Fang attackers and the Beacon students.

Now in a massive, singular crowd, the assembled attackers seemed to realize their mistake as terrans appeared to pop up from every possible crevice and hiding spot available, all with guns pointed right at them. The attackers rushed outwards, forming a huge ring, out from which they fired at the terrans surrounding them. The aura-less Fangs with guns, the haggard students with their special weapons, they all found cover and began blasting away - anyone even attempting to bring the fight back into a melee finding themselves torn apart mercilessly before they could close the distance.

Inside of twenty minutes, the fight had turned from the terrans off balance and reacting, losing ground at every available turn, to now the Remnant humans and faunus being thrown into the meatgrinder and losing every advantage they ever could have had. Confidence turned to despair as they all desperately fired out at the seemingly innumerable horde of terrans, and despair turned to anger and rage in the eyes and lungs of those few trying to punch a hole open for the killzone to escape out of.

Ruby was one of those feeling the ever-increasing amounts of despair, as she fired round after round out at the terrans, spent casings and empty magazines quickly piling up at her feet. Every bullet made a body, but for every terran who fell, two more took its place and doubled the firepower being poured down upon her. Quickly Ruby found herself taking cover more often than she was firing, but even that was fleeting, as the sheer amount of ordinance being thrown her way from every direction was chewing through it as quickly as Velvet had been, earlier. Nora's grenade launcher didn't help, Coco's machine gun wasn't enough, Velvet's hardlight arsenal was running dry, and the White Fang were beginning to lose hope around them, some screaming and shouting, some crying, others merely staring blankly at huge, gaping wounds in their bodies, as all around them the air shook and thundered and exploded.

Ruby dropped to her knees to reload, her right shoulder, left arm, and several of her ribs bleeding and in pain. She looked to her right and saw Weiss was doing little better - she was trying to use her glyphs as barriers, but the terran response to that was the response they had to everything: More gunfire. Focused gunfire, walls of it - oceans of it - quickly overwhelming the barriers she made and rapidly burning through the ailing heiress' stamina.

Ruby knew that, just maybe, she could reach the terrans if she used her semblance, but she was worried she might literally run into their gunfire if she did so, and that crossing that distance wouldn't only abandon her friends and allies, but would also prove to be little, if any, difference whatsoever, as _all_ of the terrans who had previously run were now here, it seeming as though the entire invasion force were surrounding them. Her ears were ringing and the gunfire and explosions weren't letting up - a bullet slammed into the concrete right next to her ear and briefly deafened her to the world. The air was choked by smoke and dust, and the sky was darkening from a morose gray to a deep darkness, closer to night than day.

Fear gripping her soul, Ruby looked again at Weiss and their eyes met. Both of them seemed to realize that this could potentially be the end, that they might not make it out of this. Weiss held out her hand and Ruiby grabbed it, trying to show some amount of confidence even where there was increasingly little.

As the two let go and prepared to attack again, neither noticed the sudden and rapid drop in temperature in the air around them. Ruby leaned over her concrete barrier and poured more rounds down range, deciding that if her only possible chance to tip the balance was to run right at them, then she'd have to do it. But as she fired again and again and searched for any kind of weakness anywhere, she found that her next bullet was stopped wholesale.

Ruby blinked, and saw that where once there was open air between her and the terrans surrounding them, now there was a huge, thick wall of ice - it taking all manner of rounds fired at it and only cracking wide and far, but not falling. The ice wall quickly formed with a large cracking noise, surrounding the killzone until it encapsulated it all and chilled the air behind and beyond it. It took no time at all for the gunfire to halt, as even the snipers had no clear shots. The battle having briefly been brought to a halt, everyone involved looked around, trying to figure out what had happened and where to cause it.

Ruby turned to the only ice-wielder she knew, but Weiss looked just as lost as her, as she stood up and looked out at the massive circular wall keeping them safe. Ruby looked down at the other teams, but none of them seemed any more aware than she. Past the opaque wall she could see the terrans just as dumbfounded, so much so that, for the moment, no one was readying explosives. The entire battle had halted, the air growing still and silent, as everyone was trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

"Weiss?" Ruby intoned, turning back to her. "What -" But as she turned, she saw up in the sky was a huge trail of smoke, darker and thicker than anything they could have made now, and it looked as though it were coming from out at sea. Following the smoke trail down, she saw, crossing over the horizon and bearing straight towards them, was something small and faint, but growing larger and closer with every second.

"Weiss - look!" Ruby pointed out to sea, and others, also making the connection, were doing the same.

Now with members of both armies looking out to sea, the object grew closer and closer, until Ruby realized it for what it was: A _boat._ Not like any she'd seen before - all big and gray and ugly. It had a huge gun on its deck and a giant mast with a radio antenna sticking out of its top. It was belching smoke out into the sky and was churning up the sea beneath it as it hurtled towards them. As it grew close enough for Ruby to almost make out some fine details, she realized something else.

She could hear music.

Closer the gun-boat grew, and louder the music grew with it. Starting soft, with only a guitar strumming out a few notes repeating, before suddenly its volume skyrocketed as more instruments joined in. The volume grew louder and louder as the boat grew close enough for Ruby to just barely _hear_ it churning up the ocean beneath it, and as the music, blasting out of what had to be anything on that boat that could produce sound, began singing, Ruby noticed something else:

There was a person, standing right there at the boat's front.

 _"This is your time to play!"_ She heard thunder out from the sea. _"This is your judgement day!"_ Ruby squinted her eyes, trying to figure out who it was at the head of the boat, but in her heart, she already knew - she didn't even need Srebro and Ecru's growing grins and picking up shouts to confirm it. _"We made a sacrifice, and now we get to take your life!"_ The boat screamed, as Ruby noticed the man at its head shouldering a weapon nearly as big as he was, holding it out, stock pressed against his bicep. _"We shoot without a gun, we'll take on anyone -"_ It continued, as the boat now came within a stone's throw of the docks, and Ruby realized it was angled such that it would - just barely - miss her and the White Fang, and instead slam right into the terrans. " - _it's really nothing new -"_

"Ruby, give me his shield!" She heard Pyrrha call out.

As Ruby scrambled to pull Ash's shield from the weapon mount on her back, the boat continued. _"It's just a thing we like to do!"_ And as it made it to the docks and was moments away from slamming into them, the man on the deck took off running, shooting off like a bullet until he hit the edge of the boat and then leaping into the air.

Now so close, Ruby realized why Pyrrha had asked for the shield first, and not the sword: Ash looked _terrible._ His coat was shredded, billowing in the wind as he hurtled through it, he was leaking and covered in blood, to the point where he looked more red than he did tan, and his right arm was completely limp - the giant rifle held in his metal hand instead.

 _"You better get ready to die!"_ The boat screamed, as it slammed into the docks so hard that the earth beneath them began shaking. _"You better get ready to kill!"_ The audio began dropping in quality, no doubt as everything electronic on that ship received a massive, unplanned for jolt. _"You better get ready to run -"_ Ash flipped through the air, rifle properly shouldered and now bucking and barking, bullets as big as Crescent Rose's blasting through the air and sounding the clarion for the battle's resumption. _"Cause here we come!"_ The ship declared, clipping the ice wall and causing it to collapse in its entirety, and signalling for the Remnant forces to spill forth, their collective roars overpowering the fading music.

Ruby tossed the shield to Pyrrha, who caught it deftly with one hand and, after one full spin, threw it into the sky as gunfire started filling it - so many terrans seeming to declare the wounded and dying eighteen year old boy the greater threat than the army, now unleashed, and storming towards it. Ash let off every bullet he had, and once the rifle was empty, he threw it like a spear and then caught the shield by its edge. He instantly ducked behind it as he began arcing towards the Earth. Now protected, the bullets could do naught but bounce off harmlessly, as the battle resumed, the earth finished shaking, and the terran boat cut straight through half of their killzone and opened up an instant avenue for the Remnant forces to charge.

The Beacon students made haste towards Ash, intending to be there where he landed - but they found their efforts needless, as hurtling through the air was a gun, spinning like a throwing star, with a ribbon attached to its end. It reached Ash and he instantly reached out and grabbed onto it with his free arm, his hand hanging limp and giving the limb the appearance of a puppet being pulled by its strings. The gun wrapped around the bloodsoaked flesh and the ribbon was pulled taut, sending him arcing to the ground. He planted his shield underneath his feet, slipping one foot inside the straps and pulling another, smaller, rifle from his back. He hit the ice wall and grinded across it, curving around the circular wall before letting go of the ribbon and letting it snap back to its owner, as he fired with his rifle, roaring out in defiance.

Ash hit the ground and kept sliding across it, practically skating towards the terrans and tearing through them with his acquired gun. When he reached them he hopped into the air, planting the broad side of his shield on the chest of the first terran he saw and then kicking off of him, reversing his momentum and sending him back to the charging White Fang. Srebro's sword quickly cut into the sky, snagging the edge of Ash's shield and with a pulse of her semblance, she then safely lowered him down to the ground, where he was enveloped in a brief, bone-crushing hug from his two teammates. He was the rallying point for the Beacon students, but they didn't get an opportunity for well-wishes or, in Ruby's case, desperate pleas for the location of her sister, because they were all quickly accosted by distant terran snipers.

In a scant second, they all dashed off, with no decision in their minds - until Ecru realized that Ash was sprinting towards the gun-boat, managing to sustain a surprising foot-speed, despite the limp he obtained during his absence. Noticing this injury also prompted Ecru to realize that when she'd released her team leader from their brief embrace, she and Srebro too had come away covered in a light smattering of blood, which grew cold in the open air. Ecru rallied the Beacon students' attention and pointed them towards Ash, and soon they were all charging towards the ship.

Indeed, the seaborne weapon of war appeared to be something of a rallying point and a clarion for everyone involved - the White Fang were using it as cover to escape from the killzone, and the terrans were blasting it and anyone taking cover around it apart with infantry-portable rockets, while their infantry advanced - trying desperately to curtail the Fang's escape from the killzone and trap them again. The result of this was what seemed like a universal mad-dash for the warship, and in mere minutes any semblance of defensive or offensive lines were thrown away - there was no clear cut terran or Vale side, only whoever was immediately in front of whoever else, and who was being shot at by whom and from where. The Beacon students, together, found little they couldn't tear through in mere seconds - be it their blade users carving people apart, the blunt-edge users snapping bones like twigs, or the gunners blasting apart anyone that could get a line of sight, their speed and power was unparalelled, and with the terrans now firmly unable to rally in time to curb their advance, the Beacon students were functionally unstoppable.

Until, of course, something did: A single bright blue flare arcing high into the sky, the very signal Myrtle and Blake had agreed upon as what they would launch if they found themselves in trouble. Ruby noticed the bloom of blue light from behind her before she noticed the flare itself, and she gasped as she realized that Blake and Myrtle must have revealed themselves when the former had helped launch Ash into battle, upon his arrival. Ruby called out, attracting the attention of the various leaders: The red-haired warrior, the stylish gunner, and now the red white and blue defender. Each of them spared her a glance as they continued carving their way to the beached ship, weaving into and out of combat, tearing apart terrans and rescuing or supporting White Fang. Coco and Pyrrha's eyes lit up as they saw the flare, hanging suspended in the distant sky, whereas Ash, while he quickly surmised the meaning, grew a deep frown on his face, something lighting up in his cybernetic eyes - something Ruby swore was fear.

Ash slowed down, just enough that they weren't in a dead-sprint for the warship and could yell out to one another. "We can't -" He slurred, suddenly seeming sapped of energy, as though he had been operating on sheer momentum and nothing else. "Need to -"

Ecru dashed forward and took him by the shoulders, steadying him, even as he continued trying to move, raising his shield to cover her back. "Ash - " She turned to Ruby, looking past her and to the flare, then back down to the crimson-haired rookie. "We have to split up!"

"Yang in the ship..." Ash slurred, still trying to drag himself. "Where are they?" Ruby noticed him biting his lip hard, both eyes closed tight, focusing - though on what, she couldn't tell.

"Ash, no! You can't -" Srebro breathed.

"Ash you're hurt! If Yang's in the ship, then we'll -" But her words were drowned out completely by first a bullet whizzing by and then an explosion going off close enough to throw everyone to the ground.

Ruby's vision swam, everything a formless mass of color. Her ears were ringing and her legs felt like jelly - it took her several seconds to realize that the pain in her head wasn't just from the impact of it against the ground, or the ringing in her ears, but rather a sharper lance of pain running along her temple - and a quick inspection showed blood coming away with her hand. That wasn't good, but any thoughts beyond that were thrown to the wayside when she felt a boot kick her shoulder and roll her over onto her back.

Vision still hazy, she could barely tell what was happening until the suddenly clear sight of the barrel of a rifle was right in front of her. She gasped, but a second went by without a final flash - just long enough for a long red blade to sprout out of his chest. The sound of flesh tearing over steel heralded the slow return of her hearing, and soon after the full restoration of her vision, as she saw the soldier slide off of the curved red blade, revealing a tall warrior with a billowing coat, not unlike Ash's. He flicked his blade to the side, blood flaying off of it, as similarly masked soldiers sprinted past him on both sides, firing in all directions at enemies she could not see. The swordsman looked down at her, a deep frown etched onto his face, before his look raised up, and Ruby felt someone step over her.

The only other person she knew to wear an overcoat passed into her slowly clearing vision, shield held in front of him. Ruby couldn't see Ash's expression, but from how still he grew, and from the unmoving expression from the swordsmen, it did briefly enter her mind that he could know this man. That thought was fleeting, however, as it dawned on her that though they were allies by circumstance, this man - clearly important - was a member of the White Fang. What little she personally knew wasn't good - and Ash, smart as he was, probably knew more. He didn't know this guy, he was making sure that the only ones dying by that blade were the terrans invading their kingdom.

The idea seemed to be understood by the swordsman, who pointed the blade downward at the ground, almost respectfully, before holding his hand forward. Ash grasped it and shook, and Ruby heard him speak.

 _"Has been opened."_

Ruby blinked, how had Ash's voice come from below her, when he was standing above her?

She looked at the perforated terran body, at its strange, blocky uniform, and heard the same voice speak again. _"I say again: This is USS Anchorage to all ground forces. The Red Folder has been opened. Hammer down in thirty seconds. Hammer down in thirty seconds."_

Ruby frowned at the squawking radio, but paid it no mind, hauling herself slowly to her feet as the battle continued raging around her. The ringing in her ears slowly began to fully clear up, though it still felt as though her head were in a vice, throbbing in horrible pain. She picked up her scythe and looked around, blinking once, then twice, a smile gracing her lips.

"Ash!" She breathed, wiping some of the blood off of the side of her head, and attracting the attention of the lightly swaying fighter. "Ash, look - the terrans are falling back!" She pointed over Ash's shoulder, where, sure enough, the terrans were retreating wholesale, most turning tail and running, only a few brave souls staying to fight, to hold back the tide of the Fang. "If we hurry, we can get Yang and Blake, and Myrtle!" She could still just see the last vestiges of the flare hanging in the sky, wondering through her hazy mind if the fighting was still going on there. Maybe the VAF had come?

Ash, for a moment, had a thin smile on his face as he followed her gaze, watching as the terrans retreated in droves, and the noise of the battle dropped significantly, even his new not-enemy looked around, his face showing concern. Ruby felt a hand drop onto her shoulder and turned to see first Weiss, a sorrowful, exhausted smile playing her features, and then after her the rest of the students, having recovered and rearmed themselves.

She turned back to Ash who, though winded and slurring, still tried to take some kind of charge. "We've got... Friends, up there." He pointed out in the direction of the flare, "short one, crossbow... Taller one, gun, sword... Wears a bow."

The masked swordsman nodded at that, "I'll have my men look for them." He said, still frowning. "Any idea why they're pulling back?"

"Something about hammers?" Ruby spoke up, as Ecru and Srebro approached Ash, who took the chance to find someone to lean on and balance himself, breath coming out fast and heavy. "Maybe that's code for a retreat?" She looked around again, seeing multitudes of White Fang standing about and regrouping, as the fighters pushed the defending terrans further and further back. "Or maybe..." She trailed off, noticing a strange sight off in the distance, and closing in, even faster than Ash's approach.

It looked like a small fireball, above the clouds, lighting them up a bright gold in a tight circle around it as it soared through the sky and towards the mainland. Ruby found herself transfixed by it, the sight almost looking like a huge firefly lighting up the gray morning sky. Soon she noticed Weiss following her gaze, and after her, Pyrrha and her team, then Coco and hers, all watching the strange sight as it flew just above the clouds, the halo of golden light slowly growing smaller, almost as though the firefly were ascending higher into the sky.

The image was ruined by the single most gobsmacked, horrified gasp she'd ever heard, followed by Ash snapping everyone out of their reverie, screaming out, _"GET DOWN!"_ So loud that his voice wavered and cracked. _"CLOSE YOUR EYES, COVER YOUR EARS - DO IT **NOW!"**_

No one questioned him, the swordsman even repeated him, and soon people were diving to the ground, none but a few able to properly comprehend what was about to drop on them. Ruby covered her head, pressing her arms tight against her ears. The last thing she would hear would be someone's muffled voice calling out to Ash, trying to question him on what was happening - but he silenced them by telling them to keep their mouths shut, to cover their eyes and ears and to duck and cover. With the tone he was using, Ruby for a moment wondered if he wasn't scared the wrath of the Brother Gods wasn't about to drop onto them.

Perhaps she wasn't wrong, as just a moment later, even through her tightly clenched eyes and ears, they both were graced with the brightest flash of pure white light, and the loudest boom of deafening sound, that she'd ever been exposed to in her life. The light of the flash managed to turn the dark night behind her shut eyes to a bright and sunny day, so bright and brilliant that even turning her head towards the ground didn't abate it at all. The sound of the blast was like someone had taken a million Crescent Roses and let them off right next to her ears, the sound loud and deep enough that she could feel it in her chest, like she were at one of Yang's rock concerts. She wished that would have been the end of it, but that had only been the start.

Even as high up as the holy hellfire was, the explosion was still so mighty that a shockwave made it down to the ground, and it crashed into Ruby like a hundred beowolves, washing over her like a tidal wave. The explosion was so powerful, even so far away, that she felt this shockwave press at her for several solid seconds, before finally abating.

What followed was what Ruby could only describe as dead silence. There wasn't a sound left in the air for miles, perhaps in the entire world. The light barely began to fade away, until her eyelids had her blind again by her own volition. It wasn't until several seconds had passed and she took in a long, raspy breath, that she realized she'd been holding it since the light had reached her eyes.

 _"No!"_ She heard, a million miles away, before sensing someone thunder over her. _"No, Nora! Stay down! Let it die, don't look!"_ The utter, uncharacteristic seriousness in what sounded like Ash's distant voice was what prompted Ruby to squash down any and all curious instincts to peek open an eye and see what he was going on about, what Nora had been doing to get him to break his own rules and get up to run for her. She thought she heard something like someone being tackled to the ground, but tried to ignore it, for fear of that very curiosity getting the better of her.

Unfortunately, one thought dominated her mind, rattling around and bouncing about her skull, back and forth, side to side, everywhere, over and over until the urge became too great: Why launch a bomb - and it had to be a bomb, for what else could do this but one? - if it wasn't meant to kill them here on the docks? Had they missed? How could they have?

Finally giving in, Ruby slowly peeked one eye - just one - open a crack. She was staring at the ground, but at least whatever horrors were above hadn't struck her blind. So emboldened, she slowly turned her head to the side, the barely open eye slowly pointing upwards, and slowly opening wider, as she tried to ascertain what it was that was going on. What had happened? Where -

 _Whoa._ She thought, breath catching in her chest, and heart slowing down, as her cracked eye beheld a sun, suspended in the sky, so close to her that she thought she could reach out and touch it. It bathed the sky in fire, at the outermost edges a deep and dark red, but growing brighter and brighter, turning orange, then yellow, then white as it reached the center, until finally she reached that center, and beheld this new sun's core: A gigantic, looming mushroom cloud of rolling white and orange fire. The cloud grew with every second, some of the white flames abating to orange and red as they cooled down, though only barely - it was still bright and burning fire, suspended right there in the sky above her.

How had the terrans shot them with a _sun?_ Was - was the sun still there? Had they taken it out of the sky and moved it here?

"Ruby -" She heard distantly, before feeling a hand on her shoulder. "Don't look at it." The hand pressed against her head and forcibly lowered her head, "bomb that big - you don't want to look at it, even now after a minute."

"What _is_ it?" Ruby breathed, turning to Ash, seeing his blood soaked visage now bathed in the orange and white light of the new, mushroom-shaped sun.

"I have no fucking clue, and I don't want to find out. Now -" He swallowed, "I can't make the jump, I need one of you to get onto the ship. Go to the bridge, Yang's there - she's fine, bandaged up, but -" He trailed off, looking past her and up, but not up towards the sun, but rather in the direction of Vale, of Beacon. "Holy shit." He breathed, as he fell back a step, his fleshy hand coming up to cover his mouth as, behind him, the others, now getting to their feet, either found themselves mesmerized by the new sun, or transfixed by the same lower, but still distant whatever-it-was that had stolen Ash's attention.

Ruby whirled around to face the same direction as Ash, and instantly found what it was he was looking at.

Every single ship in Vale's fleet was falling to the ground. All of them listing to one side or another, some even diving nose-first to the ground. All of them were reflecting the fires of the mushroom sun, none had lights of their own, and they all were falling, faster and faster, to the ground, until they disappeared over the horizon. Ruby gasped, and she heard someone let out a singular sob when the first sound of the ships slamming into the ground reached them.

Ruby was about to speak up, to ask someone - _anyone -_ why the pilots had just let the engines die, but she was interrupted by a crack of thunder. That one crack was followed by a second. Then a third, then an eighth, then soon the air was filled with the sounds of explosions, and after a brief pause, those were replaced by something else, equally as terrifying:

The roar of an engine.

Of _multiple_ engines. Entire legions of vehicles, roaring to life. Ruby turned to the sound of the closest engine, and saw for just a moment, one of the metal cages flying through the air, picked up by the growing winds and flying away. Then joining the sounds of these engines roaring to life was a chorus of men bellowing out their respective battle cries, and then after that the sounds of guns firing again. Ruby hefted her collapsed scythe into her arms, eyes wide as she now beheld dozens - no _hundreds -_ of vehicles now rampaging across the docks. The small, boxy cars, the huge tanks, the rotor-wing aircraft, they all were coming to life.

She heard the swordsman call out into a radio in his hand, but saw him pull it away from his face, as it was as silent as the air had been not but a minute ago. He turned to the closest Fang he could see and pointed at him, barking out the orders, but the Fang found his own radio dead too, resulting in them having to dart away to physically carry their words to the closest fighters; but they would find these to be entirely too little, entirely too late, as now the terrans had nothing held back. They were mounted on their vehicles and now had the mobility advantages they had earlier lacked, and an even more overwhelming firepower advantage than they had had initially.

Almost as soon as the fighting had started again, it was over - as Fang after Fang fell to the mounted terrans and their mountains of weaponry - and that was to barely a percentage point of what was hurtling towards Vale.

 _"No!"_ Ruby screamed, spinning her scythe on one hand - but immediately stumbling out of balance as it refused to extend at all.

She abandoned style and manually hunted down and hit the button, but again it refused her. She looked up and saw that Coco and Nora, others were having similar problems - as well as Ash's metal arm remaining immobile. The only ones who had any use of their weapons were the ones with analogue weapons - Ecru's bat, Ren's pistols, Pyrrha's sword and her and Ash's shields. This momentary pause as they all experienced hardware issues turned out to be exactly what the terrans needed - as a cadre of six cars and even one of the tanks rolled up on them and surrounded them, with the tank mere meters away, its massive cannon pointed right in the midst of their group.

The terrans made their intentions clear as they spooled up their weapons and removed safeties: If anyone moved an inch, they'd be torn apart before they could take their mile.

 _"Lay down your arms and stand down!"_ She heard a deep, strangely accented voice bellow out.

 _"You maniacs!"_ Ash called out, attracting each and every single gun in the vicinity as he advanced on the speaking car. _"You blew it up!"_

 _"Stand down!"_ The speaker shouted.

 _"God damn -"_ But Ash got no further words out, them being drowned out by a cacophony of warning shots burying themselves into the ground at his feet.

 _ **"Final** warning! Stand down or we will **cut** you down!"_

Ruby could visibly see the conflict in the bleeding man's back, and it seemed to her as though all eyes were on him - even the swordsman appeared, at this moment, to be taking his cues from the man with the shield. If he attacked, so would they, and if he surrendered, so would they. Ash breathed heavily, staring the car down before allowing his shield to slide from his arm. It hit the ground with the bang of metal hitting concrete, its central star facing up to the flame-scarred sky, just barely reflecting the visage of the mushroom cloud, looming over them and the dying kingdom of Vale.


	43. Let's You and Him Fight

_A/N:_

 _I like how everyone instantly concluded that Vale's been obliterated, Aldric betrayed the terrans, and that I've completely forgotten about the in-medias-res part of the prologue._

 _See, **that's** what happens when we shift the point of view from our favorite neurotic anti-villain for even **a** chapter. No one knows **what** the fuck's going on, and I learn (and teach) a valuable and %99 intentional lesson._

 _And yes, anti-villain. Because a lot of people have pointed out (perhaps rightfully so) that with the horrid shit Aldric's been getting up to, especially as of late, it's getting harder and harder to call him a hero by any astronomical stretch of the definition.  
To the point that were I to tell this story from anyone else's point of view [like, say, two or three chapters done primarily from Ruby Rose's perspective. As a totally random example. ;)], he'd seem chaotic-evil with little to no allegiances to anyone but his psychotic and questionable visions of a greater good.  
But that's all I have to say about that.  
_

 _Also: Major brownie points to the reviewers (Read: Pretty fucking much everyone) who caught on to the fact that I was setting up an Alucard Entrance. I was so amused that everyone figured it out that I didn't even bother to hide it, and even put the damn thing in last chapter's title._

 _Anyways, let's get back into the madness!_

* * *

Chapter 42

* * *

They were, summarily, rounded up, chained up tight, and thrown in half-toppled brick buildings. For the rookie huntsmen, they were thrown no more than two to a room, with two guards for every one rookie, which Aldric would count as something of a blessing, when compared to the White Fang. The Fang, or at least all the ones without aura, were all cuffed, stripped, and thrown in huge communal cells that were ten times too small for the numbers of people they were being stuffed with, with _tanks_ keeping them docile.

Aldric had, perhaps in a supreme display of irony, been locked up with Ruby, and not but the sounds of her quietly sobbing, and his every ailing, aching, wheezing breath to remind him that he and her were still alive. He could see with his barely-functioning radar that the others were still in the same building, some fire station it looked like, but there weren't any close by. He could see Pyrrha and Weiss locked up in a bathroom, Ren and Coco had literally been shoved in a linen closet, Nora and Ecru had been locked in an office, and on and on it went. He couldn't see Blake or Myrtle anywhere, which worried him, but he had little time to try and reflect on those worries -as approaching was another posse of soldiers, and one man in a distinctly American uniform.

That got him to focus on the here and now, he tapped on the ground with the heel of his foot, attracting the crimson-haired rookie's attention, her eyes red from the tears. "Someone's coming." He rasped, turning his gaze to the door.

A second later, he was proven right, as the American spouted off orders to the four heavily armed guards, and they stepped aside, one undoing the ten padlocks and door guards they had put on the door to keep the two of them inside. When they opened the door, no light shone in - as there was no light _to_ spill inside, not after what happened. But Aldric could still see the American clearly enough; the man looked from side to side, first at Ruby, whose knees were curled up to her chest, her eyes wide with fear, then at Aldric, taking in his comparatively dull, however bloody countenance.

"Goud Etiolate." The man nodded to Aldric.

Aldric was about to say 'No, this is Patrick', but Ruby ruined it by gasping, "what do you want with him?" She struggled a bit, slowly hauling herself to her feet - and earning half a dozen guns on her before she was even halfway up. "You can't take him!"

Aldric grunted, as he hauled his aching body up, blood smearing the wall he was leaning on. "It's okay, Ruby."

"No!" She shook her head, "no! They can't - don't go with them, Ash!"

"Ruby, calm down -" But he was interrupted by her trying to dash towards him, which prompted a guard to dart forward and slam the butt of his shotgun into her head.

She hit the ground with a grunt of pain and the sound of plastic smacking flesh, and then the ground _quaked._

 _"Hey!"_ Aldric barked, attracting every gun to _him._ "My going _quietly_ is dependent on the unspoken agreement that doing so means you won't hurt people I care about to get me to do so. But so help me, you touch her again, I will _not stop_ until you, your friends, or I am dead! And in case you think I'm bluffing, the first time I destroyed a warship. The second time I carved through a few hundred of you. The third time I didn't even have any weapons and I _both_ of those at the same time! Do you want to see what I can do now that I'm _armed?!"_ He held his hands up, straightening the chain binding them as though it were a garrot wire. "Well _do ya, punk?!"_ He gritted his teeth, as Ruby recovered, turning around and now laying supine, wide, wet eyes darting back and forth between the man who'd hit her, and Aldric - whose voice, he realized belatedly, she'd never heard raised like that before.

There were a tense few seconds, before the ringleader of the pack held out his hand and forced one of the soldiers' weapons down, ordering them all to follow suit. When they did, Aldric lowered his own hands, and allowed them to escort him out. They grabbed him roughly by both arms and carried him outside, but the little rose was beside herself, screaming out a chorus of 'No!'s, and wailing 'Ash!' as he was literally dragged away. As she left radar range, Aldric could clearly sense a renewed deluge of tears streaming down her terror-stricken face, as she found herself helpless to do anything but scream in defiance and cry in fear and helplessness.

Aldric was dragged halfway through the fire station, until he was deposited in the crew room - in the one chair in the room that had a clear view of the now gray mushroom cloud outside. He turned away from it, pointedly ignoring it as the American picked up a small cinch-bag, and slid it across the ground to Aldric.

"Quick thinking, Mister Al -"

"No" Aldric interrupted, as the soldiers around him, with great hesitation, began unlocking his bindings.

The man let him have it, "well... Good job regardless. It was quick thinking, to wrap all of your tech in faraday cages. Not many would have done so, not as fast at least. You played your part..." He glanced over Aldric's injuries. "A little too well, it seems."

Aldric gave the man a look, his eyes half-lidded with a dry, neutral expression. "I'm tired... Whatever your name is. Coulson." He grunted, as he was freed. He leaned down and opened up the bag, pulling out the first and most important object: Almost the entirety of his cybernetic arm; that which was affixed to him at this moment merely being the outer shell he'd pried off of it, to spare its sensitive electronics the effects of the nuke. What he had in his hands, once retrieved from the several layers of tinfoil, looked almost like a terminator's skeleton. "We've got one final stretch before this is done, I just want it to _be_ done."

"Coulson, eh?" The man nodded to the side, "should we call you Mister Stark, then?"

"I think more appropriate would be 'Fury', but I'm not that good. So considering I'd already used Nathan Drake... Why not go with Ryan?" Aldric asked, as he twisted off the outer shell of his arm and then affixed the skeletal limb to its socket. "Andrew Ryan." His backup had been demanding this guy call him Guilliman, but he'd hoped he wouldn't need it - he had no idea how to pronounce 'Roboute' as anything bot 'Robert'.

The man gave him a nod, "Ryan it is then." He straightened up, expression one of business. "You'll have seven days. That's all we can guarantee. We'll be telling them that we've got you sedated and in chains in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean." He then added dryly, "our reasoning being that you've racked up quite a body count. We're done taking chances."

Aldric frowned, "you seriously think it'll take you seven days to conquer Vale when you've pretty much gut-fucked its ability to fight back?" He deadpanned, sliding the outer shell of the arm back in place, and then flexing his metal digits.

"Oh, not at all. Last report I heard said they're already at Beacon's cliffside. They'll be done within the day." The man shook his head, "no, the other six are how long we're going to tell them it will take for word to get to the Captain of the sub you're on, for it to turn around, come back here, and resurface." The man trailed off, as he gave Aldric a look over. "We think we can get another forty eight hours... Say we're treating you. Considering your physical condition, that wouldn't even be a lie." He leaned forward, "did you do all of that to your _self?"_

"An advantage of having X-raydar vision is being able to see where your major blood vessels and arteries are." Aldric reached back into the bag.

"Then let me rephrase: Will seven days be enough? Frankly, you look like hammered shit."

Aldric's response was to dig around at the bottom of the bag, and pull out one single bean, barely the size of the pad of his thumb. He held it out for the man to inspect, before leaning back and popping it in his mouth. He bit down with a loud 'crunch', like someone taking a bite out of celery, and then swallowed the bean. A moment passed, and then he felt awash with energy, and the pain flood from his body as his wounds sealed themselves and faded away.

"There is a literal list of things I've not pulled from, for fear of becoming over-reliant upon them, among others." Aldric explained, "but this was one hell of a unique case." He leaned back, grunting.

"The things we could do if we had ten of you." The man shook his head. "But I'll settle for one."

"I fear the day that changes." Aldric admitted, rubbing his eyes. "When people don't need nukes to obliterate cities."

"Or when people can literally walk to other planets?"

"Or when people can destroy those planets."

"And fix them."

"Last person who debated philosophy with me got her arm chopped off."

"Fair point." The man held his hands up in a conciliatory fashion. "Will you need transport?"

"Dude, I can fucking fly." Aldric shook his head, "you're giving me seven days. God willing, I won't even need that long. How _is_ it, over there?"

"Hell." The man nodded, "they're fighting building to building. Room to room. Inch by bloody inch. Only kingdom on the planet that had any preparation. So far as we can tell, our first strike on Salem and then the aerial battle with them was all they needed to mobilize. Where Mistral and Vacuo fell in days, and Vale here took a little under two weeks... Thank you, by the way... We're projecting we could still be struggling against Atlas well into next month, unless reinforcements from the other countries come in. They were just _ready._ "

Aldric grunted, "entire world bearing down on one tiny-ass kingdom. I'd be surprised if they lasted a week." He sighed, "I should be there by tomorrow." He said, groaning as he hauled himself to his feet. "Pray my little bag of tricks I have prepared will end the war." One way or another, he didn't add.

"How do you want to meet, going forward?"

Aldric nodded, "there's a bar, not too far from where we maimed you-know-who. Folks there owe me a favor. I'll stop by on my way back. Ring you on the satellite phone if I need you between then and now."

"Alright." The man got to his feet as well, and extended a hand. "Your _world_ appreciates your efforts, Mister Ryan."

"Just keep this in mind while I'm gone." Aldric deadpanned, grabbing the man's hand with his metal one and practically crushing it. "I wasn't kidding, back there. I _will not_ tolerate any mistreatment of my friends in there. Yeah?" The man made a valiant effort of keeping his face straight, up until the first bone audibly cracked. "God help you if I figure out you did something to them... 'Cause he'll be the only one that could stop me, and you _know_ this."

The man nodded, and Aldric lessened his grip. "Message received." He grunted, before nodding to the soldiers in the room. "We'll have to escort you out, to maintain the illusion."

"I figured." Aldric grunted, as he was flanked by the soldiers, who grabbed his arms, one of whom slid his bag around his shoulder - grunting, and shifting from foot to foot as he felt the deceptively large amount of weight inside. "Alright, let's go." Aldric said, pretending to slump over, unconscious.

With his wounds healed and energy refreshed thanks to his chosen method of what basically equated to makeup remover, Aldric was able to make full use of his Radar, going out. He found that the docks weren't as empty as one would have expected - there were entire legions of soldiers streaming in from out at sea, all of whom were loading into vehicles and charging towards Vale proper. Jets and helicopters were flying in from overhead and providing air support, the entire war machine of several countries being brought to bear against a country that, now, was completely without electricity, and subsequently any means of fighting back more advanced than a conventional rifle. The humans had no air support, no mechanized backup, no vehicles or advanced weaponry - and many of the Huntsmen likely had found the electronic components of their weapons fried and damaged to the point that they were all useless as anything but an expensive club.

Aldric couldn't see far enough into Vale to watch the fighting himself, but he didn't need to, to know that the terrans were kicking their asses to the moon and back. The humans were practically children flailing about against grown adults: At best, they would give their aggressor a black eye, but at worst, their resistance here would be so negligible as to practically be nonexistent.

Aldric was brought to the coastline and loaded into a small speedboat; he pretended to remain unconscious the entire way out, until they were so far out at sea that even Patch was a distant blob on the horizon. He only 'awoke' once the gigantic submarine surfaced, and he was manhandled inside, at which point, now far from prying eyes, he could open his eyes and move around again.

Aldric was given a small office to himself, and some food to chow down on during their trip further out to sea. He didn't even bother to take in the fact that this had been the first time he'd ever been on a submarine. He didn't care for the tight, compact corridors or low ceilings, he didn't even twitch at the sound of the pressures of Remnant's ocean pressing at the metal tube's hull and the groans that followed.

All he did was eat, and pull out a tinfoil wrapped tablet from his bag.

* * *

 _For the Record._

 _Ho-lee-Jesus._

 _Last time I saw **you** , my biggest worry was fucking up the meeting with the Watchmen.  
That actually went as close to 'perfect' as I'm willing to classify it - perhaps that was an omen. _

_To summarize the last nine... Or, fuck, ten, I don't know - the last week and a half in as few words as possible:  
World War Goddamn 3.  
Or, World **s** War One, if you'd rather. _

_That crazy bitch opened up **four** wormholes - apparently stable, permanent ones - connecting Earth to Remnant, and the former promptly rallied its entire fucking military industrial complex to come in and shitstomp the latter.  
Remember all of that shit I was spewing about worst case scenarios, and what would happen if Earth and Remnant ever went to war?  
About how Remnant wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning?!  
Guess fucking what._

 _Mistral and Vacuo fell in days, Vale would have fallen just as fast as well, if I hadn't intervened, gotten the Navy to flatten half the city, and halted their advance.  
Though, that was a delaying action at the absolute best, and I knew that even then, but let me get there first. _

_The initial fights can be summarized as thus: I made a human railgun with Pyrrha, ate a motherfucking aircraft carrier, then pulled a Vader Down to keep the entire invasion force distracted long enough for their advance to be halted and for VAF and the Huntsmen to retreat and rally.  
_

 _After I recovered from the obscene amount of brass that got shot through me, I talked to Cinder, and basically had it confirmed for me that everything about this whole Master Plan (pun intended) of Salem's has been changed from what we know from the show, primarily in that it's been compartmentalized to hell and back and that there are four (not five) living Masters on Remnant, Ozpin excluded. Cinder had and still has no fucking idea why the UN is invading Remnant, only that it's 'all according to plan'._

 _After her, I **would** have gone to Ozpin... Had Yang not found my effects and pieced together that I knew something about the invasion. She confronted me, and a group of Spec Ops (I think they were SAS? They had English accents.) passing by, ostensibly on their way to abduct Ozpin (good luck with that, Gents. I'll see you again when you're smears in the wall.), heard her and realized I was a 636 survivor. _

_So they shot me and her, and took us to this Russian Carrier.  
Then I parleyed with the Captain (whose name I can barely pronounce, let alone **spell)** , pulled a Commander Shepard, and managed to win the support and alliance of Earth.  
All of it.  
One problem, though: Doing so basically proved Yang right. She was on a warpath, was ready to kill anyone she saw - me chief among them. _

_I managed to curtail that by confronting her directly. She now holds a title that, surprisingly, even Ozpin doesn't possess: The first, and so far only, person to challenge me on my philosophies around this whole Green Hornet plan._

 _The problem, however, was that even if I managed to convince her I was right (which even **I** don't believe at this point), if we went back to Vale after being abducted for multiple hours, without any injuries whatsoever to show for it, far more than just her suspicion would be piqued. I mean, how would we explain it? "They just abducted us, let us sweat it out with one gunshot each, and then gave us a boat and said 'Thanks for staying over! Bye!'..."_

 _No, we needed to look like we'd been through absolute hell to escape from them. And it couldn't be superficial hell, either - I mean we needed to look like we'd been through the god damn meat grinder. That we'd fought and bled and sacrificed to escape._

 _For me, it was easy: I just had to reopen old bullet wounds and cover myself in a fresh coat of blood. (Jesus, Neo's looking more right for me with each passing day. I haven't thought about her in forever.)  
For Yang, though, tensions were a bit higher and I had to both 'put on the makeup', as it were, and fix the whole - her not trusting me at all thing.  
So I cut off her arm with a lightsaber, and shot the hell out of her. _

_Something weird happened after that, though: Since I didn't have my usual, Anakin Skywalker blue lightsaber with me, and I'd already given Kylo Ren's saber to Cinder (that plan's in motion), I had to go with my last backup: Luke Skywaker's green saber.  
But after I cut her arm off, the blade turned red, now it looks more like Darth Vader's lightsaber, and... God damn it, nothing I do can get rid of it. I try deactivating the nanites, I try straight-up using my magic to 'delete' it, but nothing. I can't get rid of it - and I can't just throw it away, either. God help us if someone **else** , outside of my sphere of influence, started running around with a stick of plasma. _

_I don't know what this means - but this tells me I don't have as much control over my powers as I initially thought... To the point that I'm pretty sure I couldn't wipe away Captain America's shield anymore, if I tried. Not good. I don't like not understanding or controlling my powers._

 _Anyways, after that, I neuralized Yang (yes, Neuralize. Men In Black saved my **ass.** My backup option had been an amnestic from the SCP foundation, and if neither of those worked, straight-up magic, but I didn't trust or understand either of those things enough to be confident in relying on them... So I'm damn glad the neuralizer seems to have worked.), and gave her to the Russians to stitch up. Now she looks like she went through the grinder, and that I put her back together as best I could. _

_But then was the problem of how to get back.  
Luckily, that solution was easy: In the one and only confrontation between the UN's Navy and Vale's Navy, the latter made the genius move to beat feet for a guided missile destroyer. The destroyer promptly shoved its missile-shaped foot up Vale's ass and took down dozens of ships before it wasn't destroyed, but rather **crippled.** The UN didn't know what to do with it with the invasion on, so it left the ship there. I appropriated it, fired it up again, pointed it at Vale, and let it coast to the coast. _

_The initial idea had been to drive (so to speak) this thing up the central river that runs through Vale. It'd be a pretty big fucking sign, what with the holes in its side, that something wasn't quite right with it. I'd expected some VAF soldiers and a huntsman or two to board the ship, find me and Yang half dead, all the bodies that had been left behind, conclude we'd done the damage, and then take us back home._

 _After that, the terrans would have given me a week to recover and prepare for their coup de grace. Their 'Red folder': A high altitude nuclear strike, meant to take advantage of the EMP to knock out, in short order, everything that used electricity in the kingdom. Zero property damage and minimal, if any, radiation fallout or loss of life, but total destruction of any technology more advanced than a pocket watch, not specifically shielded from an EMP (which little if anything on Remnant even **is)**. They'd been preparing for this, actually, constructing fucktons of faraday cages at the docks, to protect **their** vehicles from the EMP.  
The idea was that if they did this, the defenders would essentially be neutered and any resistance they put up would be laughable at best. Vale would fall the day they dropped the bomb. _

_See, that had been the plan._

 _But RWBY, GEMS, JNPR, and (of all people), CFVY, had a different one, and it ran long the lines of, 'Holy fucking shit, Ash and Yang are gone, let's go **ATTACK THE MEGA-POWERFUL ARMY HEAD ON** to try and find them!'  
I mean, for fuck's sake - It's Russia, China, and the UK up here! That's three great powers! Three nations with permanent UN-Security Council seats! Three of literally the strongest nations on Earth! Who steamrolled through half of Vale in a **day**! And these crazy fuckers thought they'd fight them head on, and that they'd all survive to see the end of it! That's **me** levels of stupid!  
Thank God Adam Taurus chose **then** to launch his PR 'The White Fang totally aren't just terrorists, guys!' attack, else they'd all be dead, instead of injured. _

_The Russian Captain Guy called me on my shiny new satellite phone (confirming they do, indeed, have them in orbit) and told me what was going on. The collective White Fang/Huntsmen rookie attack was kicking fucking **ass** , and he told me on no uncertain terms that, if he were the only one making the decision, he would have opened the Red Folder then and there as a matter of course, lest risking the stability of the invasion, but since I was the only guy on the inside, he wanted to know my stance on it.  
I promptly proved that I am entirely too fucking powerful. No, not Saitama powerful - or, actually, I do have a theory on that, but I'll save that for another Record - but Lex Luthor powerful: Merely **telling** him to do it, got him to accelerate our initial plan from a week to... An hour. Ish. My mere word got a nuke launched and a kingdom killed.  
Jesus Fuck. _

_I got a **little** fun out of it: I pulled an Alucard and rode in on a warship with 'Ready to Die' blasting out of the speakers. Freaked a lot of people out.  
_

 _Then barely two minutes later, they launched the bomb from a local nuke-sub, and now, as they were the only fighting force with advanced technology, ground and air vehicles on their side, the terrans promptly turned around and tore the ever-living-shit out of everyone audacious enough to shoot at them. White Fang? De-fanged. Huntsmen? Hunted. Vale Armed Forces? Disarmed. It was rifles and swords against tanks, humvees, and jets. Basically World War 1 versus the 21st century._

 _Now, Goud Etiolate, along with the Beacon students and Adam Taurus, are all being held prisoner while the UN finishes fucking Vale.  
And since he alone did so much damage to them - killing more than a hundred soldiers on their first encounter, eating an entire aircraft carrier with his nanites, then destroying a GMD and killing its crew on his own - the UN isn't fucking around in regards to what they're doing to keep Goud out of the picture.  
_

 _I've ostensibly been sedated with enough drugs to knock out fifteen elephants, been bound head to toe in a straight jacket and chains, been blindfolded with three folds and a pair of welder's goggles, gagged with one of those Silence of the Lambs muzzles, thrown in a submarine, parked on the bottom of the ocean, and have no fewer than fifteen guards armed with anti-tank rifles on me at all times._

 _Once again: They're not fucking around.  
They're basically the Reapers abandoning a plan that's worked for millions of years and bum-rushing to Earth through the galaxy, dedicating a majority of their galaxy-conquering siege engine **solely** to Earth, just to find and kill Shepard.  
The demons dropping a motherfucking mountain on Doomguy and chaining him up in a coffin.  
The goddamn Covenant sending literally their **entire** Reach invasion force to kill Noble Six.  
They're scared to death of me and just want me to not be a problem anymore.  
At least, that's what it needs to look like. _

_What's really going on is that this whole stunt is buying me the one and only stretch of time in the last eight or nine months in which **no one** will be observing my every movement. Not Cinder, not Ozpin, not even **them** really. For the next week I'm operating solo.  
Obviously, the priority is to go to Atlas (who's been going toe to toe with the United States and has been giving just as good as it gets), find some way to get them to stop fighting, and end the war between Earth and Remnant. _

_But with seven whole days to myself, I'm hoping I'll be able to eek out a little time to make something I've been kicking around for a while now.  
I'd say what it is, but that Russian Captain found and read this journal. If that ever happens again, and they know what it is I hope to build... God damn, they'd start another war just to try and find it. So I'm keeping it to me, and to me alone, I won't mention it by name or location unless I have to crack it open and turn it on.  
And yes, I specifically chose words that may more may not contradict eachother, and improperly describe what I intend to program.  
Or maybe I didn't.  
You don't know.  
Fuck you.  
Give me my journal back. _

_So... Yeah.  
It's been a hell of a week.  
Formed the Watchmen, fought in World War 3, maimed someone I consider a friend, stole her memories, convinced a man to launch a nuke, and I intend to **end** World War 3, and build a huge and likely literal deus ex machina._

 _And it's only been two or three months since the school year started. What the fuck's going to happen next?_

 _Seriously: I have no fucking idea what Earth is going to do once Atlas falls. Occupation? Annexation? A sudden case of 'holy shit, these guys can't have done what we thought they would'... Pseudo-alliance?_

 _And beyond them is Salem. What's **her** play in all this? I mean, fuck - Cinder seems to think things will still go 'according to plan' and there won't be any major anythings until around about the time of the Vytal , that's not the case. I still stand by what I said: It's absolutely ridiculous to think that, once this war ends, the entire planet of Remnant will basically go, 'That sucked... Let's party!', and then do it. I'd lose faith in this entire species if they did, plain and simple.  
I mean, mine are barely any better - but that's a topic for another record.  
_

 _Unless, of course, this is another product of Salem compartmentalizing. That the plan really has changed, and she simply hasn't appraised Cinder of it, and as such Cinder is still working under the auspices that it's 'Vytal or bust'.  
If that's the case, though, exactly how much of RWBY can I still use? How much is still applicable, and how much is straight-up reference material?  
_

 _Fuck me, I need sleep. I need a lot of sleep.  
I'd say I need painkillers too, but the senzu bean I used to 'remove' the 'makeup' kind of solved that problem for me.  
So, sleep, and a shower.  
That sounds nice.  
_

* * *

A shower, a change of clothes into something much more distinctly terran, and two more meals later, Aldric found that all the time between his 'incarcaration' and the sub reaching its destination had evaporated. No time for sleep, Aldric, now clad in a set of Navy fatigues he'd kindly asked for - and hadn't at all stared at the man responsible for with a blank 'obey me' expression until the man pissed himself and threw a pile of clothes at him - didn't even need a guide to get out of the ship. His Radar told him where to go, as well as letting him in on the fact that the submarine he was on was missing one nuclear missile: He was on the ship that had nuked Vale. Pointedly not thinking about that, and with little more than an acknowledging nod to the Captain as he passed by, Aldric surfaced from the submarine, swiped a hand through his shaggy hair, and took a deep breath of the salty ocean air.

"Okay." He murmured. "Atlas." And he launched himself into the sky.

With half of a planet to fly over, Aldric knew this wouldn't be a short trip, and during their planning phase, him and the Captain of the Kuznetsov had agreed as much. But, they realized while trying to figure out the logistics of getting some sort of jet from Earth to here, and how Aldric could feasibly catch up to it when he felt iffy about flying any faster than mach 3, was that Aldric didn't need to fly over half of a planet at all: He just had to hop back and forth between two of them.

The wormhole connecting Vale to Earth was within eyesight, and as described to him by Ilyich, they were all clustered together on Earth, barely miles apart, dead center of the Pacific Ocean. Using them, Aldric was about to cross millions, or even billions or _trillions_ \- as no one yet had any idea where Earth and Remnant were in relation to eachother - of light years, twice, and cover the distances of two planets, in ten minutes. Because physics rocked, and he wanted to be known as the guy who literally flew from one planet to another, and back, without an airplane or even a wingsuit or a paraglider.

The wormhole hung in the air like a giant disco ball, a huge globe-like sphere of refracting light. It looked like a giant funhouse mirror, reflecting everything around it with exaggerated proportions - the ocean right beneath it almost looking like it stretched on for miles, despite only a few dozen meters being reflected by its bottom. Aldric slowed down as he approached it, finding himself reflected and similarly exaggerated as he came within inches of it. He let his hand run over its surface, but found that he felt nothing but more air - which he supposed made sense. This wasn't a physical object, floating here in front of him, but rather a connecting place between two different points in space time. Touching it wouldn't be like touching the mirror it looked like, but rather would just send his fingertips to Earth.

Aldric lowered his hand, stowing it in the pocket of his appropriated fatigues. He shook his head once and let out a brief breath of air. "Tell the world." He said, before going home.

The transition was instantaneous. One moment, he was facing the wormhole, the next it was at his back - and the bright afternoon sky was replaced with a dark and cold night air. The moon above was fixed and shining with a bright pale white light, and was just strong enough to illuminate the other wormholes surrounding him, all tightly packed together in a ring, each only a mile or two apart. Four wormholes for four kingdoms, it almost physically pained him to not go so quickly from his home to the place that had brought him so much pain and anguish. He wanted little more than to have just disappeared, stayed on Earth, under the radar, but if for nothing else he knew he was too deep into this game now to abandon it. So, Aldric picked the one he'd been instructed to, and just as quickly as before, went through another transition - from night to day, and from cold to even colder.

Aldric picked a vaguely northern direction and began flying again, pushing himself to fly as fast as he'd ever, knowing that he was on the clock, that both Atlas and his secret projects would take time, and all the time he had equated to only seven days. Seven days, one hundred and sixty eight hours, ten thousand minutes, that was all the time he'd have without anyone directly watching him. The first week he'd have to himself since he'd arrived on Remnant - and he couldn't count the week he'd spent fighting Cubone and Mothra, as Cinder had been keeping watch over him during that time. The very first he'd had, and perhaps _only_ week he'd ever have, to use everything he'd learned thus far and to try and make good on the promise he'd made to himself a long time ago about preventative measures, about proper planning and contingencies, and even about regrets.

But to do all of that, he first had to make sure his job was done, and that required ending the war with Atlas, in one way or another.

And _damn_ was it a _war._

After thirty minutes of flying so far he started getting tunnel vision, Aldric got the first inklings on the sights and sounds of war, as the distant horizon turned red from fire, and a squadron of jets flew above him in the opposite direction, in a strict formation. His second inkling came ten minutes later when he got the first sights of land in the distance, accompanied by huge plumes of smoke and an orange glow in the air, both made by the same fires of war consuming the kingdom. Aldric saw beached Atlesian sea-ships, horrifically damaged Atlesian airships, bullets and bombs spraying up into the air and down towards the ground, Atlesian and American jets engaging in intense dogfights, American helicopters rampaging through the skies, skimming the tops of buildings and blasting apart the grounds, and that was just while he was on approach, once he actually found a place to land, a place inland so he could make use of his radar, he got an even closer picture of what it looked like, and Aldric wasn't quite sure who to feel more pride in.

Here were two military superpowers, both unequaled in almost all ways on their respective planets, both with the largest and most advanced militaries of their respective histories, at the absolute height of their power and only ever growing stronger, and unlike every other kingdom on the planet: This one had been prepared, leading less to a brushfire war that would start and end inside of a week, and more of a protracted struggle for every inch taken and lost. Each nation locked in this struggle was bringing to bear any and all of its indomitable, incomparable power, making this battle one of giants, one that shook the earth and split the sky.

In that sky, the terran air was met by the slower but more powerful Atlesian airships and fighter craft. What the terran fighter jets completely outclassed the Atlesian ships in speed and maneuverability, often able to swoop in, blast apart an airship, and zoom off before that ship could even reorient itself, but woe betide any terran jet that actually attempted to fight an Atlesian ship head on - as what they lacked in firepower they made up for in a single weapon that gave them their advantage. With their laser weaponry far outclassing anything ever made on Earth, all an Atlesian ship needed was a line of sight on a terran jet and that jet would fall to the ground in a pile of slag. However, more often than not the more powerful lasers on the Atlesian ships were being dedicated almost entirely to taking down missiles being lobbed at them from sea, to either defend themselves or those on the ground.

On this ground, the fighting was, if it were even possible, _more_ intense than it was in the sky. Without even resorting to his radar, Aldric could see gigantic Atlesian Paladins charging into battle, shouldering aside crippled cars and blasting apart mortal terran soldiers, before finding and being engaged by terran tanks - those battles often being decided purely by who saw who first. If the tank got the first shot off and could destroy a limb, the Paladin wouldn't have nearly enough time or firepower to retaliate. However, if the bipedal tanks saw the wheeled tank before their crew saw it, they would blast it apart with rocket and machine gun fire, some even charging them wholesale and using their superior strength to tip them over, or at least snap the barrels off and cripple the war machine. But it wouldn't be long before those very Paladins' victory would be taken from them when another vehicle - be it another powerful tank with its indomitable main cannon, a fast-moving humvee with its even faster-firing turret, or any combination of air vehicles sighting and blasting them apart as they passed by.

A level below the mighty ground attack vehicles would be the people themselves, and it was with those people that the brunt of the battles were fought. The Atlesians were fighting the terrans exactly as had been described: Street to street, building to building, room to room, inch to bloody inch. They held the line where they could and made the terrans _pay_ where they couldn't, and wherever the terrans would gain ground, the Atlesians would be hot on their trail to make them suffer to keep it - it not being uncommon for them to push the terrans out of whatever rooms or buildings they had taken mere moments earlier, with this being perhaps the only country on Remnant able to match the terrans for manpower, due to the heavy presence of mechs. Aldric saw men in uniform and body armor throwing bullets and bombs at robots and soldiers in hardsuits, the former almost always surging forward in suicide attacks as a means to break the terran defensive line, whilst the latter would take down anyone who retreated, and keep the rest suppressed, such that the final leg of Atlas' ground forces could go in for the kill: The Huntsmen.

Whereas in Vale, Vacuo, and Mistral, terran numbers almost always prevailed over the raw power and skill of a huntsman, here the story was different. The combination of the machines routing them and the soldiers suppressing them meant that they rarely, if ever, had the time or the wherewithal to bring their numbers or firepower to bear against an Atlesian Huntsman. What's more, because of the kingdom's integration of their Huntsmen and their military, an unseen advantage was found by way of a synergy that no other country had - leading to tactical actions and operations the likes of which no other kingdom had been capable of, primarily in the form of lightning-fast hit and run attacks that took advantage of the terrans being so heavily suppressed, but kept in mind that even a second of presenting their backs to them could court death. Many often still did regardless - often buying the proverbial farm when a soldier in an adjacent building, fighting a completely unrelated battle, managed to get a shot on them by coincidence.

Altogether, the result was a picture representing the epitome of absolute chaos. People were perforated by gunfire, blasted apart by explosives and mortars, carved or smashed into pieces by melee weapons, and all manner of things in between. The streets somehow managed to simultaneously be awash with blood, scorched by flame, filled with people and inundated by bodies. It was constantly alight and aglow with the fires and flashes of battle, but was choked almost into darkness by smoke, soot, and debris, and was circulated by bullets. There was so little space between each person that no one had room to breathe, despite there being ample amounts of standing room - so long as one was willing to brave all of the projectiles filling the air. Even the city, and the kingdom itself became something of a symbol of chaotic contradiction: It was a symbol of of peace and prosperity in a world that seem perpetually dedicated to eradicating the people that lived in it, and yet it was consumed by war and death. It was representative of life, and yet people were dying left and right. It was meant to be a beacon, a defense for humanity - and yet those very same humans, no matter from what planet, were killing eachother in droves.

Even having _been_ there for the opening shots and the first day of fighting in Vale, Aldric could say he'd never seen a maelstrom of death and battle like this. Anywhere he looked, he could see people fighting and killing eachother. One group of terrans were being charged by a group of machines, another group was calling down mortar fire from the ocean. Helicopters skimmed over the ground and chewed apart Atlesians and Paladins alike, only to get blown apart and torn out of the sky. Aldric even saw some terran mortars hitting other terrans, be it through some sort of monumental mistake or because they were about to be overrun and chose to die on their own terms. It was death and destruction, blood and violence, it was everywhere, filling and flooding, drowning the kingdom in all of its fury and all of its squalor. Every building, every room, every street, every bloody inch.

 _And somehow..._ Thought Aldric, from his position atop a half-destroyed brick building. _I have to stop all of this on a dime._ He didn't quite like his prospects, considering that, A: America was fucking _pissed_ and that kind of rage took a lot more than just a night to wipe away, and B: Since America, and soon with them all of Earth, had not only attacked Atlas before, but had ostensibly started the entire conflict, the Atlesian public would _also_ be infuriated - but doubly moreso when they inevitably tried to stay and occupy, even if the best case happened and such an turned out only to be temporary.

He had basically been charged with ending a blood feud between two people who had every right to hate eachother with everything they had, and the way he saw it, he had three options. The first was the easiet: Bye bye Atlas. Just obliterate the whole kingdom. Of course he was kidding, but it was still a valid option, technically - as it would end the war. But if he didn't want to call on his inner Neo, he'd have to find a way to open up a dialogue, first with Ironwood, then with whoever was the Admiral, or the General, or whoever it was that was leading the invasion for Atlas, like Ilyich was for Vale. The problem with that option was that there would be no ceasefire option - it would either have to be total surrender from Atlas, or universal retreat from America, they wouldn't accept anything else. Atlas had, after all, been 'responsible' for them nuking Los Angeles, and America had spent the last week and a half flattening Atlas.

The second option he saw was what he was tentatively calling his Godzilla Threshold: He'd have to find a way to so severely deplete the manpower of each army that they would be logistically unable to continue fighting eachother. That one was tricky, as America had the rest of its military from Earth, and literally _everything else_ the United Nations had brought to bear on Remnant, as well as whatever _they'd_ held back to keep watch over Earth, to fall back on, so this solution would require speed and finesse, and would need to have a lasting impact. As well as, of course, a _lot_ of fucking bodies, but he'd made so many of those as of late, with so little time to dwell on it, that he'd become somewhat numb to the idea. Fortunately, this option was, ironically, the easiest one, as all it required was him breaching Atlas' defensive perimeter and letting the Grimm spill in. They would promptly start thrashing Atlas _and_ America, and they'd each have to pool together to contain the threat, or they'd all die.

Obviously, he didn't like that option: That one basically did Salem's job _for_ her, and could potentially result in her deciding Atlas may be the more prudent target over Vale, assuming of course that she still didn't try for the 'coup de grace' plan Cinder had said she wanted to do. Since the point of ending the wars as fast as possible was removing that as an option, making it all that much easier for her wasn't attractive, which led to Aldric's final idea: Practically exactly what had happened in Vale.

There, they'd crippled almost all of Vale's military advantages and sent them back to the stone age by frying all of their electronics. This made the UN titanically stronger than them and allowed - or, to be more correct, _was_ allowing - them to steamroll over Vale and blitzkrieg their way to Beacon, and force the kingdom to surrender with minimal casualties, or fight it out and suffer total destruction. The easiest path here would be to just get another nuclear sub to launch another nuke and have it detonate in the upper atmosphere, just like Vale, and have the problem solve itself, but Aldric had the fuzziest idea that a military man like Ironwood may just be genre savvy enough to realize that a lack of electricity was a severe weakness on his end, and plan for it accordingly. As a result, Aldric had to assume the EMP plan would only work once, and they'd already played that card.

So how could he accelerate Atlas' destruction and force its surrender, whilst killing as few of its defenders as possible, _and_ doing so in such a way that anyone from the Legion watching wouldn't instantly start suspecting Aldric? Well, the answer was simple: Each and every single terran was supposed to be a Master. Everyone who had the need to know did know this, so all Aldric had to do was convince Atlas that Earth had done it, and had woken up a Master, and directly imply that there were going to be steadily and increasingly more, and more, and more, until Atlas surrendered or was wiped out.

Thus: The reason he'd stolen a uniform. He had to look the part if he were going to pretend to be someone from the UN's collective armed forces. All that was missing was something to mask his face - and wouldn't you know it, a little spark of magic from before he'd even gotten back to Vale had set that one up for him. There existed _countless_ methods of disguising one's face and voice in fiction, ranging from simple plastics to eldritch potions. Aldric went with something easy and simply pulled out the face camo from Metal Gear Solid 4, and had himself done up as the one and only Solid Snake.

So with his identity secured, and no fewer than three backup plans in mind in case his 'everybody hug it out' option didn't pan out, now Aldric had to do was cross through an entire warzone to get to the one and only place in the Kingdom that still was firmly and completely under Atlas' control: Atlas Academy.

Fortunately, Aldric subscribed to the 'work smarter, not harder' methodology, and instead of trying to map out a way of flying through the city and dodging the hell it had become, he simply launched himself in the air, ascending as fast as he could until the air grew thin and frigid. He flew higher than the helicopters, past the jets and the airships, above the gunships and beyond the drones. He flew higher than the clouds and for a moment was so high, and the air so thin, that he could almost see the stars in broad daylight.

Then, he let himself fall, and fall he did - picking up speed until he hit terminal velocity. He hurtled towards the ground at dozens of meters per second, aimed directly at the academy, freefalling through the sky, a lone human missile amidst an airborne sea of metal and fire. Once he speared through the clouds he found himself right on course for the academy, and he continued on, the ground and the high towers and spires of the academy, once far away, growing closer and closer until Aldric's hand skimmed across one of them as he came in. A pulse of his semblance slowed his descent, and upon landing, he discovered something he hadn't predicted:

There was no one here.

Aldric frowned, but it was wiped away with a knowing nod and an 'ah' of understanding: Underneath the academy, he'd discovered, was a _huge_ series of bunkers and safehouses, practically an entire city, no doubt meant as a last resort in case of a catastrophic Grimm invasion, though now being used to house civilians such that the Atlesian military could fight unabated. There were soldiers on patrol, but far fewer than there were out beyond the defensive line, fighting for their home.

One of these soldiers was staring at him, slackjawed, and for good reason: Not a single terran had shown use of aura during the entire invasion. To this one lone Atlesian soldier, Aldric had unintentionally told him that this 'secret kingdom' had, from the word 'Go', been holding back its most powerful card. And in a way, he was right - America hadn't tried nuking Atlas yet, so far as he knew, though he did wonder if they'd pulled out any of those Davy Crockett nuke-launchers he'd read about. If anywhere, they'd use them here: Where they had little to no reason to care about fallout.

Regardless, Aldric grinned and raised his hands, them both covered by the sleeves of his stolen uniform and his Power Glove, such that they wouldn't be able to tell he only really had one arm. "Parley." He called out, voice being filtered by the mask and coming out as the oh-so-familiar growl.

The soldier, to his credit, snapped out of it at once, and impressed Aldric by firing first. Aldric's response was to hold out his hand and halt all the bullets, as though he'd just stepped out of the Matrix. A telekinetic backhand knocked out the armored soldier, sent him flying into a close by wall, and freed Aldric up to probe the Academy for Ironwood. He wasn't in his office, which made sense - while there wasn't any fighting going on in the academy, it had been beaten to hell and back by air strikes. Ironwood probably knew better than to run the risk of getting a missile-shaped hat, and was probably down in the bunkers.

Leaning against the wall, next to the unconscious soldier, Aldric focused his radar downwards and started searching the massive underground bunkers for the General. The first thing he found was that, unless the terrans wanted to bomb their way in, there was only one entrance: A deep elevator shaft, and a long one-way corridor leading to a heavily fortified blast door. Going down there and having to break in would require going through that killzone, and Aldric pitied the poor soul who'd have to go through it - instantly aware of the fact that that single thought probably doomed him to having to go through it, and imminently at that.

Putting those thoughts aside, Aldric probed further into the bunker, and after a few minutes, found two things: The General's command center, filled to the brim with him and several similarly-high ranking officials, and Winter Schnee, as well as two other huntsmen, sprinting out at a break-neck pace. It didn't take long to figure out why: One of the monitors Ironwood was glaring at had his new face on it, and using that monitor, Aldric was able to locate and look directly at the security camera he'd barely even thought to avoid. He gave it a wink and a gun, then tapped on his wrist, attempting to imply that he knew Ironwood had sent some folks to fight, but that he didn't have much time.

Ironwood's response came audibly, as his voice was broadcast all over the loudspeakers in the Academy: "All hands, intruder alert. The enemy is confirmed to have Huntsmen, and he is at our gates. Lock down sector two-one Alpha with any and all available mechanized and powered-infantry units. Use of danger-close deadly force is authorized. Eliminate the enemy." And as he spoke, Aldric could see a few officers speaking into radios, their computer screens showing images of Atlesian naval ships, prompting Aldric to realize that the ballsy motherfucker was calling in _Naval_ support to boot.

 _Guy's not fucking around._ And it made sense to him: Earth's Red Folder plan was a warning shot, and failing that, _liberal_ usage of nuclear force if it turned out that coordinated military efforts against Huntsmen were ineffective; Aldric had learned that if someone had followed his little 'Vader Down' moment up with _another_ devastating attack, after the naval bombardment, Ilyich would have opened the Red Folder then and there, potentially going so far as to skip the warning shot. Atlas had none of those things and was expecting _Masters -_ if they could, they probably wouldn't have hesitated to just abandon the entire area, pull an Imperium of Man and exterminatus the planet just to not have to deal with one.

And considering the bag of tricks Aldric had cooked up for the inevitable confrontation with Atlesian huntsmen, Aldric wouldn't fault them for such a drastic measure.

 _I need a way to store this stuff._ Aldric thought, as he watched the huntsmen rushing through the base and up to him, as well as the defensive forces thundering towards him to create their fighting ring. _All of these little fiction artifact that I'm either not giving up or..._ His thoughts drifted to that damned, cursed blade he'd used to slice off Yang's arm. _Not able to give up... As well as all of my personal effects. I leave them lying around, someone finds them like Yang did. I hide them, I'll be unable to access them if they're needed... But how would I store it all? Complete the Knightmare look and get a utility belt?_ The thought was tempting, but he had things like full-sized tablets, lightsabers, clothes, and whatnot, he couldn't store those in little yellow pouches on his waist, they were too big. Though, even as he thought that, a smile drifted across his face. _Not at full-size, at least._

He wouldn't even need to think hard about how to fix that problem. How many fictional stories, from cheesy sci-fi to well-respected and thought-out examples, had shrink rays, or something similar? Captain Atom, Ant Man, Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Hell, _all_ he had to do was magic up an Ant Man suit and steal the Pym Particles and the problem would solve itself.

 _Food for thought._ Aldric thought, as he watched hundreds of man-sized robots and dozens of soldiers piloting gigantic mech suits surrounding him.

The 'ring' created, all Aldric had left was to wait for the huntsmen - who were already halfway up the elevator shaft. As he did so, he slid his bag off of his shoulder and started rifling through it. He knew going into this that he couldn't act as Nebo Aldric, who used the limitless weapons of the Power Glove with a preference for a certain star-spangled shield, Goud Etiolate, who solely used the shield and a lightsaber, or Nathan Drake, who also was known to at least _have_ a lightsaber, as Ironwood would either recognize the lattermost, or be in a far better position to recognize him out on the street with the former two. This in mind, during his time sailing back to Vale, he'd cooked up a few new weapons to use when he'd come to Atlas. He'd _intended_ to have a week to build up far more - perhaps even think up or purchase a new armor set for this 'Andrew Ryan' persona he'd now adopted, but those plans had been brought out back and shot by the Beacon students, in all their good intentions.

So instead of a minor arsenal and some good armor to complement it, all Aldric had was some thin, questionably stolen clothing, and a handful of weapons, all of which he pulled out of the bag. First to come was a bolt pistol, which he clipped to his belt and of which he had a few magazines lining his pockets. Considering the sheer size of the Imperium's go-to sidearm's rounds, he'd figured this could solve a number of problems before they became close-range problems. Should his John Wick with-a-grenade-launcher routine not be good enough, however, he had a few close-range implements to work with. The first, and simplest, was a tonfa he'd made from the Power Glove. It was absolutely boring, but simple to use and practical as a result, as he hadn't had the time to familiarize himself with his initial idea. After setting the tonfa down with a 'ting' of metal hitting stone, and noting that Atlas built elevators to work, as the huntsmen were at ground level and were already sprinting towards him, he pulled out his last few tricks tricks. The first was a pair of straps with dish-like plates, both of which he fastened around his hands, such that the dishes were each on his palms, and the last two were a completely inconspicuous radio beacon, and a small infrared strobe.

The pattern here had been established after he'd found himself unable to get rid of Vader's lightsaber: They were simple tools that didn't rely on magic to work, and were things he could feasibly support or recreate with technology either on Earth or on Remnant. With the question of why he couldn't 'despawn', as it were, the lightsaber that had de-limbed Yang, hanging over his head, Aldric had vowed to leave the construction of a fictional arsenal for later, as well as to try and stop relying on less conventional weapons and tactics. If he couldn't rely on his magic to always work as he expected and to remain under his control, he had to isolate and use it only in situations where it was needed, and in other circumstances only use it to create things that would have multiple uses in the long and short term. Aldric pressed a button on the radio beacon, and watched a dull red light begin flashing with a heartbeat rhythm, then he clipped the IR strobe to his belt. After this, he stood to his feet and grabbed the metallic tonfa in one hand, and drew the bolter with the other, turning to face the huntsmen as they arrived.

Winter stood at the center, and she was flanked by a man and a woman in similar uniforms. The woman had close-cropped, blood red hair, and coincidentally also wielded a pair of tonfas, though they were less a simple metal club like Aldric's, than they were two high-tech looking nightsticks, with Aldric suspecting, based on the inner components he could see with his radar, that they had to double as something else, perhaps as a laser or a firearm, or a staff. The man somehow managed to both look skinnier than Aldric had been before the plane crash, but also more intimidating than a pissed off Ozpin, though Aldric felt it made sense, as it appeared ninety percent of this man had been replaced by machines, giving Professor Raiden a good run for his money, and also meaning that Aldric couldn't discern any weapons. Considering Raiden had been taken - and, likely, was dead now after the EMP - Aldric decided to call him Iron Man, and the girl Redd.

Of course, here in a few seconds it wouldn't quite matter. Aldric spoke up, "I'm here to accept your surrender." He called out, his voice being caught by the mask and transformed into Solid Snake's growl, which spread through the air.

Winter had her hand resting threateningly on her white blade, a scowl painted on her face. "If you lay down your arms, we'll treat you fairly as a prisoner of war." She then drew the blade, and she and her two partners took up combat stances. "But if you fight us, we _will_ kill you without any hesitation."

Aldric sucked in air between his teeth, grimacing. "Ah... Well. Problem with that." He said, idly twirling the bolter on his finger, before pointing it at Iron Man, deeming him the better use of the explosive bullets. "You can't surrender to _me,_ if _I'm_ dead." He said, stalling. "I have to be alive to accept it, you see." And as he spoke, he sensed a glyph spin to life several feet behind him, so silently and with such a dull glow that, had he not had his radar, he wouldn't have known it was there at all.

"If you think we'll surrender to you, you're sorely mistaken." Said Iron Man, his voice possessing a metallic rasp, like someone speaking through a radio.

Aldric pursed his lips, as he sensed a snow-white beowolf crawl out of the spinning glyph, and ever-so-slowly plod its way over to him. "Oh, please don't tell me that's a 'no'." He said, "none of us will like what happens if you say 'no'." He said, as Winter's summon grew within striking distance, and reared back, ready to pounce.

Redd picked up, "last chance, soldier."

Aldric grinned, "time's up." And barely a second later, a shower of high-caliber bullets rained down from above.

They carved into the ground around Winter and her allies, tearing Redd apart in a shower of viscera. These bullets were almost instantly joined by dozens of explosive rounds from the same gunship that had found and sighted him thanks to the radio beacon and the IR strobe, these explosions rocking the ground as they slammed into the Atlesian soldiers ringing him and the huntsmen in. Then, in the brief moment he had as the trio, now a duo, reacted to the sudden carnage, Aldric turned the duo into a solo, blasting Iron Man apart with the high-explosive rounds from the forty first millennium. Only the first round was absorbed by his aura, the second shattered his shields with its explosion. The third round missed as Aldric acclimated to the gun's recoil, but the fourth, fifth, and sixth all hit home as he used his semblance to steady his hand, quickly blowing Iron Man's chest wide open and shredding all of the sensitive electronics keeping him alive. Winter didn't escape the carnage unscathed either, as she found herself enveloped in the vicinity of Aldric's bolts while she dived away. She hit the ground and rolled to her feet, wincing in pain, as her summoned monster roared and leapt for Aldric.

Aldric's response to the charging beowolf was to turn to the side and moon-walk out of the way, distinctly making it look as though he were dancing dead-center in a ring of artillery practically coming down from orbit, the gunship was so high. The snow-white beowolf landed on the ground Aldric had been standing on, and as it recovered and its master charged, he dispatched the summoned monster with another shower of bolts, and shifted his aim to Winter. She, however, had learned that this 'terran huntsman's' weapon was something far more dangerous than what his aura-less kin used, and as a result she had several large glyphs layered in front of eachother, floating in front of her and moving with her as she sprinted forward. To her credit, they all worked wonderfully, with there still being two glyphs left by the time the bolter's magazine ran dry.

The glyphs vanished as she reached Aldric, her war-cry drowned out by the explosions and the screams of the dead and dying. She brought her sword up in a two-handed grip and chopped downwards, but Aldric quickly raised his forearm and caught the blade with his tonfa. The white blade stuck fast as Winter and he were locked in a contest of strength, and to Aldric's light surprise, he found her instantly pushing back against him, proving again that all of his improvements in the near-year he'd been struggling still meant little against someone who had been doing this their entire life.

So, eager to avoid another Pyrrha incident, Aldric tossed his gun and the magazine he'd pulled out to the side, and then thrust his now free metal hand forward, his palm hovering just an inch away from Winter's abdomen. Her head snapped down, eyes wide as she noticed the metal and glass dish light up with a loud whirring noise, and before she could react, she was blasted away, as though Aldric had smashed her gut with a piledriver. She flew so far back that she nearly fell into the artillery being rained down from above, one hand was pressed against her subtly smoldering stomach as her face contorted in pain.

"Ah shit, I didn't have a one-liner. Can we do that again?" Aldric asked, spinning the tonfa by its handle, and holding his free hand up just in front of his chest, fingers splayed out and the repulsor on his palm glowing brightly, "Answer fast - that AC-One Thirty sees you separated from me too long, you'll get shot down!" He warned, causing her eyes to widen and briefly zip upwards, before snapping back to him, before charging forward - her hand forced.

Aldric strafed around her, the artillery around him dying down as the gunship no doubt was reloading. She took the bait and followed him, and when she reached him she swung her sword faster than he'd ever seen before - not Weiss or even Pyrrha had ever attacked as fast as Winter was now. It was all Aldric could do to use his semblance to deflect her, and even then she seemed to catch on remarkably fast, breaking her secondary blade away and splitting his attention between the both of them. She jabbed, swung, and sliced so fast that his eyes could barely keep up, each arm seeming independent of the other, forcing him to use his semblance to defend against the main blade and his tonfa to defend against the sub-sword. His counters were few and infrequent, almost always following her blade scraping off of the back of his tonfa and her stumbling forward as a result.

She swung at his head with her left arm and stabbed at the area it occupied when he ducked with her right. He caught the right blade with his tonfa and slugged her in the chest with his metal fist, before spinning around her and blasting her in the back with his repulsor. She stumbled forward, but hopped into the air - planting both feet on a rapidly formed glyph, which catapulted her right towards him. Suspecting she was baiting him into revealing what exactly his semblance was beyond a defensive implement, Aldric leapt to the side. He didn't, however, dodge her - as another glyph appeared right where he had been, and she sprang off of it just as easily as the first, reaching him in the time it took to blink. Again she engaged, each swing coming faster and surer than the last, as she adapted to his fighting style.

Unfortunately, she'd fallen into his trap the moment she'd let him bait her around their fighting ring, and as they reached its edge, just where the dust and debris was billowing out, barely having cleared, he proved once again that sometimes the simplest, and oldest, tricks were the best kind. He waited for her feet to hit the ground, and once they did, he thrust his tonfa up - using it to catch a downward slice from her right blade - and then brought his metal arm up, catching a stab that would have slid in between his ribs, in the crook of his elbow, with the sound of steel sliding against steel. Now caught and stuck fast and in an awkward position, Aldric ended the fight by picking up the gun he'd thrown away with his semblance, turning it to her, and firing.

Unlike when he'd tried this on Neo, this time it actually worked. All the damage she'd accumulated from his opening artillery barrage, and the few hits he'd scored during their brief engagements, all meant that unlike Iron Man, she had only been able to take _one_ bolt. Her shields faded away and she coughed from the residual impact slamming into her back. She stumbled forward - right into Aldric's head, which slammed into hers. Aldric hurt just as much as her from this, but the impact managed to get her to loose her grip on one of her blades. Aldric seized this opportunity and tore that blade out of her hands by clenching the elbow it was caught in, and then wrenching it backwards.

Now partially disarmed, Aldric swung that newly freed fist upwards, uppercutting her in the jaw and causing her to stumble back, her other blade woozily raised in front of her, swaying as she recovered from two instances of blunt force trauma to her head. But this too was apart of Aldric's plan, as he raised his palm and fired a repulsor beam at her, it streaking forward and slamming into her forehead, knocking her out cold and leaving a nasty purple welt in its place. She hit the ground with an unhealthy sounding 'thud', and Aldric straightened up, running his hand through the 'hair' made by his techno-mask.

All in all, it took ninety seconds. He had a few nasty stab wounds, but besides that, his decision to adopt terran strategy and just bomb the shit out of everything with overwhelming force, turned out to be sound.

 _Or maybe..._ Thought Aldric, as he pulled the bolter, his bag, and the radio beacon to him with his semblance. _It's the Ork strategy. After all..._ He grinned, probing the surrounding area with his Radar. Whatever wasn't dead was dying - even the small army of Paladin mechs hadn't lasted against the sustained aerial bombing. _There can never be enough dakka._ He clipped the bolter to his belt, and raised a thumb to the sky, silently thanking the pilots and gunners that had spared him a long, drawn out, and potentially lethal battle.

He didn't, however, deactivate the radio beacon. Instead, after he slid his bag over his shoulder, he took the beacon in both hands, turned towards Atlas Academy, then reared it behind his head. He tensed his muscles and took in a deep breath, before pitching the beacon with all his strength, throwing it like a football. His strength and his semblance both ensured it landed exactly where he wanted it to: Dead center of Atlas Academy. Next, he pulled out a radio and a slip of paper from the bag. On the paper was a radio frequency, told to him to be the frequency he could contact the Admiral in charge of the fleet invading Atlas.

He tuned in and then hit the button. _"Ocelot-one to Admiral West. Verification, CF-Six-Three-Six."_ He said into it, scanning his surroundings as he heard Ironwood go ballistic over the intercom.

A moment passed, _"go ahead, Ocelot-one."_ Said the Admiral.

 _"Located Enemy General. Appears to be in a hardened underground structure. Placed radio beacon above only known entrance... Got anything that can bust this can wide open? Keep in mind - ah, be advised: Civilians present in structure."_

 _"Affirmative. Retreat to minimum safe distance of one-point-one miles."_

 _"Understood. Bring the rain."_ Aldric said, sliding the radio into his bag and then retreating.

Ten minutes later, as the Atlesian soldiers either failed to find him, or found themselves disassembled or knocked out cold when they did, Aldric noticed a huge bomber flying by overhead, flanked on all sides by several jets, no doubt protecting it from interference. What Aldric found strange, however, was that the bomber was long past the Academy, so what -

"Oh shit!" Aldric ducked, just in time for a bomb twice as big as he was to drop through the sky. What prompted him to duck, beyond common sense and the concept of self preservation, was what he saw on the side of this bomb. Technically not even a word, what he saw was four simple, damning letters:

MOAB.


	44. Homecoming

Chapter 43

* * *

When faced with the prospect of having to crack into what was most likely the single most fortified bunker on the planet, Nebo Aldric knew he didn't need anything fancy - just a way in. As well, since the entire idea backing up his plan was to hit Atlas with huge amounts of shock and awe, he'd wanted said way in to be a little explosive. So, these in mind, he'd asked for a bunker buster of some sort, or at least just a big bomb. Something to crack open the entrance a bit, to make an entrance in a literal and metaphorical sense.

And holy _**shit** ,_ did the United States deliver.

They gave him a bunker buster alright, and they _certainly_ gave him a bomb - they gave him the Mother of _All_ Bombs. Dropped from a bomber he'd almost missed passing overhead entirely, the Air Force had come in with a Massive Ordinance Air Blast. With an explosive yield of eleven _tons_ of TNT, the bomb they'd just lobbed at the academy was the single strongest non-nuclear bomb in America's arsenal. While Aldric wasn't aware that the bomb wasn't a bunker buster per-se, something else he wasn't aware of was that the Admiral who'd cleared the bomb's deployment had just as similar a flare for the dramatic as he did. He knew first and foremost that Atlas Academy was to this kingdom what the White House, or the Kremlin, or Buckingham Palace was to their respective countries on Earth. Dropping this on the most important target in Atlas would have a powerful impact on the defenders, but obliterating it _and_ opening up an entrance to the system of bunkers below it would not just demoralize everyone involved in the defense of the kingdom, but would allow Aldric his best chance to dive into the bunkers and end the war.

Of course, all Aldric was aware of was the fact that, for the second time in a single day, he'd had a functional weapon of mass destruction thrown at him, and this time he hadn't just been far away, this time he'd been at its minimum safe distance. Any closer, he knew, and he'd have either been killed, burned, or maimed. Even as close as he was, he'd still been hit by gale-force winds, and had felt enough heat that he may as well have walked into an oven. Aldric played it as safe as he could, and operated as though the bomb he'd seen dropped was a nuke, and as such he stayed down and he continued cowering, covering his head and averting his eyes, until a full sixty seconds had passed and the ringing faded from his ears.

Once he stood up, Aldric saw the last vestiges of a mushroom cloud fading away, and found that nearly the entire academy was just _gone._ Some of the buildings at the academy's farthest edges still remained, and the skeletal structures of some of the buildings closest to ground zero still stood, as warped, blackened masses of metal and masonry. All of the other buildings had either been blasted to rubble by the shockwave, or incinerated by the fires of the explosion. It was belching dark smoke into the sky in a single huge, thick column.

Aldric stood to his feet, folding his hands behind his back and clenching his tonfa tight, as he pursed his lips, and let his shoulders slump with a sigh. Seeing the mushroom cloud fade into a nondescript pillar of smoke made him keenly aware of how god damn tired he was. It was less of a physical exhaustion than a mental one, but - also keenly aware of where these thoughts would take him - Aldric tossed those thoughts to the wayside and jogged into the expanding cloud of burning dust and debris.

Once inside, he found the air choked and nearly impossible to breathe in, and was thankful for the mask both protecting and changing his face. He had to rely more on his radar than his eyes in order to see, and as he grew closer to the center of the explosion, he slowed to a brisk walk. At the center of the crater made by the bomb, Aldric found the ground gaping wide open, like a wound torn into the flesh. He stood at the precipice of a long elevator shaft, partially scorched black by the explosion, reaching deep into the earth - so deep that, without extending his radar, he couldn't see its bottom. Despite this, he knew what was down there: Literally _every_ Atlesian soldier not currently dueling with the United States. All of them, no doubt, assembling in the hallway he had seen earlier, in their killzone. This would be their Thermopylae, their last stand at their final remaining defensive position.

He wasn't quite fond of the implications of that analogy, considering who won that war in the end.

Perhaps a better one, considering the situation, would be that of the Titan, Atlas, with the weight of the world on its shoulders. Here, Aldric knew, was the last bastion of territory firmly under the control of the Atlesian Government - and the only still independent slice of land on Remnant. All of the other kingdoms had fallen by now, only Atlas remained - them holding the weight of their world and their way of life in their hands, bearing that burden and not hesitating to do so, even though now they no doubt all but _knew_ that their efforts would be in vain, that these struggles would only result in them dying tired, as opposed to emerging victorious.

With a deep yawn, Aldric steeled himself, and then stepped over the edge, plunging into the elevator shaft leading to Atlas' bunker. The wind billowing across the false face he wore as he plummeted deeper and deeper underground, Aldric supposed he respected their bravery in this, in what Atlas was doing, in its meaning. Here was a single kingdom facing the titanic juggernaut of a country multiple times its size, and flying in the face of a planet united against it, still putting on their war face and still willing to fight to the bitter end. Respectable, brave, and unequivocally _human._

It was this respect that prompted Aldric's following actions, as he used his semblance to 'cup' as much of the smoke from the surface and in the elevator shaft as he could, and bring it with him as he dived into the bunker. It took three full minutes for him to reach the bottom, and with a pulse of his semblance he landed with a light tap, a dense cloud of smoke, soot, and ash surrounding him, and naught but a single blast door separating him from Atlas' doomsday bunker.

 _Ah man..._ He sighed, shaking his head. _Wish I hadn't pulled out the lightsaber, last I saw him. Or that I had time to practice with the energy sword. Either would do._ It almost physically hurt to be presented with another amazing Darth Vader opportunity, and to have to avoid it for fear of creating a chink in his anonymity.

So, as much as it pained him, Aldric simply reached forward with his semblance, grabbing the blast door on all sides, and pushing. With a loud crack of stone being torn apart and the sound of metal grinding, Aldric telekinetically hoisted the blast door into the air, and then allowed the hot, black smoke to billow in and fill the corridor. Immediately, gunfire from one end began blasting down to the other end, but Aldric's forethought paid off - in not having destroyed the blast door but rather tearing it from the wall, he now had a gigantic, foot-and-a-half thick hunk of various metals, designed solely to withstand assaults such as the one Atlas was throwing at him. Better yet, was that with the smoke billowing in and choking the air in darkness, Atlas had no idea he'd made himself a barrier, and as such they continued firing as he continued to advance, behind the cover of both his new favorite shield and the encroaching smoke.

The walk through the long corridor took five minutes, during which Atlas _never_ stopped firing. By the time Aldric was within a stone's throw of their fortifications, they'd shot, blasted, and burned away at enough of his blast doors that they were a fraction of the thickness they had been when he'd torn them from the wall. Unfortunately, their efforts were too little, too late - and when he arrived, he first telekinetically grabbed as many weapons as he could, and either tore them from the hands of their shooters, or otherwise disabled them. In the brief pause of shock and reaction, Aldric threw the blast doors at them, crushing scores of men behind them and all but literally paving the way for him to charge forward.

Now standing in the midst of a thick cloud of black smoke from the surface, and thin gray smoke from the gunfire, Aldric realized that he'd done in five minutes what likely would have taken hours, or even days, for the armies up above to do. Expanding on that, he only realized _as he was doing it,_ that he was dispatching, knocking out, and in some places even killing Atlesian soldiers left and right, almost with no effort, where even just a few months ago he'd struggled fighting his way through Adam Taurus' camp. What had happened? Had he just gotten that strong without noticing? Had this been natural growth? Or was it fueled by his steadily increasing understanding and mastery of his powers?

 _Either way, it's concerning. If it's the former..._ Thought Aldric, as he approached a secondary blast door, that led into the huge and branching corridors of Atlas' bunker. _I've gotten even more fuckawful powerful in an even smaller amount of time. And if it's the latter, what would ever happen if I find myself unable to access that magic? Would I just drop back down to where I was when we fought Amber? Would I lose all my power completely? Would I **die?**_ None of those thoughts were too appealing to him, least of all the idea that he was only powerful because of the good graces of a power he truly didn't understand.

Aldric shook his head, banishing these thoughts as he continued on forward, numbly. The last few days, as well as the initial battle for Beacon - everything since he'd woken up to have all of the Watchmen meet in person - had left him feeling exhausted, and having to expend energy on complex thoughts wasn't helping at all; he wanted and needed to be finished with all of this so he could try and figure out how he'd move forward, because even before he'd secured Earth's support in the Salem effort, his plans had been _shot_. So, resolve steeled again if only for the moment, Aldric continued on - again breaking a blast door off of the wall and passing through; now, however, instead of walking into what should have been an instant kill-zone, he found himself in more homely and less utilitarian corridors and surroundings. A scan with his radar showed that all of these corridors branched out and out, forming walkways and pathways, and that Atlas hadn't even bothered fortifying everything, but rather focused on choke points, where these branching paths converged.

Were Aldric a braver man, he'd try seeing how good of a Kitty Pryde impersonation he could pull off and try phasing through the walls. His knee-jerk idea was to try and slide his own atoms through the hugely empty space that existed between each atom, but with how mentally exhausted he felt, he didn't want to pull that off, lose his concentration, and then an arm, or a leg, or a few lungs, by having them fused into the walls. However, he also knew that Atlas would love nothing more than to whittle him down through attrition, before he even reached Ironwood's command center, and that would be exactly what would happen, if he tried going through _everyone_ between here and there.

So, as he'd done with Rayne, Yang, and Winter, when the going got tough, he refused to play fair. Ironwood's rules were to go through everyone to get to him - but Aldric's were to take the shortest and easiest path between him and his objective, and right now? That involved halting the atomic movement of small patched in the walls, freezing them solid and making them brittle, such that a single punch from his cybernetic arm blasted straight through in a cloud of ice and chilled, frosty air. No magic, not nearly as much stamina as fighting through a few hundred groups of fortified soldiers, and it cut his travel time down in half, allowing him to beeline it for Ironwood.

To his credit, the General seemed to realize what he was getting up to pretty fast, and had people mobilizing, moving them back around his command center. Of course, Aldric's response to that was the only logical extension of the trick he'd used on the aircraft carrier, which itself, appropriately, was an extension of what he'd done to Rayne months ago: He first telekinetically ripped the weapons out of the hands of the soldiers amassing around the door, then closed every single one of their throats, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And once the last soldier stopped struggling, Aldric went through the next wall, leaned up against the door leading to Ironwood's command center, where everyone inside was arming themselves and pointing those weapons at the door. Aldric considered his next actions very carefully, and after a microsecond of staring at the door, he kicked it open, slamming his foot into it, right next to the doorknob. With a little help from his semblance, the spy obliterated the door and sent it flying inwards, a crumpled mass of metal and shrapnel.

He was instantly met by a tidal wave of gunfire hurtling straight for him. The room was filled with the flashes of barrels lighting, the thunderous cracks of propellants exploding, and the whipping and zooming of bullets hurtling through the air, and at the face of it all was Aldric, standing there with his hands held out to his sides, an expectant frown, and an arced eyebrow on his borrowed face. The bullets crossed the meager distance between the shooters and the target in less than the time it took to blink, and then stopped fast, flattening themselves against an invisible barrier, remaining aloft for but a moment as their kinetic energy dissipated, and then dropped to the ground.

After ten seconds of sustained gunfire, everyone finally seemed to run out of ammunition, and Aldric, though winded and needing to take great effort to hide it, remained completely untouched, save for a hell of a series of bruises he could feel welling up over his torso. As great as he'd gotten with this little hat trick, he wasn't good enough to circumvent physics - and just like how people with kevlar vests broke ribs when they took bullets, he broke ribs and bruised when he did the same.

"Point taken." Aldric nodded, slowly growing used to his Solid Snake grunt. "Allow me to retort:" He then held up a hand, fingers splayed out.

Ironwood, at the center of the room and with his back to a dais with a wide, flat console, widened his eyes and clenched his hand harder around his gun. Unfortunately for him, this effort was too little, too late - and with a telekinetic pull, Aldric wrenched every gun, knife, bomb, and other such weapon off of the persons of the people in the room, hoisting them into the air and pulling them right over to him. They all collected into a beachball-sized sphere, and hovered there for a moment, before Aldric lowered them to his hand - where he used the Power Glove, sneaking a few nanites into the mix, which instantly began eating away at it and replicating. As more of the mass of weapons began to vanish and melt, Aldric slid those machines back into his sleeves, making it appear as though he were systematically deconstructing them all into gray sand, and absorbing them onto himself. Aldric used this both for intimidation, and to have something to wrap his ailing chest.

Once the room was disarmed, Aldric lowered his hand, and pulled the tonfa and the bolter from his hips, placing them on a nearby table with a loud bang.

"See?" Aldric hummed, "your turn."

"You've a lot of gall to just _walk_ in here, soldier -"

"Correction." Aldric interrupted, a finger held up, as he slowly approached the General. "Sailor." He swept a hand over his stolen uniform, "see, it's a blue uniform. Blue like the ocean."

This illicited the desired reaction, though not from the desired person, as a random soldier in a corner of the room blurted out, "you're not even a _soldier?!"_

Aldric grinned, "right you are, my good sir. And that leads wonderfully into my next point: I joined the Navy _specifically_ because it didn't require front line fighting, so what little training I do have kind of..." He waved his fingers, "faded away, a few years back. And aside from a few moments I'm not proud of, I've no fighting experience _period_ since then." He then briefly raised his hands, and then clapped them to his hips. "But here I am. The first guy they were able to give superpowers, and I literally made it into the center of your fortified bunker command center." Finished, he folded his hands behind his back.

This time, the right person took the bait, as Ironwood glared down at him, towering a full head and shoulders above the blue-garbed spy. " _First."_ He repeated.

Aldric nodded, "caught that, didn't you?" Aldric asked, "and yes, first. Seriously, my good sir - we've been fighting for almost a month, now. Did you honestly think we wouldn't get ahold of some of your dust and figure out the right way to -" He nodded his head to the side, to avoid using the word 'snort' and ruin the persona. "- well... Use it?" He asked, "that'd be a dangerous gamble, General. But it's also why I'm here - allow me to reiterate: No formal combat training, a few fights under my belt, and I've had these powers for so little time it's astonishing how far I've come with them. So for all intents and purposes I'm equivalent to one of your academy students, and look at what I've done.

"Now consider the fact that yours is the last kingdom to be fighting my planet." Aldric continued, deepening the frown on Ironwood's face. "That means that _literally_ everyone else is coming. Take that kind of strength, and add in more huntsmen - _Earth_ huntsmen. _Human_ huntsmen. If you last a day, you won't last two before we make it to your little bastion under the ground. And then... Oh boy, then _you_ have no options, whereas we... Have _several."_

Now Ironwood realized he was being baited, but also that he had no choice but to take said bait. "And what would those be?"

"Well..." Grinned the terran, "there's several ways they can do it. First is the simplest: They just _shove_ bodies down here, and kill and kill and kill, fighting their way here until they reach you -" He pointed up at the General, "and either force you to surrender, or kill you and subsequently decapitate your country and leave its civilians almost completely defenseless. See - that's option one!" He emphasized, "option two..." He held up a second finger, "they realize that since you're opposed to talking, that they'll either have to force a surrender, or just accept that the only way to win is to win _completely,_ and they'll pound this bunker of yours with things _much_ bigger than what they dropped to get me in here. Like what they dropped on _Vale_ earlier today, and Mistral a while back." Ironwood's frown widened, fear entering his eyes as he understood Aldric's implication. "They'll just -" He snapped his fingers, "- end it, and deal with the consequences later. Take your fuckin' pick, General - nukes, chemical weapons, you name it, we'll _use_ it. That's option two! But seeing as how they might actually want to keep your kingdom around for resource, trade, and perhaps even colonization purposes, blanketing the place in nuclear fallout, contaminating the ground water, and all that jazz, ain't a very attractive option..." He shook his head, clicking his tongue. "No.

"So that leads us to option three!" He rested his hands again behind his back, "this is the really scary, and simultaneously the _really_ easy one, so listen up." He cleared his throat. "This one basically has them realize that, with your entire country stuck in a bunker with only one entrance or exit, they've got you by the _balls,_ General! You people can last down here for awhile, but was this place _really_ designed for perpetual inhabitance? Or just as a small little fallout shelter for you all to hide out in for a year or two before another country can come in and help you out?" He waited a few moments, and Ironwood's silence told him he was right: At the absolute best, they did have _some_ facilities with which they could grow more food, but their entire country was down here. Growing that food would be a delaying action at best, they couldn't self-sustain down here.

So Aldric hammered that down home, "so all they have to do is park their soldiers, their bombs, their machines of war - _right_ there at the edge. They just have to _sit_ there and _wait,_ for you to either come out fighting, and kill you all, for you to come out waving a white flag to surrender, or for you _all_ to _starve_ and _die._

"And they _will_ do any and all of that if they feel they have to, my good sir! Consequences won't even matter - because they control the narrative, back home. They can literally _make up_ a story that completely justifies whatever they choose! And the people will believe it - because they _hate_ you for what you did. Your kingdom's getting trashed? We had to _obliterate_ a city twice the size of it! They'll believe anything that's told to them!

"And those are _our_ options... But it'll take us a few days to realize they're open to us. Before then, _you_ have a few options, too."

Ironwood crossed his arms, his frown now glowing with rage. "Surrender or die."

Aldric shrugged, "your words, not mine." He then opened up an innocent grin, "so what's it going to be?"

Faster than Aldric could blink, Ironwood punched him, burying his own metallic fist into Aldric's cheek. Aldric stumbled a step, but as he recovered, his radar - and a general lack of additional pain - told him that Ironwood didn't intend to follow up this attack with another. Cheek throbbing, Aldric straightened back up, turning his gaze back to the General, whose chest and shoulders heaved with increasingly furious breaths.

"One." Aldric grunted.

"Implying I get two more?" Ironwood heaved.

"No implications. Merely a number." Aldric straightened his posture, "am I to interpret your throwing hands at me as a refusal? Or an obstinate realization that no matter what you do, you still lose?" He asked, "that your only choice is the manner in which you lose, and the number of people you lose as a result?"

Another strike, this time a right cross as opposed to a left.

"Two." Aldric straightened up, a small line of blood leaking out of his face. "Like it or not, General, those _are_ your choices. I beg of you to make the right one - because as much as we aren't afraid of fighting, that does not mean we inherently like to do so, or that we seek it out."

"Says the man part of the military whose first act upon entering my world was to _bomb it."_

"Because we were fighting an enemy from your world. An enemy, as we understand it, sent by _your country_ specifically. All three other countries we took down and conquered in days, but yours was the only one we had any need or desire to _fight,_ as opposed to simply decapitate. Yours was the only one to actually wrong us." He said, slowly. "General, from my leaders, I am perhaps their one and only olive branch - the single time they will try to talk to you, such that they can at least say they _tried._ To be succinct, I am the path of least resistance." He rumbled, "the only choice you have is the one you have to make right now. They both are hard to swallow, but one invites the hand we do not arm, and the other invites the arms we hold back for our worst and hardiest enemies.

"So _please,_ General. Make the right one."

* * *

Were one to ask her, Rosa Thren would describe her days as comfortably dull. Even after the horrific storm of news coming out of Vale and the other four kingdoms for those few hours, of metal eagles and storms of fire and brass, of unknown kingdoms invading with the skill and power of millions of Huntsmen, her days hadn't changed. She made her weekly lien, had her provided room and board, and saw a steady enough stream of travelers that even without the CCT network, she was appraised enough of local news that she felt her finger was close enough to the pulse so as to be said to be on it. Even if the travelers recently were more and more refugees who had chosen to brave the uncivilized wilds, and even if they only had stories of terrans, they still had news.

More to point, her days were comfortable and dull. She was close enough to Vale and the minor villages to get news, but far away enough to not be considered any kind of target of opportunity for invaders. Even Grimm didn't often come this way, and if they did, more guests were armed than weren't - only the young, stupid, or naive ever walked the countryside without some kind of weapon, and were any of those three to come across her inn, they did make a small modicum of lien selling small arms to them. Ever since she'd first found herself here, her days fell into a nice routine: Wake up, clean the bar, prepare a small meal, and then wait around, watch some television, read some books, and wait for someone to come requiring a certain kind of fuel. Some would call this kind of work soul-wrenching, but she found comfort in it, and that was something few could say.

On this night, more than a month into the invasion, however, she found a small amount of that comfort had been sapped by some of the news she so looked forward to. That these terrans had shot Vale with a sun, that this sun had sapped anything and everything with electricity of its power, and that they'd either captured or killed Professor Ozpin and the Council of Three. It was disheartening - just like that, Vale was lost. There was some solace in the thought that the other three kingdoms, especially Atlas, could still fight, but this solace was lost in the idea that she wasn't _in_ those other kingdoms, was she? No, she was in Vale - or, more specifically, Sanus, close to Vale - and as such she just had to wait here and weather the storm, hope and pray that the CCT network would come back at _least_ before the year was out, and that the terrans weren't bent on world domination, and would be content merely with the major kingdoms.

These thoughts were most of her company today, as she sat back in her bar, reading an adventure book. She periodically looked up and checked her surroundings, but the somber and silent night had yet to be broken by anything even resembling a traveler -

Or, perhaps she'd spoken too early.

Looking up now, she saw a man in an ocean-blue coat and pants entering the inn. He had a firm face and closely cropped brown hair, but what she noticed above all was the strange, blocky pattern covering his clothes, and the exhausted look behind his deeply blue eyes. He had a gun she'd never seen before strapped to his hip, and a cinch-bag hanging from one of his shoulders. There was a bandage on one of his cheeks, lightly marred from the inside with his blood, and as he turned to the bar and approached, she saw more red stains near to his legs and his torso, staining the clothes. He walked with the posture of a man bearing more than his fair share of injuries but trying to hide them, ever-so-slightly hunched over, and with his elbows pressed against his flank.

The blue-garbed man walked with a barely hidden grimace, and made for the first table closest to him, whereupon he sat down with a huff. Rosa brushed her hair behind her large doe ear and shut her book with a light thump. As she circled around the bar and made her way over to him, she saw him remove a pair of gloves, revealing one hand of tan flesh, then one hand of dark metal. Next he unbuttoned and undid the zipper on his jacket, sliding it off and revealing a dark shirt underneath, as well as more of his arms - showing the flesh covered in thin scars, and the dark metal covered in scorched and faded paint.

Then he pulled his face off.

Rosa actually stopped wholesale at that - she watched the injured and scarred newcomer grab at his unbandaged cheek, not with the deft tenderness of two fingers, but the rough handling of his fist, and _pull._ His face stretched comically, as though made of rubber or he were in a cartoon, and then he pulled up, and she saw his skin slide against itself, his entire face slowly sliding upwards and along his head. It was only after the bottom portion of his face slid over his jaw, and revealed another jaw underneath it, that she realized this man was wearing an unbelievably realistic prosthetic mask, and was removing it to reveal -

Her jaw dropped.

It wasn't uncommon for huntsmen to come through this inn - while not a major road, it was situated between two minor villages, each of which was well enough off to be able to hire huntsmen should the Grimm ever become too big or too pressing of an issue. What was uncommon, however, was when bandits became an issue - something she had only ever experienced twice in her decade here at this inn - and even more uncommon would be a huntsman, unbidden and unpaid, solving that issue in a night. Then to round things off, what was most uncommon of all would be that very huntsman returning to this inn out of the blue - perhaps appropriately, given his new attire.

A warm smile blessed her face, only briefly lessened when she remembered the dark promise he'd made when rejecting her help the last time he had been here. This thought prompted another - the lingering question of whether or not that promise was related to what was happening to the world at this very moment. But she shook both of these away; no matter the coincidence, she didn't need to fear this man. No evil person so easily capable of walking away, as he had been, would have turned back around.

As she reached his tableside, she noticed then that the last she'd seen him, he'd had two arms - and the sclera of his eyes had been white, not a more muted gray than the firm gunmetal color of his irides. Then she realized how older he appeared to be, despite scant months having passed since their first and last meet. There was a weight to his shoulders, a sorrow etched in the lines of his face and the glow of his eyes, and the air of regret and shame surrounding him.

She approached the table now with some caution in her step, a notepad clenched in one hand, both cradled in front of her stomach. "Mister... Drake, am I remembering correctly?" She asked, putting on the air that the encounter had been so long ago as to partially fade from memory.

Drake moved sluggishly, rubbing at his face with his metal hand, the nearly inaudible sound of its servos grinding and winding filling the otherwise silent air, before being drowned out by a long, drawn-out sigh. He nodded once, "you're doing better than me... I'm ashamed to admit I just plain forgot your name." He admitted, in a tired voice.

"Rosa, Mister Drake." She said with a warm smile and a practiced nod, not too deep, but not too light. "Rosa Thren. I would hope you at least remember the Inn?" She prodded.

To which, he nodded. "Only place in the worlds, at the moment, I trust my secrets to stay such."

Rosa frowned, "it sounds as though you require something a bit stronger than last time, Mister." She opined.

"Oh trust me I would love absolutely nothing more than to turn to the vice, but I know a functional alcoholic and I'd rather not smell like him." He said, "no... No, I'll just have water tonight. I'm going to be needing the faculties." He said, brushing both hands through his hair.

Rosa hurried to get his water, and upon returning, noticed that Drake's condition hadn't improved - rather, the single minute she'd been gone somehow seemed to dampen his spirits even more. So as she slid the mug across the table, she paused, frowning for a moment in debate, then sat down with him.

"The last time you were here, I told you I thought you were a good man, you know." She began.

Drake snorted, "oh do I have a hell of a story for you."

"You said something similar the last time, too." She said, with a nod. "And when I tried to offer any help..."

"No."

"Exactly." She nodded, "but last time, you were in better spirits. Here, though... There is a weight to you. A shadow. I am hoping I could get a different answer." She said, as he set down his cup, eying her with dull, half-open eyes. "Because I do not think you would return here if not to seek some sort of help."

This got a reaction, a blithe smile and a sidewards nod of the head. "You're not wrong." He said, "but not right, either."

She frowned, considering this a victory from which she could move forward, "how so?"

"Help, yes. From you, no." Drake responded.

Rosa tilted her head, "then from who?"

Drake was silent for a moment, as he took a drink of water. He regarded her from the rim of his glass, and then the coat he'd hung off of the back of the chair slid off of it, then floating in the air and slithering through it towards the table. It presented its arm to her, upon which was a patch, colored red, white, and blue. She didn't recognize it immediately, until she'd realized she'd seen something similarly colored, with only one star, flying past her head the last time he had been here.

"Is this... From where your shield came?" She asked, looking up at him.

He grinned, "comin' again to save the motherfucking day, yeah." He nodded, before his smile tensed, and faded. "They're here now, matter of fact." He said, as the sound of thunder could be heard distantly. Drake leaned forward, "pretend you don't know me, Rosa. And please... _Do not_ remember anything you may hear right now."

Rosa's frown returned, but it was wiped away by a look of momentary panic as the thunder grew louder, close, and faster, until it was a rhythmic staccato, almost sounding of beating drums. She looked to the window and saw the smallest bullhead she'd ever before beheld, with a rotating propeller blade as opposed to twin jet engines. It was coming down on the road for a landing, kicking up dirt and dust aplenty, its rotorblades slowing down once its landing skits touched the ground. A door on its side slid open, and out hopped five men in uniforms and body armor, not dissimilar to Drake's, but with green and tan coloration. They all held tubular rifles, which were held aloft as they scanned the area, before lowering them and clearing a sixth man, who wore a uniform similar to theirs but without the armor, to depart.

"Stand up, Rosa." She heard Drake say, before an invisible hand hooked itself under one of her shoulders and lifted, snapping her out of her reverie.

Rosa steadied her stance, then backed away from Drake's table as the Inn's doors opened. The five soldiers and their escort entered the Inn, the Innkeep approaching to greet them, before being cut off by a soldier, who took a step forward and raised a single hand, his other remaining on his rifle in a clear declaration of intent. The others approached the dining area, where Rosa stood, though she hated the phrase, like a deer in headlights.

She was only snapped out of her reverie when a stocky soldier split away from the rest of them, approaching her personally and gesturing back to the bar with his hand. "Ma'am, if you could please?"

She blinked once, and nodded numbly, and allowed herself to be escorted away, only once casting a look over her shoulder, briefly seeing the less armored man sitting down in front of Drake, who nodded once, matching a greeting with a greeting of his own. A part of her desperately curious as to what they would be speaking of, but another part of her well aware that knowing such a thing may not be in her best health; not with a gun-toting foreigner watching her every movement.

* * *

As Rosa was escorted away, the man Aldric knew only as Coulson sat down, giving the Inn an appraising look. "Not a bad place." He said, nodding, and turning to Aldric.

Aldric nodded once, "not a bad people." He countered, "this is probably the only place I know that I could come close enough to trusting." He said, bluntly.

"You don't trust Earth? Or Ozpin? Or any of the Watchmen, for that matter?"

"I _lived_ on Earth, Ozpin would fucking murder me if he knew what I was doing, and the rest of the Watchmen would do the same." Aldric responded, quietly. "Fact of the matter is, in _any_ other situation there would be a worldwide manhunt out for me."

Coulson nodded, not even bothering to argue. "Speaking of the world..." He leaned forward, "he's been pretty adamant about your safety being confirmed, Ryan." He said, sliding a briefcase across the floor with his foot, which Aldric accepted. "Should have everything you told Ilyich about, in it."

Aldric nodded in thanks, "how about the girls?" He asked, "RWBY, CFVY, JNPR... _My_ team, Taurus and the Fang..." He listed, "I don't have to get mad, do I? Because I've been mad. This last week has probably been the first week since I've been here that I haven't been mad. And during it I was tired through aura over-use." He grunted, "so my getting mad won't be pretty. Because I'll be taking the path of least resistance."

Coulson nodded, holding up a hand. "Don't worry, Ryan. We've kept our word." He said, "though, that grew hard the day after you left. When the blonde one woke up she damn near broke out trying to find you. The others could hear her trying and almost did the same."

"But?"

"But some tear gas fixed the problem real quick, I'll admit."

Aldric hummed with a disappointed sigh. He shook his head, "considering who I'm dealing with, I'm surprised that's _all_ you did."

Coulson grinned, "who you're dealing with?" He parroted back.

"You tell me you _aren't_ CIA, I'll kill you on principle." Aldric challenged, placing his bolter on the table.

The man gave the hand cannon a brief glance, "Warhammer." He nodded, impressed. "Would solve a lot of problems."

"I'll take that as a yes. No one in the army would have time enough to realize how I think and start doing that kind of research." Aldric paused, swirling his glass and the water inside it. "Or... Have a dozen little voices talking in their ear." He added, leaning over and looking into the small earbud nestled in the man's right ear.

Again, Coulson grinned and nodded. "Good eye. Good ear, Mister Ryan." He said, "back to point, Ozpin's dragging his feet. He won't make any deal until he knows all of you and your rescue team are safe, or he has their bodies."

"Please tell me you didn't ship him Yang's arm."

"You threw it in the ocean."

Aldric blinked, "oh..." Another blink, "oh yeah, I did." He shook his head, "whole fuckin' month's a blur, Coulson."

"As evidenced by you picking a philsopher's name and not a spy's."

"You've got me there." Aldric leaned back in his chair. "How long do I still have?" He frowned, "should be round-about thirty six hours."

"You just ended a war and went off the grid for a week. What the hell _else_ could you have planned?"

"Something stupid, Coulson." Aldric let out a long sigh, turning his gaze to his glass and frowning deeply, in concentration. "It's always something stupid." He said, as the glass was lit with a pale glow, and slowly began to empty, the water draining out of it. "But Atlas is playing ball?"

Coulson, briefly transfixed by the glass, nonetheless nodded and turned back to Aldric. "They seem to be under the impression we'll nuke them to hell and back if they don't."

Aldric shrugged, "point was to put the fear of God into 'em." He focused again on the now bone dry glass, the light glow returning as it began to fill back up with water. "Had to have them absolutely convinced that more of me were coming, and even if there weren't, we had something just as good waiting."

"As much as I wish that were true, Ryan, the folks back home are starting to call you a living weapon of mass destruction. And since we still don't fully understand the science behind all of this, do you honestly think we'd start waking people up so soon?"

"Yes." Aldric deadpanned. "Yes I completely believe we would."

Coulson looked like he was ready to continue arguing, but paused, slumped his shoulders, then nodded. "Fair enough."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _ _World War 3 ended in a month.  
You realize that, according to Einstein, we'll be fighting the next one with sticks and stones. __

_My little secret project is as finished as it can be. I got a care package from Coulson I'd like to drop off, but aside from minute additions and changes, I can't do anything more until I open up the care package and see what's inside.  
Atlas also surrendered after we cracked open their bunker with a MOAB, and I threatened we'd go nuclear next. _

_Anyway, I'm typing this midflight. Just as 'fun' as it was the first time, but this time I'm on Earth, and with how fast I'm going I'm probably freaking NORAD the fuck out,_ _ _I have thirty six (thirty five, really. Coulson took for-fucking-ever.) to get something done that **needs** to be done. __

_But, yeah. Just like I predicted, in the interests of Earth vs Remnant, Earth won, wholesale. Even without me, it wouldn't have gone much longer. I think it may have even gone faster, since I interrupted the blitzkrieg in Vale. Had I not, after they took it, everyone would have turned-tail and made for Atlas, and the entire UN would be bombing the shit out of it, not just the US._

 _Gawd dayumn, **nothing** will be the same after this. It's hard to fucking believe just two weeks ago my biggest worry was getting the Watchmen on the same page, and not killing eachother. Now I've got to worry about the aftermath of an interplanetary war, whether or not Taurus and Torchwick will even throw in with me now that things are so horrifically FUBAR, and what in God's fucking name Salem is going to do with all of this.  
Oh, and there's the psychological damage the war may have had on my 'friends'.  
That's a little important. _

_Although, right now, I'm going to something even fucking 'less important'.  
Probably with the single greatest chance of me dying since I came to Remnant, to boot. _

* * *

Aldric remembered, vividly, how bad jet lag could be after a long flight. As it turned out, he'd never experienced the far more personal kind of jet lag that came from _personally_ holding oneself several thousand feet in the air and essentially throwing them from one end of a continent to another. Aldric felt like he'd just ran fifty miles in eight seconds, his entire body was tense and sore and his muscles and bones ached.

The good news was that, according to his phone, he was almost there.

The bad news was that he'd never been 'there' from so high up, so as much as he remembered the general area of 'there', that knowledge was useless in the air.

Regardless, Aldric's found himself reveling in an unseen benefit of his radar pulse: He didn't have to hold his phone up to his face to check the GPS. All he had to do was hit the button, the screen would pop on, and even from in his pocket he could see it fine. That allowed him to watch the ground as he flew over it, just underneath the clouds. He observed the green trees bleeding into the gray roads, he watched the multicolored cars sliding across the roads, oblivious of the eighteen year old flying above them. It was strange, being back on Earth and flying through its smog-choked air; it brought back the novelty of being able to fly in the first place, as though flying on Remnant and flying on Earth were two completely different things, conceptually.

After enough time passed that everything began to bleed together, his GPS suddenly chirped, letting him know he'd passed his destination entirely. After a few minutes of fiddling with it and hovering about until he found he was right over where it said he was, Aldric slid the phone back in his pocket and looked down. Four subdivisions and a few dozen houses, a lot of empty driveways.

Aldric stopped holding himself aloft, letting him plummet through the air and down to the ground. A brief pulse of his semblance softened his landing, and he found himself in an empty driveway. He slid his hands into his blue, camouflaged pockets, looking up at the two-story, gray house. He didn't need his radar to tell him no one was home - the lack of cars in the driveway told him as much.

With a light kick at the ground, Aldric started down the driveway, wondering where she was.

Aldric stomped up the stairs leading to the door, sliding his bag off of his back and fishing around for his wallet. He found that, though he didn't remember having done so at all, he'd wrapped _that_ in tinfoil too.

 _Fuck, I must've been tired._ He thought, as he dropped the bag to the ground and unwrapped the wallet. _I mean... I still am, but there was a physical element, then. Not just solely a mental one._ He thought, ignoring how physically exhausted he was _now,_ thanks to his flight.

Out of his wallet he plucked a key, and pointedly ignored his driver's license, the picture of him from before Remnant. He stuffed the wallet in his back pocket and then stuck the key in the door. With a twist, the door opened up and swung open -

Aldric almost instantly fell into a defensive stance when something came bounding towards him, howling like a wild animal. His foot went from lightly raised to step inside, to instantly planted right back on the ground with a loud thud, one arm was thrust to his side and the other was brought up, fist clenched tightly. When the small speeding missile collided with his midsection he was halfway to burying his metal fist into its flank, before common sense and a small helping of sanity took over, and he realized he recognized this definitely as an animal, but perhaps not a wild one.

The husky was howling and whining loud enough to be heard by either end of the neighborhood, burying her face into Aldric's stomach and licking every inch of him she could find. Aldric found himself quickly on the verge of tears, as he knelt down to her level and reciprocated in kind, rubbing and petting her, laughing and cooing her name, telling her that Gerty was a good dog, asking if she'd missed him - she had to, else she wouldn't be freaking out like she was now. Gertie, meanwhile, as she was won't to do, didn't give a shit and was just rubbing every inch of her she could all over him, sniffing and licking at him, just reveling in the fact that he was home again.

"Ah, c'mon Gertie." Aldric stood up, kicking the door shut with a booted foot. "Let me get you something good. She keep 'em in the same place? Wanna treat?" He asked, causing Gertie to drop to her haunches, an excited look playing at her features. "Let's get a treat, girlfriend!" And she bolted off through the living room and to the kitchen, pausing at the latter's threshold to turn and make sure he was both following her, and still there in the first place.

Inside the wood-floored kitchen, Aldric followed the dog with practiced ease, circling around the chest-high table and towards a cabinet in the corner. He opened the top door and rifled through, until he found a plastic jar filled with dog treats. Feeling generous, Aldric grabbed a fistfull and then moved back to the table, tipping out the small pile onto it and then individually giving them to the husky, whose tail was wagging so fiercely and so quickly that her entire rear end was shaking back and forth. The first few he made easy on her, until he tossed one up into the air and she caught it deftly, resulting in him making her try out a few tricks until the final treat was all gone.

After spending a few minutes seated on the hardwood floor, his hands enveloped in her gray fur, and her nose scanning over his new arm, Aldric slowly hauled himself to his feet. Gertie now followed him as he stepped down the hallway to the right of the kitchen, she not even for a moment accepting the rear position and instead flanking him, making the normally cramped hallway even moreso, as he tried to avoid stepping on the canine's paws. At the end of the hallway he found a door with a poster, depicting Deadpool trying to pull at the doorknob and failing.

Aldric pushed the door open, with Gertie quickly bounding inside. He noticed her paws left marks on the hardwood floor, and looking around he found that everything was covered in a thin layer of dust; even the air smelled a little stale. He let out a small sigh as he looked around, the memories flowing back as he saw the walls, covered in movie, anime, and video game posters. He saw Caeser of the Apes staring down at him from horseback, a stormtrooper next to him and Big Boss in the field of red flowers above the two of them. Another deadpool, this one holding a teddy bear at gunpoint, was on the other side of the room, situated above a large, dusty mirror, itself hidden behind a television that looked like it hadn't been used in years. Aldric found his 'leaning tower of consoles' next to the television, his X-box at the bottom, where it belonged, with various Sony consoles climbing upwards until, like the reigning kings they were, his Nintendo consoles rested side by side at the top. All of them were covered in dust too, to the point where Aldric was pretty sure the X-box just wouldn't turn on if he tried, and the various power lights were dimmed and dulled by the lack of any interaction.

Gertie hopped up on Aldric's bunk bed, rolling around in it, and Aldric had half of a mind to join her - he hadn't been in his bed in almost a _year_ \- but he was too enveloped in memories to do so. All around the room he looked, seeing the posters and remembering the days he'd bought them and the days he'd taped them up. His eyes eventually rested on the nightstand next to his bed, upon which were the few statues he owned, an alarm clock that blinked, as though it had been through a power outage or two.

His thoughts were interrupted when Gertie stuck her head between the ladder leading up to the second bunk. She panted loudly, tongue held out, begging to be loved by her lost owner, and Aldric obliged, smiling widely. His fleshy hand rubbed at her scalp, scratching at it as she leaned her head into his hand. This lasted until she tensed up, pulling her head back and turning her head to the window looking outside. Aldric stretched his radar and figured out what had gotten her attention - a lone SUV rolling into the driveway, it having been heard by the dog long before the human.

 _"Ho... Boy."_ Aldric sighed, feeling his heart begin to beat heavily in his chest. "Here we go." He said, patting his thigh and prompting the husky to follow him.

She bounded out of the room and back towards the front door, happily yipping along, tail wagging. Aldric followed her, sliding a glove onto his prosthetic hand as he heard someone walking up the stairs, each foot rattling the wood and echoing up into the house. Aldric made it to the door just as the woman reached the landing.

With little fanfare he opened the door, seeing her with a bag of groceries hanging from each arm. "Hey, need some help?" He grunted, peering out past her and seeing the SUV's trunk still open.

The woman nodded, her brown hair bobbing up and down at the ends, "yeah Neb, got some -" She blinked, "uh, some-" Sarah Aldric looked up from the keys she was fiddling with, seeing Nebo standing there, an eyebrow arced as he waited for the answer to his question.

The mother gaped at the son, and the son at the mother.

Then she said, "bring that shit in, then you can do the fucking dishes. It's been nine months." She shoved past him, though he noted she was trying to frown through something he suspected was a smile. "You better not have a baby in here!"

"Her name's Cherry and she's _really_ looking forward to meeting her Granny!" He called over his shoulder, as he thundered down the stairs.

"Up yours, kid!" He heard, as his radar told him she'd dropped her groceries on the table and was now clenching her chest, right above her heart, tears freely flowing, now that she thought she was out of sight.

Aldric's voice wavered as he called back, "love you too, Grandma!"


	45. It never lasts long enough

_A/N:  
This is a perfect way to date this story, but I already did that by intimating RWBY Volume 4 as the most up-to-date release, as per Aldric's landing on Remnant, so let's double down real fast:  
What the **fuck**_ _are you doing, reading this, when you could be out seeing Infinity War?  
No - no excuses!  
Scrounge up your chunk of change and go see that goddamn masterpeice!  
I shit you not, it has influenced this story.  
_

 _If you're still reading, I'll assume you've done as I asked and gone to see it._

 _..._

 _(Don't worry, I won't be blatantly spoiling anything. Believe it or not, Aldric returning to Earth and that movie coming out were completely coincidental. I'm abusing it oh maliciously, but coincidental nonetheless.)_

 _Anyways, this one was originally quite a bit shorter, but after some playing around I found I liked what it looked like with its current length (which may or may not contain more than half of what would have been the next chapter), so... Bonus!  
_

* * *

Chapter 44

* * *

Imagine, for a moment, what the feeling would be of returning home for the first time in almost an entire year. How would it feel to see one's family after having no contact? After being presumed dead? Imagine the reaction of that family - most likely a lot of hugs, a lot of tears, and no words exchanged until well after the emotions had died down.

Sounds like any normal kind of response, right?Well the Aldric family was anything but normal, and almost instantly after entering the house with the rest of the groceries, the first thing that could be heard before the door was kicked shut was a loud male voice calling out, _"is that the fuckin' bible?"_

Then followed by an even louder female voice responding with, _"hey, hey, hey - the HOLY fuckin' bible!"_

A large grin stretched across Nebo Aldric's face as he stepped further inside his childhood home on his childhood planet in his childhood universe, stolen boots lightly thumping against the carpet beneath them. "You know... Sometimes I wished I did a little bit more with my life, instead of hangin' out in front'a places, sellin' weed and shit." Aldric began, "like... Maybe be an animal doctor." He shrugged, "why not me? I like seals and shit... Or maybe an astronaut!" Aldric nodded his head. "Yeah... I'd be the first motherfucker to see a new galaxy!" He nodded again, a determined, wild expression entering one of his eyes, "or find a new alien life form..." A beat, "and fuck it!"

Sarah Aldric shared the grin, immediately picking up where he left off. "There _he_ _goes!"_ She laughed, " _homeboy fucked a Martian once!"_

Nebo dropped the six remaining bags of groceries on the table with a loud thunk, turning to a framed magazine cover hanging on the wall. "Oh hey, it's a schooner!"

His mother gave out a faux, arrogant laugh. "You dumb bastard, it's not a schooner, it's a sailboat!" She said, matter-of-factly, as she stowed away some groceries in the refrigerator.

 _"A schooner is a sailboat, stupid-head!"_

His mother breathed in heavily, "you know what - _THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY!"_ She pointed off in a random direction, " _over there - that's just a guy in a suit!"_

Nebo pulled a few cans out of the plastic grocery bag, "pantry, or fridge?"

"Fridge." She responded, "say, would you like a chocolate covered pretzel? They're a little melty, but damn are they exquisite!"

"Hey, check this out -" Nebo said, before telekinetically moving the cans through the air and into his mother's hands.

She blinked once, then her smile returned, "the Jedi Mind Trick! Holy shit, motherfuckin' Yoda and shit!"

Aldric chuckled, "shithead here watched Empire and Jedi last week and ever since then, he's been trying to do the Jedi mind trick. The crazy fuck thinks he can levitate shit with his thoughts."

"Affleck!" His mother called out, as she leaned inside the fridge and Nebo dropped the last few items in the pantry. "You da _bomb_ in Phantoms, yo!"

"Got any more?"

"Not unless we haven't quoted Dogma."

"Don't think so." Nebo frowned, then nodded. "The Catholic church does not make mistakes!"

His mother rolled her eyes, "Ah shit, I never remember how that one goes... Mistakes were made!" She closed the fridge, "now get over here, I've been waiting too long for this." She said, holding her arms out to her sides.

Aldric crossed the kitchen and brought his mother into a strong hug; the both of them squeezed tight, as though letting go would make the entire moment meaningless, would cause the other to vanish. Seconds turned to minutes as they held eachother tight, those minutes eventually melting away into obscurity the moment one of them, neither knew who, let out the first tear. They both were eventually silently sobbing into eachothers' shoulders, crying desperately and holding onto eachother for dear life. It was only interrupted once a Siberian Husky forced her way between their legs, and they separated, with the son kneeling down to pet the needy dog.

"I love you, Nebo." Sniffled his mother, "she, though - old lady could _tell_ something was wrong, bud, let me tell you." Said Sarah, "before I even got the news. She was all kinds of out of wack."

Aldric nodded, "tried to wake up the neighborhood when I got here." He looked up to his mother, noting the business-casual attire she wore. "You working?"

"I mean, your father's life insurance was good, but I couldn't retire on it, kid."

Aldric nodded, "I'll give you that." He said, rubbing the dog's flank. "I'll give you that."

The two shared a brief, sullen silence, before Sarah broke it. "You know - your funeral was kind of nice, actually."

Nebo arced an eyebrow, "please tell me it _poured._ I fucking die and the universe needs to _suffer."_

Sarah rolled her eyes, "no, it was beautiful outside. Same kind of omen, right?"

Aldric snorted, "sure enough." He said, with a nod, before he straightened up. "Alright. Fire away."

"Why did your arm feel cold?"

"Jesus _fuck,_ ma - I put on the glove so you _wouldn't_ notice!" Aldric guffawed.

"I practically helped raise my sisters, Neb. I know when asshole kids are trying to hide things." She said, "and you failed in your intent by only wearing _one_ glove."

"Uh, lady - I'm eighteen now."

"Then get out of my house."

Nebo rolled his eyes, raising himself up and then sitting down on a chair at the side of the table. "You're going to ask about my arm and not the fact that I'm wearing a Navy uniform?"

"Oh that one's easy - you got picked up by the Army over there, thrown on a ship, and they gave you better clothes. Blue's better than green, always is, always was, and always will be." Said his mother, as she sat down as well - giving Gertie some love when the husky came looking, tail wagging.

"And here I had this whole story cooked up." Nebo tisked, shaking his head as he slipped the blue and gray coat off, revealing the black shirt underneath - and the bare lower half of his metal left arm.

His mother's breath caught in her chest as he revealed the cybernetic prosthetic, and her lips pursed when he slipped off the glove. "Are you okay?" She asked, her eyes snapping over to his other arm, and seeing the scars and the patches of pale flesh that ran up and down it.

Nebo let out a long, exhausted sigh. "I look like the Terminator, ma." He said, flexing his robotic fingers. "I'll manage."

She gave him that, nodding. "Did it happen when the plane went down?" She asked, "some satellites went over where they thought it went down, but they couldn't see anything."

Aldric shook his head, "no, actually. I got out pretty good. A couple scratches and bruises... And I was hanging from a tree. Like Nanna's tire swing, but a few hundred feet in the air." He shook his head, "ever been lying on the ground and see a thirty pound airliner chair come flying at you? Holy shit." He laughed.

"How long were you stranded?" She asked, "did you eat well?"

"About a week, and yeah. I was, ah..." He nodded, "only person who was close to the fuselage. I looted its food. Didn't realize where I was at first, but I knew well enough to ration it all out." He said, leaning back in his chair. "Would I be correct in assuming you looked all of it up once it started hitting the news?"

She nodded, brushing her long hair behind her ear. "When the Grimm started attacking Los Angeles, it took all of a _day_ for people to start realizing what they were and where they came from. When that space ship - airship... Thing came around, that's when it started becoming real common knowledge what might be happening. Even Stella looked it up."

Aldric hummed, "well, I was out there for a week, and ah -" He yawned, "'scuse me... A week, then the headmaster, Ozpin, he found me."

She let out a long, thankful sigh. "He seems like a good man."

Aldric nodded, "been pretty good to me so far as I've known him." He said, "he was the one that figured out I had aura. Turns out he's from Earth too - but he's from Rome. Ancient Rome." He explained, "I caught him up on the important parts: Caesar, Brutus, the Olympic Games, World War Two, the Dark Knight, Logan, My Little Pony." The two shared a grin, "and he woke up my powers - thus the jedi mind trick."

"And the arm?" She pressed.

"Happened later." Aldric nodded, "whenever I'm not with Ozpin or the others, I'm out looking for any other survivors. Were a few bodies I didn't find..." He nodded, "Dad's among them." She let out a long, hollow breath, and nodded. "But one day, I ran into one of the four Maidens. Lucky me, I did so right when the Lady In Red..." He trailed off. "Ah..." Wow, the steam certainly ran out fast on this one, didn't it?

He'd had this whole thing planned out: Make his mother think things were better than they really were. No nukes, no murders, no Legions of Doom, Justice Leagues, or Watchmen. Just one hell of a culture shock and maybe a little super sleuthing. He wanted his mom to know he was alive and that he was looking for his Dad, that once things calmed down and he made good on a few promises, him, Dad, they'd all come home, try and get back to normalcy.

But, he found, he couldn't do it. He could kill scores of men and women, he could chop Yang's arm off and steal her memories, he could murder a woman in her sleep and gouge another's eyes out, he could bomb two countries and force them to surrender, but for all that was good and holy he couldn't lie to his mother.

He let out a long sigh, and shook his head. "No, that's a lie." And when his mother didn't react, he was pretty sure she'd known from the get-go. "It was Cinder Fall that found me." He said, "the ah, the big bad evil chick, Salem - white skinned, demon-looking one. She's the one that's been doing all of this. Opening up the wormholes, taking the plane, dropping the Grimm, sending in that airship..." He said. "I don't know what all she's doing or what her plan is, but it's me and the survivors of the plane crash that have become a part of it. There are four of us, me included. I don't know who the other four are, but she's using us all to do... Whatever it is she wants in the end. She wants these four relics that they think were made by the gods, but I don't know why. She wants to spark a war between Earth and Remnant, but I don't know why." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Every time I learn something new, I know less and less."

His mother nodded, folding her hands in her lap and leaning forward. "And they're the ones who found you?"

Nebo hummed, "yeah. See - of the _obscene_ repertoire of shows, books, movies, and games I enjoy, _that_ one - the one everyone's flipping out about - was one of them. When she showed up and started giving me the whole 'I'm totally a good guy, honest!' spiel, I knew two things." He said, "if I said no to her, no matter what she said, she'd fucking kill me." He sighed, "but if I said yes... I'd have an opportunity. Not one many folks have." He straightened up, running his hand through his shaggy hair. "You remember the Departed?" He asked, "I'm Dicaprio, and she's Jack Nicholson."

His mother leaned back, a light frown on her face as she looked down, comprehending what it was he'd just told her. "So you're... You're undercover, basically."

"That's the easiest way to explain it to you." He said, knowing that the Green Hornet, Revolver Ocelot, Adrian Veidt angles would be lost on her. "I knew that if I made them think I would fight with them, I'd be like Dicaprio - I'd be _right there,_ next to the big bad. I'd be able to feed people like Ozpin information. The general idea being that eventually I'd be brought to Salem's palace, and I could lead everyone there. Try and end things before they got _real_ bad." He leaned forward, "see how good _that_ went." He grunted, shaking his head.

"I mean... I'm not gonna lie to you, Neb." She said, "we nuked ourselves, nuked that planet at least once... But I don't think you realize that a lot of this is outside of your control, bud." She said, earnestly. "you couldn't have known that this woman had her eyes on two worlds. Couldn't have known what she wanted to do, couldn't have known anything." She leaned forward too, talking to the top of Nebo's hanging head. "Hey -" She put her thin hand on his shoulder, "-listen, okay?" She begged, "listen. You can do the best you can, and I know you are. I..." She nodded, "I don't need you to tell me you've done things you regret. I can tell." She said, her voice radiating warmth. "But all you can do is the best you've got. You can't control everything, and you can't try to..." She shrugged, "to make things keep going the way that guy said they would in the show." She said, "all you can do is do your best, right?"

Nebo turned his mechanical eyes to his mother, a dull, dead frown on his face. "Mom, when I started this I thought I'd been prepared for the things I'd had to do. I -" He shook his head, "I've got a journal, in which I _literally said_ I knew what I'd have to do and I was ready to do it. But now..." He let out a long sigh, "the things I've seen, I've done, and helped do. Fuck, Mom - every time I do something, I've found myself thinking, 'things will be better because I've done this.', and every time I think that, something even worse comes along." He leaned closer to her, "whatever they say, or did say, on the news... They dropped a nuke to get Vale to stop fighting and they..." He caught himself, _"I_ threatened Atlas that we'd let their entire country starve and die if _they_ didn't stop fighting.

"So what happens after this, Mom? What makes _World War 3_ look small in comparison?" He asked, "what's worse than literally _every single country on Earth_ uniting against another planet and conquering it in a month?" Nebo's voice shook, and as it did, their dog broke away from Sarah to now sit by him, head tilted over and tail idly wagging. "If you listen to Cinder, then their whole entire plan revolves around this Vytal festival, and this entire week I've been trying to reconcile that, and my conclusion isn't fucking good, Mom."

"How so?" Sarah prodded.

Nebo reached down to pet Gertie, "in the show, the plan was to fuck up the festival because the entire world would be watching. They'd put the fear of God into _everyone._ " He stressed, "and damn if it didn't work. Imagine what would happen here if the White House getting nuked was livestreamed over the internet, and then they just DDOS'ed _everything._ Shut the whole thing down. Everyone would be scared and it'd be chaos." He said, "but my biggest hangup was wondering why exactly they - the four kingdoms - would let the Vytal Festival happen, so soon after a war. I mean, they suspended the olympic games _indefinitely_ until World War Two ended... And that's when it hit me." He explained. "Vytal is to these people what the Olympics is to us, though it's less games than it is supermen beating the shit out of eachother... So what better way to fix things up between them and us than to offer to host those games?" He asked, "or if not that, at least offer to help speed up fixing their infrastructure so they can have them?

"Then in the idea of peace, I dunno - we offer to show them how our people fight. Maybe get some UFC fighters or some Olympic Boxers over there as a means of cultural exchange... I don't know - the point is, this would be _big._ It'd be something _both_ worlds would be watching. It'd be bigger than the moon landing - an interplanetary fight tournament? Only thing bigger would be interplanetary Olympics - and you know damn well they'll _try,_ if they can." He said, "but with the populations of two entire planets watching... Imagine what would happen if something were to go down.

"Like... Say... Like fucktons of Grimm getting in and fucking shit up. Like armies of terrorists and mafia thugs tearing apart the country." A beat, "or perhaps thousands of airships going batshit, shooting apart any of the UN ships you _know_ will be there like some kind of Fleet Week-type thing, and then going through the wormholes to Earth and leading a counter-invasion. Those same terrorists not just attacking Beacon, but dressing up in military uniforms and bringing Grimm to major Earth cities. I can go on, Mom, because all of that's ignoring the idea that Salem could wise the fuck up and try to spark an _actual_ World War Three over _here._ " He pointed at the ground, "because you know just _one_ hint of Russia or China or the US experimenting with Dust to try and get super soldiers will spark something to make the nuclear arms race look like an Easter egg hunt. At this point I wouldn't put it past her."" He grunted, "but the point is... I think Salem is _specifically_ going to let things go quiet until Vytal, so she can spark another interplanetary war, and use all of that terror, fear, and despair, to supercharge the Grimm. And while Earth and Remnant are tearing the shit out of eachother, those Grimm will take apart anything that's left.

"It'll be a war on two fronts, but unlike when Hitler tried, it'll _work_ for Salem - because the only people who know it's her won't have any authority or influence in a wartime." Aldric swept his synthetic hand through his hair, sighing. "I don't know what to do, Mom."

Sarah's frown matched his own, though hers was less of sorrow than it was of concentration, as she tried to find the words - _any_ words - to help her son. "I can't pretend to understand what you're going through, Bud." She said, "God - it's... It's everything I have to keep from begging you to stay... But I won't and I can't because I know you. I know you always think things through and I know you always do what you think is right." She paused, "I... Know you've done things you regret, Neb, I can hear it in your voice. But I can also tell you're strong enough to see it through to the end... And no matter what you think, I know you won't fail. I know you'll stay as good a man as you were a child, when I last saw you." She squeezed his shoulder, "all I want you to know is that no matter what happens, no matter what I hear, what I see, or what people say... I know you're a good person. I'm your mom, and I'll always love you, kid."

Aldric nodded, "there's one more thing." He said, "before we stop talking about depressing horse shit."

She nodded, "I know, bud. You didn't come here to say 'hi'." She breathed, forcing her voice to stay steady. "You came here to say _goodbye."_ With his radar, Aldric could actually _see_ her heart flutter, and pick up, as the implications dawned on her. "To warn me you may not come back again."

Aldric didn't deny it. "You said it yourself, Mom. I can't control everything. And as has become ever more clearer, all I _can_ do is make bad situations better, by making them so much worse that everyone involved just has to stop and step back to catch their breath." He broke eye contact, "you know I threatened Atlas' Commander-In-Chief that the US would nuke them and everyone there to the stone age if they didn't back off? And this was right after we'd dropped a MOAB on them. He believed it - fuck, _I_ believed it." He explained, "All I have going for me right now is that those terrorists I mentioned... Well, they don't work for me, but their leader... He and I have a mutual enemy. But even that may be in jeopardy, with how much they lost during the invasion." He scoffed, "but even then, if they're still my friends, I may be trading one enemy for another - because if this sounds familiar, then it should, because it's what we did back when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and we all know what happened about... Twenty-odd years later."

"Well, realize that they -"

"Don't even try, Mom. That argument has been made to death here _and_ there." Nebo cut her off, with a shake of his head and a slice of his hand. "The point I'm trying to make is that my _best_ chance for turning this around has historical for going very bad right around the time we think it's going pretty good. While I like to think the UN will help me as they've promised they will, I doubt they'll be able to do very much if they're embroiled in another war - _two_ wars! - with Remnant. One with the four kingdoms, one with the Grimm." Because as much as he knew Taurus would either drag his feet or try to intentionally sabotage setting up Grimm attacks here on Earth, the other Masters _wouldn't_ \- and they were the biggest wild card.

His mother, frowning, gave him a few moments of silence as she studied his face. "So what are you thinking?"

In response, Aldric reached into his bag, "I promised myself a while ago I'd try to stop being reactive and start being proactive. In that vein, I've spent the last week off the grid... And to make a very long explanation much shorter, I'll say that my powers allow me to pull out anything I want from any of the stories I liked over here. TV shows, movies, games, books - anything, as long as I have some kind of connection to it." He nodded to the fridge, "that earlier being me essentially pulling on the Force." She snorted, and that dragged a small smile out of him as well. "But back to point - I've spent the last weekend off the grid... Using those powers to build something so big that there doesn't exist a word strong enough to describe it. I... Can't say what's in it - or if it's even something that things are stored in, because I know if the government ever figures out I talked to you, they'll want to know what I said." He nodded, "but suffice to say... It's a game changer." Out of his bag he pulled two things: A small, sealed box, like one would put a ring in, and a small cloth sack, filled to the bursting with something unknown.

His mother gave them a long look after he placed them on the table, then turned back to him.

"These are yours. This..." Aldric slid the box over to her. "Is your..." He swallowed, "call it your nuclear deterrent. If you ever find yourself in any kind of trouble... Open it up. You'll know what to do, and it'll do the rest." He then pushed the sack towards her, "and these can keep your dietary needs fulfilled for ten days a pop, will heal your wounds and even remove poison from your body, and they grow like weeds - just drop them in the ground and you'll have a beanstalk in a week."

"Nebo, you really think I need this, don't you?"

"Atlanta's fifteen miles away, Mom." Nebo responded. "If something happens, that's a major target." Not to mention that, whenever he finally got around to betraying Salem, should he be even remotely unsuccessful, she or anyone still loyal to her would try to target his mother - these could save her life.

Regardless, Sarah grew silent again, turning her gaze back to her son's gifts, before again shifting back to him. "You know I have to ask why _you_ don't make these things. For yourself." She said, "there has to be something you're aware of that could just..." She snapped her fingers. "Poof, and it's all gone."

Aldric nodded, "I've... To be succinct I've found I can basically make whatever I want. But for various reasons, I haven't made any of the _really_ nasty things I'm aware of. I don't want to rely on that kind of power, and I don't want to see what my enemies would pull out of the hat to match it." He said, "but..." He shook his head, "you're my Mom, ma. You warrant a nuclear option." He nodded to the box and the sack, "and if you ever find yourself in a situation where those two can't get you through it... I doubt there's much more I could do."

And, he didn't mention, he genuinely worried about making something - or more than one something - that was stronger than him. Sure, as far as he knew he _could_ go hog wild make an Infinity Gauntlet and fill it with the stones, but god forbid it turned out he couldn't get rid of it when he was done. Yeah, he _could_ summon up an STC from the Dark Age of Technology, but if that came with it Warp technology, and attracted the attention of Slaanesh, or Nergal, or whoever else, or at the very least impregnated this universe with the Warp, he'd be trading one problem now for a _major_ problem later. No, his nuclear options had to be as strong, but also as limited, as the name implied: Nukes wiped out cities, they didn't obliterate universes.

"What _are_ you going to do, then?" She asked him, quietly, as though steeling herself for his answer, and the reality of the fact that he'd be leaving her again, and soon at that.

"To defend myself?" Nebo clarified, "I've got an idea for that. Recently I've... Shall I say, grown somewhat distrustful of the more arcane aspects of my powers." He reached back into his bag, and pulled out a long, wide yellow belt, ringing which were dozens of thick pouches and pockets. "I've got pretty much everything I could need in any given situation in this belt." A beat, "even shark repellent." He grinned.

She shared it, shaking her head and leaning back, "Is that -"

"Yes." Nebo nodded.

"But the pockets don't look like they've got anything in them."

"Au contraire, Ma." Nebo refuted, "they're full. The stuff in them is just... Really small." He grinned again, stuffing the utility belt back in the bag.

"Well... I'm glad to hear that, Neb, but my question had been more meant as to what you'll be doing, going forward."

Aldric hummed, "right now?" He shook his head, "I want to watch Jay and Silent Bob and have my first home-cooked meal in nine months. After that? I'll wing it. I've got plans, and I spent the last week putting a bunch of them into motion... But only two real goals." But he knew what she was really asking, and as such he straightened up, taking the hand that was still on his shoulder. "I'll find him, Mom." He whispered, "one way or another we're all coming home."

His mother laughed, "then Jay and Silent Bob it is, kiddo. C'mon."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _There was a reason I didn't spend that extra day on the secret project, and she and I just spent the entire night together._

 _No, not Neo - gawd no. My Mom.  
Yeah yeah, get it out of your systems now - but once you're done, realize that everyone loves their Momma, and everyone misses their Momma when they've been gone awhile, and those who say they don't are liars. _

_But, as with all things, this too must end.  
I need to drop off Coulson's care package at the Secret Project (preferably inside fifteen faraday cages and ten miles away from where it really is), and then I have to go back to that submarine. I agree that, in order to sell the story we've been feeding to Ozpin, I need to actually be put down like they say they've been doing. So they're going to sedate the **shit** out of me while we're going in, then bring me out of it once Ozpin comes aboard (under armed guard, of course.). He'll confirm I am who they say I am, and that I haven't been abused while under their care, then they'll release me and the girls to his care, provided he makes good on **his** promise and does... Whatever the fuck it is they want him to do._

 _I'm still not fully aware of what the UN's long term plan is with Remnant, I need to drag that out of Coulson next time we meet up. but what matters most is this:_

 _The war's over,  
And I got to tell my Mom I loved her._

 _But, as with all things: These moments I steal are too short, go too fast, and are gone before I really understand what the fuck it is I just went through._

 _I had a home cooked meal, gave my Mom a hand cannon,_ _ _watched some Kevin Smith movies, and got to see my Dog.  
Now's the time to go back.  
__

 _ _And I know what you're thinking: Why, oh God why, aren't I staying to try and re-up... Literally anything? If shit I can only half remember got me this far, why aren't I downloading movies, pirating books, or printing wikis?  
After all, while I've been gone, two Marvel movies and an entire RWBY volume have hit the internet, so all of that should be worth its weight in gold.  
Well... Who's to say I haven't?__

 _ _Well, no - **I** haven't, but I had Coulson (through Captain Russia) get some things for me. Chief among them being a new tablet, but as well an external hard drive.  
A **big** external hard drive. Like - they pulled the damn thing from a supercomuter, big.  
The idea being that something like that would be able to store everything I could ever need or want, and should I need or want it, I could plug it into the tablet and access it. __

__As I said a moment ago: While I was gone, but before Salem dropped the Grimm on LA, Volume 5 either... Was aired, or was finished, one of the two.  
I'm sure and well fucking aware that anything contained therein would be functionally useless, as barring an act of God/s, nothing will be going down the same way it did there. But the way I see it: Damn thing may have something useful for me.  
So, while I'm flying back to the submarine, I'll have that drowning out the roar of the wind in my ears. __

__And once I get back to the Remnant?  
Man, who the fuck knows. Maybe it'll blow up.  
Again.__

* * *

By the time he made it back to Remnant, and relocated the submarine Goud Etiolate was being held prisoner on, it was less than three hours until his week was up. His thought process was that, by going back to square one, somewhere along the line he could create something of a plan for his endgoal. Instead of reacting to everything and planning as a result, he needed to finally be proactive, to create _something_ of a plan that could work, period, with or without him, and the best way to do so, he figured, would be to go all the way back to the beginning. On the trip back he'd spent it first getting up to date on the show that he knew well and good had no use for, then letting the whole thing play in the background, from start to finish, to refresh everything he had, and compare it to what all had changed during his nine months. Aldric wasn't at all fond of the changes he'd made in this near-year he'd been in the world, but as he'd gone through what had once been a show again, a thought occurred to him that he hadn't considered at all, ever since he and Ozpin had laid everything on the table.

How did it exist in the first place?

If he assumed like he had argued to Ozpin, that all of this had been a vision of the future, and that it subsequently was published as a show so as to allow as many to take it at face value as possible, the question then became where did that rabbit hole end? To go a bit further, was the show _even_ a warning? Or itself a pawn in a much grander game? Because if a vision of the future granted its creator this knowledge, shouldn't he then have seen Salem's detecting his aura, and starting the sequence of events that led to this? Or perhaps _had_ he seen all of it - from the moment he unlocked his aura to this moment itself - and had instead chosen to omit Earth entirely?

Such an idea made some sense, but it still begged so many questions. Omitting Aldric, Earth, and the Masters and instead framing it as just a work of fiction would, as he'd discussed, allow many to take the entire thing at face value. It would allow useful information to be disseminated at a high rate, and that it would spread far and wide, eventually leading to Aldric discovering it well before he was dragged into it himself. This would prepare him, at least somewhat, for the road ahead - but what that still failed to answer was how he'd gotten the visions and unlocked the aura in the first place. It didn't answer how Salem seemed wholly unaware of the fact that Earth had an information advantage on her, and it didn't even remotely explain why some information had been given out and not others. Yes, one could argue that ruining narrative pacing would make it more difficult for the information to be accepted, but with the threat being _literally_ everything on two worlds, wouldn't as many advantages as possible be a _good_ thing?

Of course, when dealing with seers, especially ones as good as he had to assume the show's 'creator' was, if he had played the game like he had, Aldric could just assume that a lot of those questions could simply be answered as being 'all a part of the plan', but _damn_ if that answer didn't make him mad. But if he made both of those assumptions - that, one: The vision of the future that had spawned the show had contained _him_ and the Masters, as well as the war between Earth and Remnant, and everything before and after, and that, two: The show itself had been created as a means to service a much greater and long-term plan, then that begged one more major question: What even _was_ the plan? What was his role in it? What was the 'cast's' role in it? Did the information dropped before the two worlds had joined have any greater meaning? Was any of it still applicable? Could any of it be _wrong?_

And simmering below it all was Salem. The plan he'd laid out for his mother was among the tamest ones he'd come up with. He still didn't have _any_ answers in regards to her, and only a steadily increasing number of questions, not the least of which was what she did and did not know. _How_ informed was she? Was she in the dark? Or was she even more informed than the Watchmen? Than the UN? Ozpin had described her has having a 'spark' of magic within her, due to her exposure to the relics, but just that _spark,_ and Roman Dust, had allowed her to sense someone's aura opening either on the other side of a universe, or in another universe entirely, open multiple wormholes to connect to that place, and then steal people from that place. That kind of power sounded like a hell of a lot more than a 'spark', it sounded closer to what Aldric was capable of at his maximum - and he hadn't forgotten the fact that she'd apparently survived a blast that had dropped Remnant into a nuclear winter, and had survived multiple encounters with people like Ruby, sometimes simultaneously.

This was a woman of evil and of power so titanic that Aldric found it difficult to comprehend. How the hell was he going to kill her? To say nothing of whether or not she'd figured out how to reincarnate herself like Ozpin could, it sounded like neither raw, overwhelming power, nor subverting her own abilities could put her down. So, what, then? Was this a Link and Ganondorf situation? Was there only _one thing_ in particular able to put her down for good? Did Aldric have to assemble all four relics in order to use their power and kill her? What would happen if he _did_? Would it be like the Infinity Stones, and he'd just become omnipotent? Or would they turn him Super Saiyan? Make him into something more capable of going toe-to-toe with her?

 _That may have **some** merit, from what Ozpin told me about their fights... But at the same time he didn't really tell me much to begin with. Only that they gave her power, not how or in what way. _ Aldric frowned, as he transitioned from Earth to Remnant. _Is it **even** possible to kill her? I mean, let's take a leaf from her book and learn the lesson. Ozpin, stronger than I am, tried for his entire life to fight her conventionally, with two relics and an army of silver-eyed-warriors to help him, and it never worked. So killing her conventionally... While not necessarily **im** possible, as she was wounded by the Silvers and Ozpin, it's just hugely fucking difficult. So if not that, then what? Can we just throw her into an other universe? Teleport her to the sun?_ He wondered, _Or - fuck, would the King Piccolo option be better? Just find a way to seal her up and throw her and the can away._ Aldric wasn't overly fond of that idea, considering how many stories existed where they inevitably broke free, and because he had no idea how to do the Mafuba, even with magic, but it was _a_ solution, and that was more than he had before.

 _Or... Perhaps less of a solution than a plan B._ He thought, as he scanned the area for the submarine. _Something like my special project. Something I could set up to work independently of me. Something that could work repeatedly if it had to, until such a time that the people of Earth and Remnant could rig up a more permanent solution... But what can help me, there?_ He wondered, _what fiction has existed where evil has repeatedly risen up, been defeated, sealed away, and then escaped again?_ The problem he had was that such a thing sounded like such a vast majority of fantasy that Aldric couldn't come up with a specific example.

Star Wars sounded like it _could_ fit the bill, but the problem there was that there wasn't an all powerful Force to keep the balance, here. He'd already decided he couldn't rely on any Dragonball shenanigans, and while he was pretty sure there existed _something_ in Warhammer that could probably fit the bill, he didn't even want to _try_ to run the risk of inviting Chaos into this universe. In the end, however, all of those examples failed in that none of them had the perpetuity Aldric was looking for. This Plan B was meant to work in such a way that, if he either never came up with a satisfactory Plan A, or whatever Plan A he came up with didn't work, that this _would_ work. He needed something that, even though it had a history of failing, and repeatedly at that, that the solution itself still _worked,_ such that whenever it did fail it could just be picked right back up and relied upon to work again. His idea - or desperate hope, to be more accurate - was that after one or two cycles of this, Remnant and Earth would have a way of permanently fixing it as opposed to patching it up.

 _Just need one good idea, brain. C'mon. You're the same piece of shit that came up with the Green Hornet stuff. Trying to tell me this thing's a steel trap for science fiction and how that stuff **could** work, but not one goddamn fantasy book?_ Thought the spy, as he noticed a long, metal tube angling upwards through the ocean, making to break the surface and wait for his arrival. _Something that works on its own. Can just be picked up, right off the ground. No need to be worthy, no need for some kind of abstract magical BS... Just pick it up, stab the bitch in the face, seal her up for a few thousand years. I just need **one** deus-ex-machina sword of cyclical magical... Uh..._ He blinked.

 _Well, don't I just feel stupid?_ He thought, watching the submarine break the ocean.

He'd just spent the last ten minutes lamenting the fact that he didn't know of, or have, a magical weapon that met his requirements, and then literally described everything it was he needed from it. He needed that could destroy, damage, or otherwise just seal away evil - and what phrase was commonly used to describe Grimm? They were often described as soulless beings and creatures of _pure evil._ He'd spent the last ten minutes laying out some specific, familiar-even requirements. For fuck's sake, he'd inadvertently solved his problem before he'd even begun thinking about it. Before he'd abandoned the idea that Remnant could give him what he wanted, in the ironic favor of using the magic he'd grown not to fully trust, he'd answered the question of what could be used to fix the problem. He'd wondered if this wasn't a 'Link and Ganondorf' situation.

And then he'd spent the next ten minutes describing the Master Sword _to a T._ Capable of sealing away Ganon once every few thousand years - and only ever failing because Ganon reincarnated to begin with, imbued with the power to repel evil, straight-up blessed by the goddesses of the setting, magical to begin with, that thing could solve Aldric's problems. Hell, for all he knew, the thing could smite Grimm - wouldn't _that_ be great?

 _But..._ Thought Aldric, as he came in for a landing on the submarine. _We come to a problem not dissimilar to what I'd face if I ever pulled out Mjolnir. The Master Sword chooses its wielders, it chooses heroes who fit the classical definition. Courageous, moral people, who act in objective good, not greater good._ Need he go on? _I may be able to summon that thing into existence with my powers and the glove, but I still highly doubt it'll 'choose' me._ His feet hit the hull of the sub with light tings. _Snake said it best: I'm no hero, and I never was. So if **not** me, then who?_

But, as with all things, Aldric had to place these thoughts aside as the submarine opened up for him, and he ambled on inside. He was just glad to have something of a plan, as opposed to having none at all - with this something, when he got back to Vale and had more time to work, he could figure out the 'who' in addition to the 'what'. Inside the submarine, he was greeted by the captain, two guards, and another sailor, who took his bag, to be placed with his other effects, deeper in the ship. The two guards came forward with enough bindings that Harry Houdini would have had difficulty in escaping them, and Aldric was soon bound from head to toe, his arm pried off.

After being escorted to the brig, the guards separated, and the Captain nodded once. "We're going to put -"

"I know, Captain." Aldric nodded, "I could use the nap. C'mon." He tilted his head to the side, presenting his neck for a medic to approach.

He felt a small pinprick, then something cold flush into his veins, and then all went dark.

* * *

For seven days, Pyrrha Nikos had been stuck, locked up, inside of a depressingly dark room and dreadfully tiny bathroom, with little human interaction or food beyond her equally tortured 'cellmate', and when both came in the thrice-a-day occurrence of a guard coming about to throw a brown paper bag inside. Neither she nor her snow-white companion could read the text on the bag, but the food in it tasted awful, which only sought to make her time even worse. When the two's spirits had still been somewhat high, Weiss had even joked that perhaps the food's taste was on purpose - as a means of torturing prisoners and convincing soldiers to fight harder, such that the former would talk easier and the latter could win faster, and both could go home and get _real_ food.

Unfortunately, jokes such as that didn't last long, as the days dragged on and on. The two had tried on an occasion or two to save up some modicum of strength and try to break out, but each one met with an even more staggering defeat than the last, and injuries that the terrans only gave the bare minimum treatment for. Pyrrha had thought that her semblance could steer them true, but perhaps through their exposure to Ash's fighting style, they had adapted to her with remarkable speed, resulting in their having lost and still being stuck here. Pyrrha still felt some of her ribs shift every time she took a breath, and Weiss' bruises were still clearly visible, having degraded to ugly purple and yellow welts, even in the near total darkness of their windowless room.

If anything, however, Pyrrha considered herself and her cellmate somewhat fortunate in that, one, they had been locked in a bathroom, and two, that the plumbing still worked, where anything else electrical seemed to have failed. Those small things, the creature comforts, were all they could take solace in, in these literally and metaphorically dark times, where even conversation failed to brighten their spirits or lighten their day. As time had begun to melt together into one formless mass, their sleeping schedules ruined by the lack of exposure to daylight, the two had silently begun to wonder when, or even if, they would ever leave this place. Their only spark of hope had come and gone, excused as naught but an auditory hallucination brought about by their near-total sensory deprivation, when once they were ready to swear they had heard Professor Ozpin's voice, louder than ever before.

But when this phantom Ozpin came and went, and more formless time passed alongside him, the spark lit in the two's souls faded away to nothing.

As a result, when the door to the halls outside opened up, initially they did nothing at all, thinking it merely another food delivery. How strange was it, then, when they found three guards for each of them standing in the doorway, and two more entering the room - roughly grabbing their dirty arms and hauling them to their feet, before latching thin shackles onto their hands and legs, binding them in chains. The guards then roughly pushed them outside and guided them through the fire station, where soon their numbers - both terran and prisoner - grew, as the other Beacon students were revealed to have been released in chains and brought outside.

Teams did slowly meander closer together, for comfort and for some excrutiatingly minor semblance of normalcy, but little more than silent, sullen acknowledgements were shared between friends. Pyrrha shared a nod with Ren, whose back was straight but eyes were glazed over. Nora gave her a smile that didn't even come close to her eyes, nor even wrinkle her face. Pyrrha saw Ecru nursing an injured arm wrapped tightly in bandages, her eyes firmly locked to her shuffling feet and unmoving. Srebro, though towering over everyone, managed to take up no presence at all, as each movement was stilted, her head hung low on her neck, her lip seeming to constantly quiver. Coco and her team were at the head of their march, _almost_ in better shape than the rest of them, but only because they seemed more adept at hiding it all, to the point where Coco's usual sashay was still present. The act fell apart, however, when one looked at the frowns on their faces, the dull glow to their eyes, and the furrow to their brows.

Myrtle and Blake were both still missing, but the latter's team seemed to have gained a new member, whose physical state garnered a nearly inaudible gasp from Pyrrha. Riddled with reddened bandages and missing an entire limb, Yang's usual demeanor had been torn asunder, dampened and put out, like a bonfire deprived and stolen of its fuel. Next to Yang, Weiss took up sentry, taking a hand in hers in a comforting gesture, trying to appear as the only source of strength on the team - as, on her other side, with her hand on her shoulder, their team leader seemed to be in an even worse state. Lacking all of the energy of yester-week, all of the enthusiasm and gravitas, Ruby's head hung lower than all, her eyes puffy and red, shoulders and back slumped as though pressed against a great weight.

All of them collectively flinched and moved to cover their eyes when they were guided outside and into the sun. The clouds above were a deep, dark gray, but the sky above them was red, as though stained by the fires of the sun the kingdom had been shot with. Still, even with the clouds somewhat blocking the light of Remnant's _true_ sun, the light was still great and harsh to those who had not been exposed to it for seven days. Their eyes all collectively flared with pain, even those who looked only at the ground. The air around them was still and lifeless, with not a breeze or the sound of a bird for what felt like miles. There was only the sound of the terrans, their soldiers and their machines, the light crashing of the waves of an ocean cast aglow by the orange-red light of the sky above.

Pyrrha wondered how the rest of Vale faired against the terrans, barely able to see the kingdom in the distance through her squinted eyes. She wondered why no one - not Atlas, nor Mistal, nor even Vacuo came to their defense. Vale had been left to its own to fight against an enemy whose power included and subjugated that of the stars. Pyrrha wondered how long they would have lasted against the terrans had Ash's gambit not paid off, had the Navy not flattened and crafted their No Man's Land, and that thought prompted another: Their entire trek, Pyrrha had not seen the shield-fighter, despite _knowing_ he had been imprisoned with them. She'd seen the terrans split them up, had seen them haul him into the building alongside everyone else.

Of course Pyrrha began to wonder where _all_ of their missing compatriots were, now. Where were Myrtle and Blake? Where could Ash have been taken? Where was Adam Taurus and his White Fang? And why go through the effort of imprisoning Ash here in the fire station, only to move him somewhere else? Fortunately, some of those questions would be answered as her eyes began to adjust to the light. When she regained the strength to raise her gaze and look ahead as opposed to down and behind her hand, she found another group of terrans, much larger than theirs, escorting another group of prisoners, also greater in size. Though they all wore the gray improvised 'uniforms' of the White Fang, their masks had been stolen from them, a fact which extended to their red-haired leader, who walked proudly, his head held high, his back straight, and a frown born of anger as opposed to despair, marring his face alongside bruises, cuts, burns, and wounds.

Flanking him, she was so thankful to discover, were Myrtle and Blake, but that relief washed away when she saw their physical state. The latter's arm was heavily bandaged and hanging from a sling, and she walked with a noticeable limp, while the former had a hand on the faunus student's shoulder, holding onto her for guidance, as her eyes were both heavily bandaged and the right side of her body appeared as though it had been briefly set ablaze. The sorrow that welled up inside of her clenched tightly at her heart and would not let go. Nothing, not even turning her head to the west and seeing Ozpin standing there, with a bandaged and bruised Professor Goodwitch and a scythe-holding huntsmen flanking each side of him, undid or soothed the pain welling up inside of her.

The Beacon students and the White Fang were all assembled in one massive group, and out from the assembled terrans strode one man, whose patches on his uniform were different from the others, indicating he of being higher rank than anyone else. Following him were twice the number of soldiers than there were on Ozpin's side.

Ozpin, however, didn't even wait for the terran officer to cross the distance, he began approaching, cane tapping angrily on the ground as he called out. "I see one army, one leader, and fourteen students, where I expect to see all of that and one more." He called out, burned face etched in fury. "I know what words you have exchanged with the council of three but I guarantee you I will neither sign nor co-sign _anything_ unless _my_ terms are met! My students are non-negotiable and one of them is still yet missing!" The terrans had tight grips on their rifles as the Headmaster, the huntress, and the huntsman all approached; all of them _waiting_ for a chance to fight it out.

Pyrrha had never seen the Headmaster so livid before, so ready to take a life.

The same, however, could not be said for the terran who spoke to him, his accent the strangest thing she'd ever heard. "I know what it is you have demanded, headmaster. But as much as I would much like to say the opposite, I do not control the speed of the submarine in which he has been entombed -"

"En _tombed?!"_

The terran held up his hands, "a poor choice of words, for which I apologize. My point is simply that traveling under or even through the ocean is not nearly as easy nor as predictable as flying through the air. What best I can do and what best I have done -"

"Is _stall."_ Ozpin growled, "so help me, Colonel, if I discover you've _experimented_ on him -"

"What would you do, Headmaster?" The terran outright challenged. "With Atlas fallen there truly is little you _can_ do. Any problem you face us with will be met with the full force of my planet, something your world has only met in metaphor, not in practice." He said, lowering his gaze, threateningly. "I guarantee you, any threat you make is groundless. You do damage to us in short term, and to yourselves in long term." He finished.

Ozpin's grip on his cane turned white-knuckled, and he gritted his teeth; Pyrrha could tell that the Headmaster _knew_ the man's words to be true, and was furious beyond measure at this knowledge. After a moment though, he straightened up, took a deep breath, and let it out through his nose.

"You're right, Colonel." He said, his voice now the epitome of all that it had once been: Calm, warm, even, and patient. "There is desperately little my world can do to yours in a military conflict. What little we have in quality you have shown us we simply lack in quantity. However as you so eloquently put it, Atlas has fallen. The _fighting_ is _done._ It is no longer done through bullets, bombs, blades, and ballistae. The fighting is now to be done through even deadlier weapons: Words." He drawled, smile ever so slowly fading away. "Sharper than any blade and more dangerous than any bullet... This war has now turned to its most deadly front: Politics, and my strength is not just in battle prowess." Ozpin responded, resting both hands on the top of his cane. "Already you and I are both aware that your world is at the disadvantage here, even though we've roles to play. Imagine how monumentally worse off you and yours would be were I to turn this strength to our new front. You want to know what I would do, Colonel?

"I would turn _your_ world against you." He growled, the calm demeanor he'd summoned vanishing in an instant as he leaned forward. "Now where is my god damn student?!"

And as though decreed by fate, the moment he made his demand, the sound of the ocean's waves crashing grew greater. All heads turned to the east, and they could see, in the distance and growing closer, a monolithic tube of darkened metal rising up from the depths of the sea, growing larger and larger until it reached the surface of the water. The water broke with a loud crash and sprays of white, an alarm could now be heard, coming from the submersible monolith as it came in to one of the less damaged ports. There, Pyrrha could see a litany of terrans springing into action, grabbing an improvised staircase and preparing it as the monolith came to port.

Upon arrival, the staircase was extended down to it, as a hatch opened on its surface. A few sailors in blue uniforms climbed out and took ahold of the staircase, steadying and locking it into place, connecting the seaborn, man-made monster to the land. Once it halted its advance and secured its route back to land, the sailors went back to the hatch, beckoning down into it. After a few moments, several more men began climbing out - these ones garbed in body armor and wielding rifles. They surrounded the hatch, rifles leveled on something inside. Then, out of the depths of the monolith, came something awful.

Pyrrha first, then Weiss, who nudged her teammates, then Ruby, who gasped, and prompted the rest to look closely, found Ash slowly, laboriously climbing out of the monolith. His prosthetic arm was as absent as Yang's, and it appeared he was so weak that there was another sailor below him, helping him climb and keeping him from falling. Ash finally hauled himself outside, his one good arm bound behind his back. He quickly fell to his knees, breathing heavily, covered in grimy, bloody sweat. One of the soldiers grabbed him by his hair and hauled him to his feet, pushing him forward as even more guards emerged from the ship, having followed behind him.

By the time Ash's feet hit the staircase and he began weakly climbing to the ports he'd once rampaged across, there were thirty guards, each with enormous, powerful rifles all trained on him, all following him and encouraging he stay the course. Aldric appeared pale and weak - each step unsteady, his entire body swaying to and fro. None of the power, none of the confidence, and none of the idealism that had once filled his every waking breath existed in this new, frail creature emerging from his seaborne prison.

 _"Ash..."_ Pyrrha heard Ruby whisper, her voice wavering and tears threatening to spill again.

And as Ash grew closer, Pyrrha realized what Ruby had seen before anyone else: The depths to which the terrans had bound him. There was a muzzle tied so tightly to his face that his skin bulged against it, a straight-jacket bound his chest and chains bound that. His legs were shackled together, his eyes were covered in several thick layers of bindings. It appeared as though she had just witnessed a damned and tortured soul brought back from the depths hell, and for a moment she wondered if any of those actually did apply to him - if, and how badly, he'd been treated down there, so far away from everyone else.

"Your student." Spoke the Colonel, breaking the silence like a cannon, as Ash was guided towards them, placed equidistant between the White Fang and the Beacon Students, one of his legs so weak that he found himself listing towards the former, held upright only by one of the guards surrounding him. "As was promised... From the beginning."

Pyrrha couldn't tear her eyes off of Ash, she felt them sting and well up with tears as she watched him stand there stilly, unmoving, the only sign that he was even alive being the shallow rise and fall of his chest from within the confines of his binding jacket.

"He looks mistreated."

"We kept his needs met, Headmaster." The Colonel assured, "but you know as well and I the unbridled damage he did to us with each encounter. Were you in our position, you would have done the same. Were he only human, the sedatives would drain from his system by the end of the day. As he is... I cannot say." He said, pulling out a folder from a briefcase, "now..." He opened the folder, and retrieved a pen. "End it, and they are yours." He clicked the pen.

Ozpin gave the Colonel another angry glare, but took the pen and signed his name at the bottom of the thick paper, right underneath three others.

"And another." Said the Colonel, flipping the first paper up and revealing a second. "Written in _our_ language. Saying exactly the same as the first."

And when Ozpin signed it as well, the colonel nodded, placed the papers back where they belonged, and handed the briefcase to a soldier, who accepted it and then ran off, as Pyrrha could hear one of their rotor-craft powering up in the distance. The colonel ordered everyone's release, as a large cart, with a half dozen crates, was wheeled out and presented to Ozpin's escorts. Goodwitch waved her hand and the cart came to life, rolling closer to her, as the prisoners were shoved in Ozpin's direction.

Ash made it two steps before he stumbled, but Ruby was there in a flash of flower petals, one hand on his back and another on his chest. His team was there just a second after her, Myrtle having broken off from the White Fang to dash over.

"Come on, walk and work - get the muzzle off, he needs to breathe!" Pyrrha heard Ecru order, as everyone began moving towards Ozpin.

Pyrrha approached GEMS and Ruby, her offer to remove the chains binding him accepted. It took more concentration and effort than she would have liked, but she was enveloped in her onyx glow and soon the chains binding Ash slithered away, just as Srebro undid the latches keeping the muzzle secured to Ash's face, and Myrtle deftly undid the knot keeping his blinds in place.

As they reached Ozpin, Ash's bindings were removed and dropped, abandoned on the ground. Pyrrha realized they were in for something rough when she saw the huge, throbbing bruises underneath his shredded clothes when they ripped off the straight jacket. She found, however, that she'd managed to underestimate the terrans once they got the muzzle and the blindfolds off. Ash's face looked like one huge painting of blood, cuts, and bruises. His cheeks were so swollen that his eyes were practically shut, more of his face was purple than wasn't, and it appeared as though every other breath summoned some blood to leak out of his mouth.

Whether vengeance or for information, the terrans had been torturing him, even through the sedatives they'd poured into him.

As, through the haze of lethargy, drugs wearing off, and no doubt intense pain, still seemed keenly aware of everyone's collectively held breath as his face was revealed. It took him a moment, and a few breaths to summon up the energy, but he managed to force his face to contort itself into a bloody grin.

"Yeah... I ain't as sexy as Ren, but..." He shrugged, it appearing to take all of his strength just to do so. "Once the scars set, I think I'll at least edge Jaune out." He drawled in a tired, rumbly voice.

There was a beat of silence, broken not by those immediately surrounding him, but by a brief snort from Lie Ren, who quickly covered his mouth in an attempt to hide his growing smirk and keep his composure. He took a moment before shaking his head, wiping his grimy face.

"I am glad to see." He quipped, "that we can still love you for your personality, Ash."

"I got him to talk." Ash said, nodding off to Ecru, who too was covering her mouth, but unable to mask the tears beginning to flow freely. "That's just one step closer to his pe-" But he found himself interrupted by a large, rasping cough, from which spat a large dollop of blood.

"Ah, you messed it up, Beebee." Came a faint voice, as Ruby clapped Ash's back and he recovered. The tortured fighter looked up, seeing Yang approach. "You can't let a few ribs in your lungs kill the joke, dude."

Pyrrha wasn't sure, but she was willing to mistake the sudden throbbing motion on the right side of his face as him trying to arc an eyebrow. He patted Ruby on her back, nodding once; the crimson rookie reluctantly let him go, such that he could stumble forward towards the once fiery blonde. "Oh... You disarm me with your wit."

"Oh." Yang nodded, her voice shaking; she pursed her lips as her eyes started to well up. "So we're starting that, huh?" She met Ash halfway and the two embraced; Ash appeared hesitant, his arm wavering a moment before he returned the hug, bringing his hand up to the back of her head and holding her tight. "I'm sorry, Ash." She whispered into his ear, a tear falling from her eye.

Ash's resolve appeared to fracture at that, as he gasped. "Nah..." He said, shaking his head. "No, Yang. You don't have anything to be sorry for." He said, leaning his head into hers, " _I'm_ sorry. So damn sorry." He let out a quiet sob. "For everything."

After the two had a few moments together, Ruby joined them, not even bothering to hide her emotions as she held them both. Soon to join her were the rest of the two teams represented and reunited. Pyrrha felt something stir within her heart as she watched this, she turned to see Nora hook her arm around Ren's, and for CFVY to grow closer to eachother. A look forward saw Ozpin's scythe-wielding companion start towards the embracing group, but Ozpin held his hand in front of the man's chest, shaking his head and mouthing something Pyrrha couldn't hear. In the end, after her hesitation, Pyrrha chose to allow RWBY and GEMS to have their moment - they all had been through much, but those two perhaps more than most, and she instead fell closer to her team, longing for the days to come, when Jaune would be discharged from the hospital and everyone would be together again.

Several long moments passed, and it wasn't GEMS or RWBY that broke the moment, but rather the formerly masked leader of the White Fang, approaching the two. Ash, such as he was, saw the manapproach even without looking, and he stiffened up, giving Yang a single, final pat on the back, prompting her to raise her eyes and see the man approach. The two teams broke apart, and Ozpin and his entourage chose then to make their entrance, while Pyrrha grew suddenly aware of the continued presence of the terrans, barely even a few dozen yards behind them.

Adam Taurus found his path briefly blocked by Blake, whose own eyes were red with emotion, and whose jaw was set, ready to resist the faunus before her. The two shared a long look, speaking volumes without words, before she backed away, seeming to find her answer. The rest of the group parted as Taurus approached, intent upon Ash, who was braced, and was himself bracing, the blonde fighter next to him.

When Taurus reached Ash, the two met eyes, two hazel orbs peering down into two gunmetal gray eyes. Yang found herself looking back and forth between the two, before her eyes, and that of everyone present, fell to Taurus, when he spoke.

"They respect you." He said. "I saw what you did, weeks ago. I can see why."

Ash blinked once.

"Uh... Thanks." He grunted, with a brief twitch of his upper body; and after a brief, awkward pause, he added, "dude."

"Taurus." He said, with a nod. "You're okay for a human. I'd shake your hand..."

"Yeah, I seem to be missing one." Ash leaned over to Yang, "my eyes are swollen shut... Is this guy taller than me?"

 _"A lot of people are taller than you."_ Yang whispered back, a full head taller than her similarly one-armed friend. _"I'm surprised my sister isn't taller than you."_

 _"You should've met Yuno."_ Ash straightened up again, "I appreciate the respect, mister Taurus." He said, with a nod. "But I get the strangest feeling this isn't quite the time or the place."

"Only time." Taurus countered, "only place." He looked past Ash, to Ozpin, and then briefly over Ozpin, to Vale. "Much as I think many opinions may have changed about us, we've for the moment lost our mutual enemy. So for now I have to leave this place." He reached out and patted Ash on the shoulder. "We'll meet again."

"Hopefully I'll be better looking." Ash retorted, as Taurus' hand slid off his shoulder and he about-faced.

"Here." They heard Goodwitch call, after she received a nod from Ozpin. "Most of these are yours." She said, telekinetically wheeling the cart of crates over to the leader of the Fang, and removing one crate from the stack. "Try not to cause trouble, young man."

Taurus huffed, as some of the Fang took control of the cart and began wheeling it away. He passed by Blake, and the two shared another look, but shorter this time - and he passed by her. She looked back, watching him rally his men and leave. She turned back to her friends and allies as Ozpin cleared his throat.

"We've a long walk ahead of us, I'm afraid." He said, nodding to each of his students. "Whatever it was they did, we still have not yet had the time or the resources to fix our electricity." He approached Ash in particular, "if I may?"

"I'm blind, beaten, and bruised, sir. What are you going to do?" He asked.

"Quite right." Said Ozpin, as he placed two fingers on Ash's forehead.

As Ozpin did whatever it was he did, the scythe-wielding companion approached, "you lose it entirely, kiddo?" He asked, frowning down at Yang's bandaged stump.

Her sullen demeanor returned, and she nodded. "When he and I woke up on the ship..." She nodded behind her, to the beached ship Ash had rode in on. "We broke out and started fighting. Aura got depleted and they threw a bomb at me. It... _May..._ Still be there, but I don't think it could have been reattached even if it had happened two minutes ago."

Ruby was at her sister's side instantly, hugging her side. "But are you okay?" She asked, her voice muffled.

Yang bucked herself up as a sigh of relief could be heard from Ash. "I'll be fine. It'll just make my next fight with Beebee more even."

Ruby rolled her eyes, as the scythe-wielder placed his hands on both of their heads, ruffling their hair, as Ozpin stepped back from Ash. "It won't do much for the injuries themselves, but -"

"Holy _fuck,_ how do _I_ do that?" Aldric groaned, the lisp, lethargy, and rumble now gone from his voice. "'Cause I've got a kink in my back I'd love to numb for a few hours." He stretched his jaw, the pain apparently vacated from his face.

"I mustn't take all the credit, young man. I, as does anyone, learned the trick from a teacher." Ozpin looked over his shoulder to Goodwitch.

"I'm visiting your office, Professor." Ash deadpanned. "But as good as this is, pills are better, and not being eyed by a sniper is the best. So... When are we starting this long walk?"

Ozpin nodded, "right now." He said, tapping his cane on the ground. "Come along."


	46. Right back into it

Chapter 45

* * *

And, for the second time in half as many months, Aldric found himself laid up in the hospital. This time, however, instead of sterile white lights and walls and the droning sound of medical equipment beeping, he was lit up by warm candle light and the rooms, aside from near constant checks by doctors, nurses, and technicians, were all silent. Whether it was his real name or not, his new 'best friend' from the underworld, Doctor Deer, was giving him an exasperated look. One that was halfway between 'I literally knew this was going to happen', and 'you dumb bastard.' Ozpin's apparently telekinetic numbing trick had worn off awhile before he'd arrived here, and Deer was voicing an intense desire to stop wasting painkillers, since Aldric was _clearly_ a fucking sadist. It was, in Deer's professional opinion, the only possible reason he seemed to so often pursue things that would cause him such great pain.

On the man's second visit of the day, Aldric decided it was in his best interests to neglect to tell the Doctor that he was technically dating a sociopath. He figured it wouldn't help him overmuch.

"Kid, I wasn't kidding when I said I'd demand you put me on retainer if this happened again."

"You know what, Deer -"

"What, Sadist?"

Aldric stalled, then sighed. "Thanks for the help."

Deer seemed surprised at that, but eventually shook his head. "Stop trying to die, alright?" He asked, "stories 'bout you made it down to the Garden, you know." He said, getting out of his chair and adjusting the drip rate in Aldric's IV. "You've got people who take coin for lives looking up to you."

"Oh, wow. Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Deer grunted, taking a step back. "The prosthetist is going to need a little while longer to make that arm you wanted him to. We were shielded for the most part from the sun bomb, but down there we're on emergency power until we can start siphoning off from the city again, so he's working on daily power rations. Only gets a few hours per day."

Aldric nodded, "once they're done, I'd like 'em _both_ delivered. Turns out I'll need the backup just as imminently."

"Hm." Deer acknowledged, "kid's doing fine, by the way."

"Ki - oh." He nodded; he'd been worried about Jaune after the thought had occurred to him that his new lung might not still be working after getting nuked. "Thanks." Turns out he was right, but had also been worrying for nothing: A human can, apparently, function well enough with only one lung; and apparently Jaune was pretty high on the list of 'get their cybernetics working again!'. He'd gotten another new one just this morning, and was still out cold from the surgery.

Another grunt from Deer, as Aldric leaned back into his pillow, closing his eyes. "Ah. Well. I'll leave you two to it, then."

Aldric opened his eyes again, "two?" He leaned back up.

Aldric had expected to see pretty much anyone, except who he got. Cinder, Ozpin, Taurus again, any of RWBY, GEMS, or JNPR. Hell, he'd been ready for a terran to show up.

But he hadn't been prepared for Neo to be there, leaning in the doorway, in her Yuno disguise, smirking like a madwoman.

"Doctor, no, wait - what's your stance on euthanasia?!"

"One glass."

" _Deal!"_

"What's that?" Said a grinning Deer, as he left the room, sticking his pinkie in his ear. "I'm an old man, you know. Speak up, kid." He hollered, leaving the room.

Neo nodded to Deer as he left, her blood red hair shifting across her shoulders as she let the Doctor pass. Once left alone, she turned back to Aldric, another teasing grin on her face, before she sauntered inside, closing the door behind her and grabbing a chair, sliding it across the ground, until she was next to his bed. She had a scroll in hand, one with power, despite the powerless state of everything around her. The soft white glow of the scroll cast a great contrast to the warm orange light of the candles and flames around them.

Where Aldric was preparing himself for a lot of reading, the mute surprised him when her phone spoke up. _"Okay, 'Ash'. I'm starting to think you're trying to hard to die because you don't want me."_ She said in a cybernetic, computerized voice, while giving him a coy grin.

"Day we met you stabbed the shit out of me." Aldric deadpanned.

 _"Well, you broke my leg."_ Was her counter.

" _After_ you stabbed the shit out of me."

She nodded to the side. _"Alright, fine."_ She huffed, _"It's only a matter of time regardless."_ She said, _"won't be too long before we have more than an hour or two at a time."_

Aldric frowned, though through the bruises and bandages on his face it was hard to tell. After a moment, though, her meaning dawned on him. "You're telling me she's _seriously_ going forward with the Vytal thing." He grunted, "picked you up for it."

 _"I shared your sentiments. I don't quite think two whole worlds would just **forget** an interglobal war, but you know how she is with anyone... Pretty much but you asking her questions."_ Neo responded, _"and you may be surprised to hear she was actually kind of proud of your stunts. Got a little worried when she heard you and that big-tittied-blonde got abducted, but that cleared up once news started trickling down that you came back about as soon as you'd left."_

Aldric nodded, knowing where she was going with. "But the big hoss didn't quite throw those suspicions away so fast."

 _"Mhm."_ She nodded, _"by the way, he wasn't kidding: If you haven't at least learned a few signs by the next time we run into eachother, I'll be a little mad."_ She pinched her gloved fingers close together, _"but regardless: He pieced it together pretty fast. You make contact with your people for several hours, come back and kill a bunch, then we get hit with that sun bomb and the war's over, and you're gone again?"_ She shook her head, _"you're her weakness, Ash, but not his. The question **I'm** most curious about is whether or not the Headmaster is suspicious."_

"It suddenly occurs to me that I could be high and hallucinating all of this."

 _"Wouldn't I be naked, then?"_

 _"God_ no." Aldric grinned despite himself.

 _"Ah, I think I would."_ She waved it off, _"regardless, I'm surprised you actually spent your time under sedation."_

Aldric blinked, her words requiring a few moments to register. _And I've no sooner stopped fighting than am I back to **this** shit._ Aldric let out a long sigh. "Sure you want to play that game, Neo?" He rumbled, lowly.

Neo's grin turned into something Aldric would expect out of a slasher movie, somehow managing to combine pure innocence with unbridled malevolence. She hit a button on her phone, typed some more words into it, then turned it around.

 _You warn me, yet look at what you yourself do. No sooner did you form your 'Watchmen' than did you turn right around and do... Something, to obtain the allegience of your entire planet. I need no proof of what you've done, Mister Aldric - I can see it in your eyes. Regret, shame, but also pride and determination. You got a victory that not only did you never expect, but one you had literally no time whatsoever to prepare for, and one you had unintentionally actively sabotaged in the hours leading up to it._ She wrote, _the game I've played all my life is no more dangerous than the one you've taken to as though it burns in your blood._ _I would even suspect that this little revelation isn't even a surprise to you. That perhaps you saw it coming._

Aldric didn't answer; he was still half-suspecting this to be some kind of play from Torchwick as opposed to Neo. That the man had figured out what Aldric was up to and was testing his loyalty, to both him and their little fifth column.

Neo nodded her head from side to side, accepting his silence as a valid answer, before she continued with her own. _I told you once that I thought you were interesting. That this perception of you has only grown moreso as time has gone on. That hasn't changed._ _As great and adept as Mister Torchwick is, he limits himself to the criminal underworld. He is content with that, whereas you clearly are not. You perceive what you have but see only what you can gain. Interesting.  
_

"Why now?"

 _Because you just ended an interglobal war. Because you all but hold dominion over two entire planets. Because you fly in the face of a woman who fashions herself a goddess, and her master, and neither of them seem to have any idea. I wanted to stake my claim before -anyone- else could, I wasn't going to wait a second longer than necessary . -You-, good sir, can simply count yourself lucky you're so dedicated to your act, and you're laid up in hospital again, else I would have tried a bit differently. ;)  
_

Aldric grunted, "and what about him?" He asked, "I thought you were his gardener."

Her grin didn't even budge an inch. _I am._ She silently wrote. _And while such a thing binds me, such a thing does -not- bind -you-._ A beat, _and that is quite honestly besides the point. I don't expect you to arrange his death simply to have me. As much as it may frustrate and excite me at times, you think with the head on your shoulders, and not the one between your legs._ _Torchwick has no intention of dying, you have no intention of getting rid of him. So why bother defining that term in the face of so many others?_

"Because defining that one contextualizes your presence here." Aldric affirmed, "the way I see it, there are two options." He said, "the first being that you are here for yourself. To stake your claim, like you said. The second is that you're here for him - that as you imply, he figured out what I did, and he sent you here to figure out where my loyalties are." Or, he didn't say, that both were true at the same time: That Torchwick had figured it out and sent Neo, and that she was here to stake her claim and lie to her boss.

In other words, she was playing the game exactly like he would, and was simultaneously dispelling any possible notion that this could be a ploy from Cinder, by coming as the disguise they had chosen for her so long ago.

Now it was her turn not to respond, as she slowly blinked and gave a nonchalant shrug, her grin thinning. _No matter what happens._ She wrote, _I win._

And she wasn't wrong, either. The only way Aldric had out of this was to kill her, but he'd already concluded long ago that that would tip Torchwick off, and shatter everything he'd worked for.

In the end, there was just one thing Aldric felt he needed to know before he made his choice. _"Why?"_ He rumbled. "Why... If not actively, then at least make the promise of being ready to betray him? Why choose _me_ over _him?_ " He asked, "you say all the time I'm 'interesting', but there's a wisdom to his deciding to be content with his lot in life. My business model, so to speak, is unsustainable - at some point I _will_ crash and burn. It's all I can do to make it such that I only do so _after_ I accomplish my goals. Him, though, he's sustainable. So... Sure, I may have power, the likes of which he doesn't. I may, in my own way, have power _over him,_ but no one I've met besides Cinder has ever sought power for power's sake - and I've never bothered to try and crack _her_ open because it wasn't until very recently that she bean to trust me implicitly.

"So that makes you a mystery, Neo. A variable I don't know the extent of. All I know is that you seem not to want power but lust for it, a minor but noteworthy distinction. If I'm to accept your words at face value, that means this lust has made you willing to betray a man you kill for, who you're pledged to. How am _I_ supposed to trust you if you're capable of that? Because I noticed you didn't say you _wouldn't_ kill him, only that you thought my telling you to do so just so I could have you to myself was a bad idea. A very _specific_ qualifier, wouldn't you agree?" Aldric asked, well aware that a lot of this could be applied to him, by the Watchmen, and probably already had been. "What if another Master, or Adam Taurus, or someone demonstrably more skilled and experienced than me, comes along and kicks my ass? Pulls a Commander Shepard and unites all aspects of Earth and Remnant, in such a way that their reputation is and will remain untarnished? Am I supposed to trust you'll stick by me, when you've shown willingness to betray your boss? And if so, again - _why?"_

Neo's smile never faded, leading Aldric to conclude that, whether she'd wanted him to ask this earlier in their relationship or not, he'd finally done something she'd desperately wanted him to.

 _Allow me to begin by asking you something, Mister Aldric._ Neo typed, _excluding Pyrrha Nikos, whom you were fighting with both arms metaphorically tied behind your back, have you ever lost a battle?_

"Yes." Aldric deadpanned, his mind going to his confrontations with Qrow, his fight with Amber, and his brief fight against Adam.

Her grin merely widened, and she held up a finger, such that he would wait for something big.

 _I disagree, Mister Aldric, on the basis that battles do not end when weapons are sheathed._ She said. _Think to those battles you say you lost and then consider what happened afterwards. The long-term effects and ramifications that I -know- your mind operates around. How many of those defeats stayed that way? How many turned around to bring greater long-term victory?_ She asked. _As much as I know you do not want to... Well, -read- this, I must return to the fact that I think you are interesting. What you may lack -and only temporarily- in battle skill, you more than make up for when those battles turn to words. I choose you because it appears that defeat is a foreign and unattainable concept. That defeat only exist in the short term, and that always, they in turn serve greater long-term victories. Even if you must scramble each time when something occurs that is not to plan, you change those plans such that they always return to course and inevitably serve you in the end._

 _ _But I understand that such an answer is not what you're looking for. You want the underlying facts, not the immediate here and now. You don't want to know why I find you so interesting, you want to know why I am so willing to 'jump ship', as it were, -because- you're so interesting. You're a detail-oriented man. As I understand it, that is in its own way how your abilities work - and isn't the story of how I know -that- interesting? - so while I shall try to spare you of some of the most extraneous details, do forgive the length.__

After she presented the scroll to him and once he was finished, she held up another finger and then turned the scroll back to her.

Once finished, she had another block of text ready for him.

 _I want you to imagine, for a moment, three men, each with a goal. One man will do absolutely anything to achieve that goal. He takes the straightest and truest path to his goal, no matter what is in that path. People, property, animals, allies, enemies - he has no limit to what he will do in order to achieve his goal. No line he will not cross. The second man, however, has a line over which he will not cross, even if it impedes upon his achieving the goal. Much like the first man, there is no limit to what he will do to skirt and avoid crossing that line, so long as those efforts themselves do not cross that line._

 _Both of these men, however, are weak and unwise. The first considers not what comes after his goal, and often finds that when his mission is accomplished and it is time to return home from war, that there is no home to return to. This first man inevitably destroys himself as well as whatever it is that runs afoul of him during his pursuit. The second man, in contrast, refuses to change the foundations upon which he operates in the efforts of pursuing his goal, and as a result will often find his goal absolutely unattainable. He will then torture himself either to madness or to death, as he will find that his inability to reach this goal is a failure of strength, instead of an inability to change. He will isolate himself and continue to lose his companions until he finds himself alone, zealously pursuing something he absolutely cannot have._

 _But then you have the third man. This is a man who knows what he wants, who knows what he is and is not willing to compromise. He sees his goal, but also the world before and after it. Unlike the second man, he is willing to change things, often for the better but, like the first, sometimes for the worse. But unlike the first, while he is willing to go through obstacles and destroy his enemies, he holds himself, either accountable, or back. Sometimes he will punish himself, sometimes he will stop himself from utilizing all of his power. In short, he understands morals, restraint, and compromise, but also realizes that there are problems that must be solved through less moral, less restrained, and more compromising solutions._

As he read this, Aldric was trying to figure out how she typed this up on a phone in sixty seconds; especially as there was _more._

 _Obviously, you can tell which man you are. Now, I feel I may be telling you something familiar to you. You may have used an argument or an allegory similar to this in order to justify your being the third man. However what you do not know is that, were we to make these men women, I would have been the first not but three years ago._ She explained. _As I have suggested before I have been in this life for a long time. Before I used the skills I had obtained throughout the years to become a Gardener, however, I was little different from drug dealers, dust polluters, or simple robbers. I desired one thing and one thing only: Lien. Money. Cash. I was under the false illusion that all the power in the world came from its currency, and I did anything to get it. Fortunately I was very good at a very efficient way of obtaining said 'power' - I murdered.  
_

Well.

Aldric wished he could have said he'd not seen that coming.

Pushing down the feeling of impending doom, he continued on.

 _I forget if I was eleven or twelve when I took my first life, but before then I had yet to realize the ease through which one could obtain money through that method. Before I had tried to use anger, brutality, and fear to obtain it - all of which are difficult almost beyond measure, when compared to the simplicity of sliding a dagger into a major artery. And in case you wonder, despite my complexion I come from Vacuo initially. Hopefully that provides enough explanation as to my early roots. But to move on, when I learned of the ease of ending lives, I subsequently learned how much property was left behind as a result of ten seconds of effort. Funds began rolling in, and should someone become or present a problem, I had an instantaneous and obvious solution: Kill them!_

 _By the time I was in my mid-teens, I hardly even -had- to kill anymore. 'The ice cream girl' they called me - that name alone could very well be synonymous with any culture's personification of Death. Many would flee, leaving their wallets, their material possessions, whatsoever it was I demanded of them. And if they didn't - need I say it again? Ironically it was from that that I obtained my first taste of true power - of influence and what it can buy - but I mistook it as having come from my increasing wealth. Soon I'd laid claim to my own town - I believe my record of youngest land-owner has yet to be subverted, as a matter of fact. Rayne of Dira attempted to do so, but she was a year or two too late._

 _The problem, however, was that when my townsfolk came to learn that denying me even slightly could and probably would lead to their deaths, it was not very long until they began to leave. At first I cared not - my wealth was vast enough that I felt I was fine. But soon expenses began piling up, and people began leaving - taking their belongings and their money with them. By the time I was eighteen, my home's population was fifteen and my coffers were draining, no matter what I did. Realize where I've went with this? I, in short order, destroyed absolutely everything that came before and after my goal._

 _Didn't realize what at all was wrong until I left to wander and ran into an example of the second person. I bet you won't be able to guess who it was, though. Considering the people I've mentioned thus far, and how well I know the way in which you think, I am certain you're under the false impression that my example of the Second person is Mister Torchwick. Unfortunately you would be wrong, the Second was a young man, though three years my senior at the time, named Terry Sands. He found me walking the deserts, gave me some water and took me into his home._

 _If ever there were greater polar opposites than us, I know them not. Ignore that I had aura and he did not, where I had found that the straightest and surest path to my desires was the path that brought blades to aortas, Sands would go out of his fucking way to avoid even a minor scuffle. Also unlike I, his goal, ironically, considering where he lived, was noble: He wanted to own a village and establish a trade route between his village and Vacuo and Shade Academy. As he explained it, he hoped doing so would afford the village some Huntsmen protection from the desert Grimm that roamed through every so-often. Which is fine, I even respected it a bit, though I knew it doomed for failure and wholly naive. While not in Vacuo proper, that entire half of Sanus at times seems wholly opposed to the idea of morality, law, and order. Worse was that the man who ran that town was a former huntsmen himself - as opposed to Sands, a skinny bastard who had only gotten a house of his own the months before I ran afoul of him._

 _I, as you can imagine, suggested to him that I kill the Huntsman and establish the illusion that it was him to begin with. Sands, however, refused to do so - saying that the only way to change the deserts, to prove that his ideals, his will, was right, was to show it work legitimately. To root himself in the ground and refuse to budge. As such, the lawlessness that ruled and rules those lands, the act of stealing, of killing, of doing whatever one deemed necessary, he rebuked them. If he couldn't get money, goods, or services through his own means - honest, hard work - he wouldn't accept it._

 _Primarily because I owed him, I stayed with that man for three years, Mister Aldric. I tried every day to change him, and he tried every day to change me, and I watched him descend into madness as he was continuously provided with evidence that this was not Vale, this was not Mistral, and it certainly was not Atlas. In Vacuo, his methods did not work - where mine, however, did. Whenever he failed to be able to work hard enough to buy dinner, I needed only a modicum of blood and violence - as I had learned at least moderation, by that point - to get us a week's worth. If ever he could not provide water, I could steal it with no effort. If ever he couldn't convince a man to stop harassing him, my knife did so faster than one could blink._

 _Now, I did -try- to soften the blows, once I realized what I was doing. He, as are you, was interesting. The key word, however, is 'was'. For a time I thought his bull-headed determination to be a legitimate Vacuoan was interesting. But as the years drove on and he fell further, he had to try harder and harder to rationalize his failures as anything but an inability to change. An inability to compromise._

 _Then, as I turned eighteen and he twenty three, I met the first and for a while only Third type of person, bringing us closer to today. Mister Torchwick, in an effort to expand beyond Vale, was attempting to lay roots in Vacuo - an effort he still is undertaking, as a matter of fact. One of his employees made a few pointed attempts to make Sands' home -his- home. He went away. The next one tried the same thing, then the third tried to figure out what happened to the other two. -Theeeeeen- Mr. Torchwick himself came around with a minor army, and to make that story a bit shorter, I barely survived, he promised not to send agents after me or mine anymore, he had that town under his control inside of a week, and the quality of life in the village pretty much instantly hiked up a bit as Torchwick's contacts in Vacuo proper started trading in both legal and contraband items.  
_

 _Barely a week later, Sands killed himself, I found myself making a coin a week for training and employ as Mr. Torchwick's Gardener (I killed so many of the men and women he sent after us that I actually damaged his reputation a bit, so after he set himself up he came to me himself and introduced me to coins and the Garden), and I found myself with front-row seat to the actions and thought processes of someone of the Third group._

 _For four years - going on five - I met no one like him. There are things he doesn't like to do, but on nearly anything he is willing to compromise, and as such he finds himself willing to do things his enemies won't. He's able to see situations for what they are as opposed to what they want them to be seen as - his figuring out what you were up to being a perfect example. Short term defeats inevitably become long-term victories... And this is, of course, meant to sound familiar. In the years I've worked for him, I've seen him conquer Vale and all but exile his enemies to the Garden, and establish firm and expanding footholds in the other three kingdoms. Truly, I predict that by the time he reaches a half-century, provided nothing extreme, he will more or less control the criminal -world-. There is little, I've found, that he -can't- do._

 _Except, as I've learned, legitimize himself, to the point where he hasn't even tried. Oh, he has federal resources, contacts and favors and 'friends', so to speak, in the various governments, of course, but the only true allies he has are those he has obtained through you. He is a criminal all the way through. It is what he is good at, it is all he is, and it is all he wants. This is not a bad thing, but in him I see potential being wasted away in his being content with himself._ _ _All of these things are obtained through criminal means and he makes zero effort to even try to work towards or appear as though he isn't. If he fails in this, he fails in everything he has.  
__

 _ _But then, a little under a year ago, in comes this kid - barely old enough to be called a man - with a look in his eyes of utter innocence. This child hasn't killed, beaten, bloodied, or even bruised a man at all in his life. I doubted he'd ever even been in a fight before, and he associated with assassin sons, thieves, and women who fashion themselves goddesses, appearing for all intents and purposes a liar and a child claiming he is an adult. When I first saw this kid I knew for a fact he'd be dead within a year, two at the most, if he kept this up - perhaps that I'd kill him in the fight his boss and mine had set up. But then we actually -did- fight, he not only survived but won - by a hair - and actually managed to frighten Mr. Torchwick in so doing.__

 _ _And you -did-, Aldric. Mr. Torchwick didn't see that gun coming at all, and for all he kept up his gravitas, he was unsettled by how you, an inexperienced fool playing at a game far greater than him, managed first to pull one over on him, then injure him, and then defeat -me-, than whom few assassins are greater. At first I was being coy, gave you a quick peck on the cheek as a sign of respect, and because I knew how painfully virginal you are and that it'd throw you off like nothing else. But as I continued watching you, as things continued on, you grew more interesting, eventually culminating first in Cinder's message, then in your meeting with Mr. Torchwick, which we've already discussed at length, I doubt I need to do so again... But to be succinct, I knew in you was a creature of potential greater than even Roman Torchwick. Your Watchmen -only- proved me right, and that leads to me being here:__

 _ _Where Mr. Torchwick stagnates, you expand. While I did say I predict he could have everything he wanted in the criminal world, that would only be in a world in which he makes no mistakes, and no one - not he, nor I, nor even you - goes through life without making those. He was nearly caught by one of your friends months ago, you underestimated both Cinder and I that day you used me as an alibi, I failed to predict what townsmen would think of having a governess whose power was built on constant an innumerable murder... And that is just within our circle.__

 _ _ _ _Where he does nothing to cover his greatest weakness, you relentlessly discover yours and shore them up. Mr. Torchwick holds no allies other than those he has gained through you - and you hold the key to him retaining said allies.__ Roman Torchwick will stumble one day in his endless quest to hold unmatched power in the criminal underworld, and since he relies on power that is not his, that will inevitably prove his downfall, perhaps even death. But you, any failure you make is rectified or undone by your endless preparation; and perhaps, in his own way, he -knows- this, which is why he jumped on gaining your alliance with both feet, not even considering whether it be a test of loyalty from Cinder. He fears his defeat, and covets your ability and tendency to simply -assume- you will lose, and plan accordingly.__

 _ _ _ _And finally, where I fear he will inevitably fail and drag me down with him, I do not think the same of you.__ That is why, were I to make a choice, I would look to you first, Mr. Aldric. Even moreso than Mr. Torchwick, and if you'll have me, you may find yourself surprised of what I can do beyond simple murder. __

__And the why of it is simple:__ _ _ _ _Because you interest me.____

 _ _ _ _That you're pretty cute and have a bodycount after my own heart is only a bonus.____

 _ _Does that satisfy you? ;)  
__

Aldric finished reading and let it all sink in. Aside from the details of her personal life, he'd pretty much called it _all_ from the moment she'd given the cutesy psycho routine in the alley; and if one were to listen to her, that among others was why he'd gained her attention, and even, it seemed, affection. Of course his first instinct was to try and distance himself from the romantic pursuits of a woman who so blasely talked about murder, and who had killed her first man when he'd been solely focused on making it to the next Iron Man movie. But in the back of his mind, and coming closer and closer to the forefront with each passing day, he found that he had no ground to stand on, there - not with his mounting bodycount.

With that in mind, Aldric took a mental step back and realized what he was being offered here: A genuine ally, perhaps the only one he had. Taurus he couldn't trust further than Salem. Torchwick he couldn't trust the moment he showed weakness. Qrow he couldn't trust because holy _shit_ would that drunk man end him if he figured out what he did to Yang, and realized what that meant he was willing to do beyond it. Ozpin he could trust, but perhaps not in quite the same way. Ozpin was the yin to his yang, the light to Aldric's dark. Where Aldric was, though hesitantly, willing to murder a woman in her sleep and gouge an innocent woman's eyes out for his goals, those same ideas revolted Ozpin, and were things he would avoid - even at the cost of more lives. Coulson he couldn't trust because he knew damn well and good the guy was going to angle for terran supremacy and Master awakenings at some point. His friends from Beacon he couldn't trust because they knew him only as Ash, the idealist - the moment he introduced to them Aldric, they would despise him. But in Neo, he would have something he had with no one else: Implicit trust.

Such a thing wasn't something he _didn't_ want - having a genuine ally he could fall back on was an attractive idea. Not having to endlessly watch his words and cover his back sounded good, and _damn_ was he tempted to accept. But for all of the answers he finally dragged out of her, one question now reigned highest in his mind:

"How the fuck did you type all of that up, in... Like... A minute?" He rumbled, "that's a fuckin' essay, lady."

And like that, Neo's grin - once faded as Aldric read her confession - returned. She turned the scroll around for a second, then turned it back to him.

 _I've had that prepared since the alley, Mr. Aldric. I just knew one day you'd give in and ask me 'why'. I've just been adding on as I hear about more of the things you get up to._

It did occur to Aldric that this was a bold-faced lie, and that Neo and Torchwick had cooked this entire thing up in order to get some dirt on him, to get him to confess first to her and by proxy to him that he'd been doing things he did _not_ want Cinder to know about. But, even as he had those thoughts, he realized how asinine they were. Torchwick already had an _inordinate_ amount of things on him that he could just feed Cinder, and she'd eat it all up and try to kill Aldric in an instant. Even more was that he had Aldric's word that, once all this blew over and if they were both alive, they'd owe eachother favors. This would prove of little use to Torchwick except as another measuring stick for Aldric's skill. Torchwick, in summation, had no reason whatsoever to be pulling a fast one on Aldric, as he already had all he needed from him.

This was completely Neo, who had, by herself, managed to predict Torchwick's originally destined downfall, before Aldric had ever even entered the picture. She was covering her own ass and was genuinely offering alliance to Aldric. Truly, her telling Aldric she was going to get rid of Torchwick's suspicions was less of a favor than it was a show of loyalty. It was completely useless as anything other than providing proof that she was serious, and a promise that, if it came to the two of them, she felt Aldric the safer bet. So, with a deep sigh, Aldric leaned back into bed.

"It was a short week, Neo. Didn't feel _any_ of this." He indicated his bandages, bruises and blood. "Just got brought to the submarine, and a needle in my neck, then I was being woken up today."

Her grin turned victorious, and she sealed her promise to wipe away any suspicion from Torchwick with, _a short week indeed, Mister Aldric. I can handle the rest._ She wrote, before leaning back up and hitting another button on the scroll. _"I'd recommend learning signs, next time we have a silent conversation like that. As difficult as it is to piece together the meaning with only one half of it, it is not_ _impossible."_ But she waved it away, _"so, do you just have a thing for redheads, or is 'my' hair being the same color as Nikos' coincidental?"_

Aldric snorted. "You know how our first date went. Your hair, same color as my blood." Aldric also fuzzily recalled not having chosen her hair color, but at this point he was so paranoid he wasn't sure if the sky was blue or not.

She nodded, an unbelieving expression on her face as she morphed into an approximation of Pyrrha. _"Oh is this what you want, Ash? Get out of that bed and I can give it to you."_

Aldric rolled his eyes, swiping his bandaged hand through the air in a haphazard slap, which sent his bag lazily flying through the air and towards Neo. "Fuck off." He scoffed, unable to hold back a grin.

Neo caught the bag before it would have hit her head, looking to the corner where it came from and seeing, in short order, his arm, his shield, and his original lightsaber stashed away. She nodded to the side, reaching the same conclusion he had: That everyone had wised up and figured out taking Aldric's weapons from him was courting disaster, so even if he was half dead, it was better to leave him armed.

 _"That's kind of the point, Ash."_ Said Neo, as the Pyrrha persona melted away and was again replaced by her original disguise. _"You just seem to be willfully ignorant of it."_

"Oh that is a _very_ accurate way to describe it." He grunted, making a 'come hither' motion with his hand.

He was well aware that Neo knew he was asking for the bag, especially with the light telekinetic tug he gave it, but this was the psycho-bitch they were dealing with. So neither of them were surprised when she came to deliver it herself and gave him a peck on the forehead as she deposited it in the bed. She hooked her heel around the leg of her chair and slid it closer to the bed, upon which she leaned as Aldric dug through the bag.

"How long are you sticking around?"

 _"At least long enough such that the_ other _redhead sees me with you."_ She winked.

 _In other words..._ Aldric thought, wile she watched with interest as he pulled out his tablet. _Torchwick's in the Garden, and she wants to stake her claim. I'll be dealing with her for a little -_

 _"And until you learn some signs."_

"Of course." She was going to pretend to be his caretaker, stuck in Vale until the CCT and inter-continental travel was back up and running. "Of course." He sighed, opening up the tablet and starting to write.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _And just like that, it's done.  
Well, the war, at least. _

_This 'this', going on? My idiotic grand game? That's still happening. As a matter of fact, it started up full-fucking-blast the moment my weeklong sojourn was done. Torchwick figured out I'd been up to some **SHIT** after the terrans 'abducted' me, and since he didn't feel safe enough running around in Vale yet, he sent Neo (in the Yuno disguise we made) to ask about it. _

_Neo promptly showed how well **she** plays the game and straight-up confirmed what I'd thought, awhile back - that she's in this for herself just a smidge more than Torchwick. We defined our terms and once the coast is clear for Yuno to 'go home', she'll head back to Torchwick and tell him the whole truth: That I left Vale in the submarine, and came back in that same submarine, and nothing interesting happened in that submarine between those two events. _

_And in case it isn't clear yet: Neo's chosen a side, and it ain't Torchwick's.  
And apparently she's been killing folks since I was in middle school.  
Oooooh boy, we'll see how that turns out.  
_

 _For now, though, she's going to lend a little credence to the Yuno story we cooked up. I'd told the girls she was here, so she's going to stick around, play nurse while I heal up, probably tease me any chance she gets, teach me to sign, the whole shebang. She's actually watching me write this right now.  
Wonder if she'd actually paying attention... She can't read it, of course, but still.  
Hm..._

 _8===D  
Yup, that made her laugh. Some things transcend the (written) language barrier, it seems.  
_

 _Anyways, since Ozpin's most likely going to be embroiled in the political half of having lost the war for a while yet (Thank **god** I don't have to deal with that.), I'm probably not going to get a face-to-face with him for a few weeks. Not until the terrans finish pulling out... Or establish an occupation center. Whichever ends up happening.  
But that's not to say I won't hear from him: I guaran-goddam-tee you that Qrow being there at the docks was intentional on Ozpin's end. Qrow will be our go-between, most likely the one who keeps the entire Watchmen on the same page, until the CCT gets fixed. _

_And speaking of the Watchmen, I highly doubt Taurus is going to stay as dark as he claimed. He's going to **rock** the fact that he fought the terrans while the VAF cowered behind its defensive walls. Torchwick probably won't be silent either - dude's got money and dude's got resources. I bet you he'll be racking up favors and a better public image by throwing that money and resources around to help expedite the rebuilding efforts. _

_Really, there's only one wildcard in the mix... And I hesitate to actually call her such, since Salem (and Cinder) seem so dead-fucking-set on the Vytal plan. I doubt I'll hear from the latter until the CCT's back up, and since that's how Remnant talks to itself, you know the four kingdoms and the UN will prioritize getting those back up and running._

 _So, ballpark, I figure I have a month... Maybe two, of just playing Goud._

 _Which isn't a bad thing, mind. I've got a **lot** of stuff I need to fix.  
At worst, maybe one or two nights of having to pick up the Ryan name and get updates from Earth. But aside from that? I honestly think that's going to be the plan: Salem is going to lull the worlds into a false sense of security. Let them think the worst has passed and that it's time to get back to normalcy. Nothing (major) will happen until or unless Vytal starts up. _

_That's not to say I probably won't hear from Torchwick or Taurus that they're being told to shift resources over to Earth... But I hesitate to actually think they'll be told to operate anywhere but Vale, seeing as how Salem has three other Masters to work with. They could very well be working on the Earth half of the equation as we speak._

 _Which would only play into my fears of a coup de grace even more: Wait until Vytal, destroy it, spark another war between Earth and Remnant, and in the utter fucking chaos that would follow, decapitate the academies, use the Masters to crack open the vaults, and failing that find the Maidens during the war, steal the relics and then...  
Well, anyone ever read Infinity Gauntlet?  
I doubt I need to say any more._

 _I worry that I may not get the **chance** to lead Earth and Remnant to Salem's Domain, if that ends up being the case. I know she won't get all four relics - Ozpin said he threw one in the ocean, so taking Beacon won't get her its Relic - but I'd still have to deal with the big bitch with three relics... And who **knows** if getting the other three won't enlighten her to the fourth's location? According to Ozpin, she seemed somehow innately aware enough of where they were back when, that she was able to track them to him in their first encounter._

 _I already have a Plan B brewing if I'm not ever able to kill her (Going to give... Someone... The Master Sword, under the idea that, since she's part Grimm and thus 'pure evil', that its power to **repel** said evil will let it seal her up like it does Ganon.), but not only does that rely on me finding someone it would allow to wield it (since you know damn well it won't **ever** let me use it), and effectively at that (since how many people in this world use **swords?!** ), but that also relies on me being able to lead the fucking armies to Salem in the first place.  
So now I need a plan C: What happens should Salem go Coup De Grace, get three relics in one night, and become nigh-unstoppable as a result?  
 **That** might warrant a nuclear option. _

_Like, 'ignore any and all potential drawbacks and focus on the benefits', nuclear option._

 _'Summon a Warhammer STC', nuclear.  
'Build an army of Vibranium Terminators', nuclear.  
'Wake up more Masters', nuclear.  
Ignoring the downsides I could go on - build a bunch of Nanosuits, fire up an Iron Man suit, summon a bunch of Lantern rings, the unworthy Mjolnir... - but the point is, Plan C, Salem getting three quarters of the way to victory in a single night, would necessitate me doing something **drastic.**_

 _Fuck. How have I fallen so far that talking to Yuno over there is a more appealing option than trying to think this stuff through?_

 _Anyways, last but not least: I got a care package from Coulson (I also have a CIA handler now. Go fucking figure.). The easiest way to describe it is just calling it an encyclopedia of everything I'd ever need. Movie, book, video game lore... Actual copies of movies, you name it and it has it, as well as **actual** science to help out.  
It also has Volume 5, and the most recent Marvel Movies. The former because it's necessary, the latter because... Damn it - I may not get that chance again. _

_Got some usable stuff out of it. Know who the Spring Maiden is, now. Know what the relics look like, now. Know what Jaune's semblance is, now. Aside from that? Not fully sure what all will prove useful, short **or** long term._

 _But, that's really all I have, now.  
Now I sleep (with a psycho-bitch watching. Help me.), and when I wake up, I go back to Ash.  
_

 _And if it isn't clear by now: I don't know **WHAT** the fuck happens after that._


	47. No Breaks

_A/N:  
So, as it turns out, I've come to learn I seem to just despise 'breather arcs' with a passion, and can't help but follow one pile of shit up with an even bigger one.  
Yeah, that bodes well for this chapter, doesn't it?  
But, to give you this brief little spot of not-fuckawful-terror before we get going: _  
_You guys remember that Deviant Artist I linked to awhile back?  
Yeah, he hasn't fucking stopped, and it's awesome. _  
_Seriously, check him out. He's ̶f̶o̶o̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶s̶e̶l̶f̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶a̶n̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶i̶t̶ a great guy and I love everything he puts out._  
 _ _many9919{dot}deviantart{dot}com__

 _ _But wait, there's more!  
Now another ̶d̶u̶m̶b̶ ̶m̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶f̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ incredible fan came out of the woodwork, and he's put pen to paper too!  
maybezyroaria{dot}deviantart{dot}com/art/Nebo-Aldric-744919029__

 _ _I love getting stuff like this, it always makes my damn day when they make their rounds my way.__

 _ _Anyways, on with the show!__

* * *

Chapter 46

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Something occurred to me this morning. Sitting in the darkness, candles out, seeing Deer's coat swishing in the door, Neo trying to pretend she was asleep:_

 _I'm an Ork._

 _No, seriously, think about it:  
If an Ork in 40K duct-taped nothing but a couple rocks and a piece of rebar together in the vague shape of a rifle, looked away for a week, and then looked back and went, 'Holy shit, a rifle!', it would work based solely on the fact that the Ork believed it was a fucking rifle. It would shoot people, and it would work, where anyone else would pick it up and it wouldn't work at all, returning back to a chunk of iron, a few rocks, and some duct tape, literally because the Ork would look at it, think, 'This is a rifle!', and it **would** be. _

_Does that sound familiar?  
Let me swap out a few words for you:_ _ _If I took nothing but a couple nanites and hardlight generators and made them up in the vague shape of a multicolored shield, it would work. It would deflect shit, and it would bounce off walls, and it would work, where anyone else would pick it up and it wouldn't work at all, returning back to a battery-operated chunk of very fragile light, literally because the I would look at it, think, 'This is vibranium!', and it **would** be.  
Replace with the relevant words for lightsaber and it would only continue to work. See my point?  
__

 _ _I'm a goddamn Ork.  
Why?  
Because Ozpin convinced me that's how my fucking powers work.  
No, no, think about it - before I had my little 'Wham' session with him, the shield was always just a chunk of light and colors to me. I'd always pull it up and wipe it away through function of the nanites. But ever since then, I've had trouble making another one. That's not an issue that existed before - I remember pretty clearly having two shields when I fought Adam, him having stolen one and I having made a second one.  
But after I talked to Ozpin, all of a sudden I have trouble making more than one of anything.  
But that could be anything.  
So here's some more proof: Before that heart to heart, all I had and all I ever did was color my shields and a few little odds and ends I used from time to time.  
After that, I was making simple machines, light sabers, I have a bolter, I had a neuralizer... All from a bunch of nanites that **only** make physical light. __

__**And,** Ozpin himself literally said he tried making the same things I did (though at the time it was just the shield), with the same nanites I used. The batteries ran out, the shield was destructible, and it didn't bounce. All things that don't happen to me. __

__And if we're going to ask why his don't work the same way mine do - they **do**! But he was from ancient Rome, and as a result he thought in simple terms, like fire, water, and so on. His multiple lifetimes were completely colored and influenced by that fact, so by the time machines and things of that nature entered the playing field, he couldn't change his way of thinking in a meaningful enough way.  
So when I came around, instead he told me straight up that I could 'will the universe', and essentially have or do anything I wanted, as long as I 'understood the concept' behind it. __

__Conclusion?  
I'm a fucking Ork, because Ozpin realized the nature of Magic and specifically wanted to make sure my powers wouldn't function the same way his did.  
Alright?  
Alright.  
__

 _ _Now say it with me:__

 ** _ _WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!__**

 _ _(I didn't sleep at all I thought too much about Salem and Earth's long term plans and I'm very fucking tired.)  
(Seriously. There's something I'm missing on both ends, and it's keeping me up.)  
__

* * *

Aldric was becoming aware that, though the hospital had most of its critical-care equipment up and running, little to nothing else had power. No lights, no computers, no scrolls, nothing. Neopolitan - or Yuno, depending on who was asked - was the only one in the hospital with something more advanced than could be found in the iron age. Efforts were being made to fix everything else up, but Aldric had learned through his Radar Pulse that the terrans had been occupying and instilling Martial Law ever since they'd launched the nuke and sacked Beacon. Until Ozpin signed and the surrender went through yesterday afternoon, the curfew had been just after mealtime in the afternoon and any delivery larger than a basket of milk was searched and often seized by the terrans. Considering that they were trying not to let anything even remotely subversive go through and start another fight, they definitely weren't letting electrical engineers run around with their tools, and they certainly weren't going to help while they were still the enemy, so if the hospital didn't have them on-hand, they wouldn't be able to get the tools or supplies they would need to fix anything that wasn't immediately required for the most critical patients, such as professor Raiden, who would not be alive without some kind of life support system, or Jaune, who had wires sticking out of his chest and directly powering his otherwise nonfunctional replacement lung.

Now, where Aldric was lamenting the fact that he had absolutely no idea how to fix such a problem beyond literal magic, Neo appeared to just be enjoying the fact, flaunting her functional technology whenever she wasn't pretending to be asleep. Deer or a nurse would come in to check Aldric's IV and take vital signs, and Neo would just happen to be pulling her scroll out or putting it away as they walked in. _One_ technician had had the courage to ask her if he could borrow it to help him measure voltage in the fried wires, and to her credit, she'd given it to him.

He promptly gave it back after getting one look at some of the foulest smut he'd ever beheld before. No one asked for it, since, and Neo promptly killed what she called the 'Mine' app. The way she described it, if they wanted it bad enough, they'd brave whatever the app put on the screen.

Around the time Aldric could just barely see the outside getting light from outside his radar range, Aldric finally gave up on trying to get anything more than fifteen or twenty minutes of sleep here and there. Deer seemed to have predicted the exact time he'd do so, and even already had an answer as to whether or not Aldric could walk around. He and Neo even had a bet going, and considering that Neo tossed him a coin and not the other way around, he was pretty sure he could gauge who won.

Regardless, exhausted and stir-crazy, Aldric grabbed his IV tower, threw on a pair of paper pants underneath his gown, and got out of bed. He gave a long, tired yawn as he stretched; he sensed Neo giving him an appraising look, her disguised blue eyes running over the myriad of old and new bullet, bomb, and knife injuries running up and down his back. As he straightened up, Aldric wondered if she wasn't trying to figure out which ones she'd given him as opposed to which ones had come afterwards.

"Ugh." He said, swiping his hand through his hair, and approaching the corner of the room with his weapons. "My kingdom for some clothes." As much as he appreciated having something to cover up with, everything he wore was disposable paper hospital clothes, and they came as close to chafing and itchy as they could without actually itching or chafing.

 _"You'll be out of here in a day. Two tops."_ Neo said through her scroll's text-to-speech. _"Do me a favor and suffer in silence, less-than-three."_ She frowned at the device after it finished speaking, not at all satisfied that her final teasing gesture had been mangled by its reading of it.

That got a grin from Aldric, as he knelt down and retrieved his bolter, figuring it the best option of everything he had - if his arm had power, people would question it. The shield would be a little too much to be walking around with, and he hadn't had Luke Skywalker's blue lightsaber since his first fight with the terrans, so he couldn't be walking around with Vader's - especially not when he visited Yang, because his luck would have her see it and undo what he'd done with the neuralizer. "Why don't you start there, eh?" He said, "what's that sign?"

Neo's smile turned a bit more genuine and less sociopathic at that, as she took one hand and tapped her chest.

"Is that going to be the trend?" He asked, as he slowly raised his ailing and sore body to a standing position, and tenderly touched his face, trying to judge how much the swelling and bruising had gone down. "The signs for things are just... Far less difficult than you'd think?"

She flipped him off, before curling two fingers on each hand, and then spreading them out to each side. She did it twice, then set her hands down, arcing an eyebrow and returning her grin to its usual teasing, slasher-smile, as Aldric pulled the belt out of his cinch-bag. Aldric frowned at that, vaguely sure she wasn't calling him an asshole, as that wasn't her style.

Aldric shrugged, "I got nothing." He grunted, sliding the belt around his waist and clicking it in place, briefly finding himself surprised when it automatically adjusted and conformed to his width.

 _"Fuck you, slut."_

Aldric blinked, and then it dawned on him. "Make legs with your hands and then open them." He didn't even try not to smile, he just snorted and hooked the pistol to the belt, "that was good." He said, throwing the gown back over the gun and the belt.

 _"Just wait until you see bullshit, Ash."_

Aldric rolled his eyes, "so, 'caretaker', got a long, probably teary day ahead of us. Think you can get through it without stabbing someone?"

Neo rolled her eyes, daintily getting to her feet and circling around Aldric's bed. She straightened up his gown then reached up to swat him on the forehead, before spinning on her heel and guiding him to the door. Outside the room, Aldric found the rest of the hospital only a few shades brighter than his room thanks to candles hung every few feet, and saw a lot of Huntsmen and Huntresses in similar states of minor to moderate injury similar to Aldric's, all with the same cabin fever, wandering the halls, avoiding nurses, and congregating around eachother.

Aldric had a few major goals, this morning. He needed to see Yang and figure out how she was holding up, he needed to gauge how badly Ruby was holding up, and he needed to figure out what had happened to Myrtle to get her eyes bandaged like they were. Of course he was worried about the others, even Jaune, who was probably terribly out of date and beside himself with worry, but he felt the three of them had some small priority over the others. Yang he'd personally wronged, Ruby he knew had to be horribly traumatized by both her failure to rescue him and Yang, and in the manner in which he'd been taken from her after they'd been imprisoned, and Myrtle, he was desperately worried might have looked at the nuke.

So, first on his list was the first stop he made. He strolled up to the once-fiery blonde's room and saw her in a similar state to him: Restless and unable to sleep. But, unlike him, she had a more major injury than his partially healed gunshots and stabs: The doctors had had to deal with her newly lost limb. Plasma burns couldn't be fun, so the Doctors weren't going to be nearly as lenient as Deer and were forcing her to stay in bed, alone with her thoughts.

Knowing how that was never a good thing, after knocking, Aldric slowly undid the lock and slid into the room. "Knock knock, lady."

Yang's expression brightened, the dull glaze to her eyes fading away after a blink. She looked up as he entered the room, then shook her head, "oh, no - anyone but you, Beebee."

"Oh?" Aldric countered, a grin stretching across his face as he pushed the door open wider, revealing first his IV tower, then Ash's girlfriend. "How 'bout a combat stripper?" He asked, as 'Yuno' was revealed, and an expression wholly foreign to Neo's usual slasher smile grew across her face: One of a genuine, kind smile - almost good enough to convince Aldric, who knew better, that this wasn't a woman who killed as easy as she breathed.

The brawler snorted, covering her face with her one good hand as the one-armed spy strolled inside, the only one of the three with all of her limbs staying in the doorway. "You're just going to take that from him?"

Neo's shoulders quivered in a silent giggle, before she retrieved her scroll and it barked out, _"oh, he'll regret it later."_ And out from her baggy sleeve came a switchblade, eliciting a flinch from Aldric.

Yang started guffawing, "oh, I like you." She said, "you're Yuno, right?" She nodded to Aldric, "one of the other numerous women in his life told us that you existed. Had a picture and everything." She whistled, "you're too good for him, you know?"

 _"Oh, I know."_ Neo responded, as Aldric collapsed into his chair with a muted groan. _"But I figured I'd take pity on him. He needed it."_ She gave the two a nod, _"but, I won't steal too much time. I can see why he's cheating on me with you, I might as well let him."_

Yang rolled her eyes, "Beebee couldn't _handle_ me, Yuno. I don't know how he handles _you."_

Neo grinned, her last words being, _"he doesn't."_ , before she shut the door.

The room fell to silence, as Yang's smile slowly descended to one that didn't reach her eyes. Aldric let her have it for a few moments, before saying, "you know... It wasn't a bomb blast, but mine happened about just as fast." She blinked, turning to him with an inquisitive frown on her face. "My arm." She nodded in understanding.

"I..." She began, "I can't remember... Did you ever tell me how you lost it?"

 _Your fucking uncle._ Aldric shrugged, "probably? But it's been a hell of a month." He shook his head, "long and short of it was Grimm. After my fight with you, I was out with my sugar momma walking the roads. Some Grimm came along. Lot of 'em. Hardest fight I'd ever been in, and while I was focusing on this big hoss, a smaller one came in out of nowhere, just..." He shook his head and chopped at his stump. "Gone. Time it took to blink I'd gone from kicking ass to getting ass kicked. Managed to get Miss Ember out, but man oh man, she didn't want that to happen again. So she rented a room here in Vale, bought me a new arm, and paid for my getting into Beacon."

"I just..." A long sigh. "Do you keep going over it?" She asked. "The moment you lost it."

Aldric nodded, "every day." The shield struggle, the lightning shot to the eyes, Qrow coming in, the cold burn of steel cutting flesh. "How about you?"

"It's all I've thought about." She said. "I - at the time I thought I hadn't seen the guy, but now..." She shook her head. "Now I'm not sure. I think I might have actually seen him throwing the bomb, but I didn't do anything. I just watched it, like it was happening in slow-motion."

"You couldn't have done better, Yang. I mean, for fuck's sake - you punched a goddamn grenade out of the air. Not many can claim they could do that."

"Yeah, but then after that my aura was shot, I was unconscious, and you had to fight through the rest of that ship _alone."_ She stressed, tightly pursing her lips in an effort to not have her expression crack. "None of them even had aura, Ash. Aside from Pyyrha, we're the best fighters in the school. How'd they get us so easily? How'd they hurt us so bad?"

To which, Aldric shrugged. "Quantity is a quality of its own, Yang. And the terrans have quantity in _spades._ You and I can hammer on eachother for a half hour well and good, but get a few thousand of them, in tight corridors, with all the explosives they have? Our aura'll go faster than we can blink and then they'll have us in a bad way."

She nodded, "I know, it's just..." She looked down at her arm. "I know. And I know that I know, but I still just... I've never been in a position like that before." She said, "I've never killed before... And then you've got what Ruby did, she hasn't ever either and she's younger than me." She turned to Aldric, though she didn't make eye contact. "I don't like that, Ash. I don't like that I'm not strong enough to fight through one group of soldiers, or one measly ship of 'em. I don't like that my little sister got hurt trying to come rescue me... I don't like that all of them just... _Showed up_ and wrecked all of Vale, and I don't like that they somehow did the same thing to the rest of the world in a _month._ " She finally looked up, but only barely, frowning at him from under her brow. "I thought we were all stronger than that, Ash."

Aldric sighed, leaning back in his chair. "That night." He said, lifting his hand and idly tangling it in his hair. "I told you about Steve?" She nodded. "I ever tell you I haven't seen anyone go through Grimm like he did? And I've seen Huntsmen fight Grimm since then. I've seen dozens of Grimm fall in seconds, I've seen Huntsmen fight eachother and scar the land... Hell, I saw _Ozpin_ taking on the terrans... But I've never seen anything quite like Steve, that day. He just..." Aldric held up his hand in a boxer's stance and started bobbing and weaving, left to right. " _Moved._ Faster than anyone I've ever seen. He hit harder than anything I've ever felt - even you." He indicated Yang, before dropping his hand. "But there was a... Flow to everything he did." He said, waving his fingers. "Like he was dancing. Like it was all choreographed ahead of time and he was just going through the motions. I've taken to calling him a super-Huntsmen, 'cause I've never seen anyone fight like that. Grimm went down in singular blows, they would swing at him and his shield would just be _there..._ On his own he managed to turn the tide of the Grimm, for a moment I thought we'd win. I'm certain that the only reason he ran was because the hit he took to the gut was just a _bit_ too deep. Like, if it had been just a centimeter more shallow, he could have and would have kept going.

"But it wasn't raw power that let him do it, Yang." Aldric explained, "if raw power determined dominance, humanity would've lost this fight a long time ago. It's skill that means everything. You can be as strong as you want, but that won't mean anything if you can't touch the opponent you're trying to beat." He explained, "so... Yeah, our world is strong, but they just have more skill and experience in fighting and war. Besides his aura, which none of them seem to use, I think Steve's a perfect example of them. He combines power and skill, and in the end it was just dumb luck that did him in.

"So when the terrans came here and picked a fight with us, we thought like you are: We thought that our power would bring us through. They, however, figured out our weaknesses and hammered them relentlessly." He indicated the dark ceiling. "Knock out our electricity, and all of a sudden the only way we can fight is like them: Conventionally. And they've more _skill_ with that, so they won wholesale."

Yang nodded, picking up on his line of thought. "Instead of carpet-bombing an entire area to kill a handful of people, they fire one bullet into a car's fuel-tank."

"Aim small, miss small." Aldric affirmed. "Put it in more personal terms: Can you think of a single fight you've won without your semblance? A single _serious_ fight?" Yang blinked.

"Well..." She trailed off. "No."

"Now think about what happened during our fight. You unleashed that raw power, and were indeed stronger than me... But then you punched my shield and nothing happened, and you couldn't adapt fast enough. You didn't know what to do." He explained, "it's the same thing. Instead of being a mallet smashing a wall, be a screwdriver taking apart its weak point."

"With us being the mallet, and the terrans being the screwdriver."

Aldric nodded, humming. "If it came down to raw power, the two of us could've steamrolled through that entire ship. Fuck - you could've led the way and I could've just sat there dancing, and it still would've worked." The two shared a grin, "but the terrans knew how to fight us. They kept us at range and kept us from moving. Their skill beat out our strength... So instead of beating yourself up over your lost arm, take it as a learning experience, yeah?"

Yang let out a long sigh that sounded almost as tired as Aldric felt. "I don't know if it'll be that easy, Beebee."

Aldric nodded to the side, "it never is, Yang." He waved his arm over his stump, "when I'm not wearing thew new one, sometimes I still feel it."

Yang nodded, turning to her own, and the fresh bandages on it. "I swear if I wasn't looking... I'd say I'm clenching it right now." She said, "I swear I can feel the air, and the sheets, my nails digging into my palm..." She turned to him, "how do you deal with it?" She asked, "this whole week I haven't been able to stop looking at it."

At that, Aldric shrugged. "I can't go back in time, Yang. So when I make mistakes, I just pick myself up, bandage myself up... And put one foot in front of the other." He responded. "Learn from it, Yang. You do that and you'll never make the same mistake again."

She nodded, bringing her hand up to brush it through her golden hair. "I'll keep that in mind, Beebee... And - I'm sorry."

Aldric blinked.

"For what?"

"If I'd have trusted you -"

"Oh, God, Yang - no." He shook his head.

"No, Goud, listen." Aldric shut up, "I'm sorry I put us in that situation. None of this would've happened if I hadn't done that. We wouldn't have been shot, we wouldn't have been taken, you wouldn't be..." Aldric thought he saw the ghost of a joke in her expression, but it died with her next words. "So hurt. I wouldn't have lost my arm, Ruby and Weiss and Blake... Your team, Pyrrha's, CFVY's, none of them would've almost died..." She fell back into her bed. "I'm sorry, dude." He saw a tear forming in one of her eyes, that she tried to blink away.

 _Damn if that ain't a punch to the gut._ Aldric thought, trying to put on a better face for her. "Yang, you may not believe it, but you have nothing to be sorry about, so _don't_ be." He said, getting to his feet and leaning over her bed. "If only because if the bloody red head out there thinks I made you sad she'll fuckin' kill me, yeah?" He whispered conspiratorially.

It got the desired effect, Yang blinked once and let out a sigh, as she tried to suppress a grin. Then, in the time it took Aldric to blink, she adopted an evil expression and looked up at him, violet eyes ablaze with mischief. Aldric's own grin vanished as he realized what she was going to do.

"Oh _Ash,_ what would _Yuno_ think?!" She called out in a scandalized tone, " _here?_ In public?!"

Then, Neo, in her endless quest to fuck with him, and having clearly heard the blonde in the bed, chose that moment to walk in. She shared one look with Aldric, and for a moment he feared who he'd be dealing with: The assassin who loved to scare him, or whatever character she'd crafted Yuno into. Given how her smile was far from the slasher grin he'd grown used to, he was willing to hope for the latter. Right up until she pointed at all three of them and made her intentions clear with an unmistakably lewd sign, an arced eyebrow, and an innocent smile.

Yang immediately picked up on it, "ooh! Beebee, she seems willing, c'mon -" Yang reached up and wrapped her arm around Aldric's neck, dragging the laughing spy down such that his ear was inches from her mouth. _"I'm not on a heart-monitor, no one will know!"_ She faux-whispered.

Aldric, still chuckling, patted Yang on her cheek. "Wait 'till I fix my arm, Yang, it doubles as something I never thought I'd get a use out of." And Neo attested to it with a nod, her grin turning wistful, as she looked past the two and stared off into space.

Yang gasped, letting go of Aldric and putting on a scandalous look as she covered her mouth. "Why _Beebee!_ You certainly think ahead!" She laughed, unable to keep it going. "Thanks for the visit, Beebee. It really helped."

Aldric blew her a kiss, as Neo approached him. "Anytime." He said, grabbing his IV tower. "The real question, though, is do you think Jaune can perform with one lung?" He gave her a serious look, as Yang lost it. "I'm fuckin' telling you, Yang! Second sexiest man alive! I shove it in him, he shoves it in her." He nodded to Neo, who slowly raised a knife to him, wild look in her eyes.

"All these women and one with a knife and you keep trying to convince us you want a man in your life." Yang scoffed, as she calmed down and the spy and the assassin reached the door.

"Life is long, hard, and sometimes painful - sometimes I want something similar!"

"See ya!" She called back, as Aldric shut the door.

As he turned around, Aldric felt Neo's hand on his shoulder, and the tensity of her grip let him know this was less her teasing him than it was something somewhat serious. As he turned, he expanded his radar, and -

 _Oh. Well, that happened faster than I expected._ Aldric thought, turning to face an irate Qrow approaching him.

With the sheer amount of paranoia Aldric experienced every day of his life, Aldric's first instinct wasn't to question what pissed Qrow off, but rather to question whether it was him in the first place. He'd done a lot of public actions in stopping the war, and as evidenced by Roman motherfucking Torchwick, it wasn't hard to pin it all on him. Subsequently, a determined and skilled enough Master wouldn't find it impossible to use their abilities to take on someone's appearance and try to get him to lower his guard.

Fortunately, Aldric had a trick to figure out if any of the Watchmen had been swapped out, be it with a Body Snatcher, a Kree, or just a good, boring illusionist. So Aldric searched over the man, top to bottom, from the furious expression on his red face, to his hunched back, down his chest and, most importantly, to the man's weapon. Anyone trying to make an illusory copy of Qrow, anyone trying to probe his mind for secrets only he or Aldric could know, or anyone savvy enough to realize Goud Etiolate spent a lot of time with Qrow's extended family, and that Qrow was in direct contact with Ozpin, wouldn't be able to copy two important facts: The scars from Emerald's sickles on his back, and the nanites Aldric had hid inside his scythe weeks ago. When he confirmed both of their presences, _then_ Aldric turned his attention to the why of why the fuck he was so brazenly walking up to him in broad daylight.

But he barely got even a single word in before Qrow shook his head, clearly not having it.

"Cut the shit, and come with me." He rasped, roughly grabbing Aldric's limbless shoulder.

Aldric sucked in a breath through his teeth, "Oh." Aldric pursed his lips and shut his eyes, preparing for the inevitable. "Bad move." He whispered through clenched teeth, as Qrow turned to him, about to issue a retort.

He found a huge pistol pressed to the side of his abdomen, and a terribly innocent smile on the disguised assassin's face, as she looked up to him. Aldric, however, found his eyes traveling down to the gun in her hands, as it looked rather familiar, in that it was his. It was his bolter. She'd taken his gun off of his belt, without him knowing, despite it being fastened and clipped to it, and being so close to him that even without him stretching his radar like he usually did, he should have seen it.

"Is that _mine?"_ He grunted, to which Neo nodded, still smiling.

"And who's this?" Qrow grunted, not even phased by the gun.

"She doesn't talk much, but apparently she's got a boner for murder." Aldric responded, to which Neo's shoulders quivered in a silent laugh. "And _she -"_ Aldric nodded into Yang's room, "may see you if you so much as twitch another inch to the left, now _I_ can already think of a story as to why you'd be manhandling her friend and companion in some serious mental trauma but can _you?_ And before you answer that, also consider, first and foremost, she's freaked out about all the _shit_ that went down on that ship." He added, talking fast and keeping his momentum, "imagine what more will happen if she came out here and saw this. So how about we _all_ cut the shit, and go all adult-like to wherever it is you want to talk?"

Qrow glared at him, and Aldric was pretty certain he knew what was going on: Qrow might not fully expect Aldric of having played a hand in the nuke, but he sure as hell blamed him for what had happened to Yang and, to a lesser extent, Ruby as well. Neo wasn't exactly helping the innocent routine, not since her natural instinct was to threaten lives, but Aldric was hoping he could spin that as him making contact with his less scrupulous allies. After a moment of indistinct rage, Qrow shoved off of Aldric's shoulder; Neo almost instantly removed the gun and had it clipped back on Aldric's belt, an innocent smile and an equally innocent curtsy following the disarmament.

"Come on." Qrow scowled at Neo for a moment, before nodding over his shoulder.

He guided them through the hospital and to a stairwell; there were a few candles mounted on dishes on the wall next to the door, and he took one. Opening the door with a metal squeak, the inside of the stairwell was pitch black except for the candle in Qrow's hands, and once it closed with a loud thunk, he rounded on Aldric, his expression unchanged.

"So do you mind telling me -"

"I did it." Aldric said, point blank.

Qrow blinked, mouth agape.

"We were fighting our way through the ship. A guy threw a grenade, it would've taken out both of us. She punched it, protected me, but it took her arm." Aldric explained, "there was barely anything left but dangling hunks of meat and flesh. I couldn't fix it then and there, and it was bleeding like mad. If I left it alone she would have bled _out,_ so I spawned the same sword I fought at the docks with to cut it all off and cauterize it." He held up both of his arms in a 'come at me' expression. "I fuckin' did it. No sense in lying."

Neo turned her openly amused expression from Aldric to Qrow, as the latter tried to comprehend the fact that the biggest liar in the Watchmen hadn't even bothered trying to hide something that they both knew he could be killed for, as agreed by everyone. Even Qrow's expression melted away from fury to shock.

He blinked again, "and what about you two being on their ship in the first place?" He rasped, the anger gone from his voice, as he simply tried to regain his mental balance.

"Yang's a smart woman, Qrow. Her Dad should be proud." Aldric responded, "while they were moving our stuff out of our dorm, she found the cinch-bag I keep on me, with my Earth tech in it. She thought I was a spy for them. A group of Earth soldiers were sneaking in to try and nab Ozpin at the time, they heard the argument and her accusations and changed their goal. Shot the two of us and brought us to the ship." Aldric explained, "and, yes, I convinced her otherwise."

"Then how'd you get off the ship if you were down one fighter?"

"I cut a deal with the Captain." Aldric responded. "I barricaded the two of us in a conference room. They had soldiers ready to kill us, but the Captain, after he read a journal I keep, figured out who I was and what I was doing. So I cut a deal... For all of the ten minutes I needed to get close to him. Then -" He pantomimed a punch. "Captain down, I used my semblance to detonate the ship's missiles. Crew dead, Yang and I unharmed... And Earth is _not happy."_

"You had a chance to get their resources and instead you killed your countrymen."

"That's some stuff needs Earth context, Qrow. Up until thirty years ago my country hated theirs with a _passion._ Most of us still do. And now that the war is over I guarantee you they're already squabbling over who gets what country and which slices of land." He explained, leaning against the cold wall. "If we don't direct their fury to Salem, another war's going to come, only they'll be fighting eachother over Remnant and its resources, and they'll be launching an arms race over who can wake up more Masters than the other." Aldric shook his head, "and don't act high and mighty. If I worked with them and you figured out, you'd say the exact same thing: That I sold you all out to Earth. No, I barely trust this world but I trust mine even less - if I worked with them, that war I told you about would only come all the faster. At least this way we can delay it... Perhaps indefinitely, but at least long enough for Remnant to rebuild itself."

Qrow didn't seem like he was getting any less angry. "No... You know what?" He shook his head. "No."

 _Aw fuck._ Thought Aldric, as he felt Neo's hand sliding down his back, towards his gun.

"Oz ain't here to defend you, kid." Qrow said, advancing one step on Aldric, who sensed Neo's hands close around the gun. "And even if he were, I don't think I'd let him. You know he bends over backwards for you? Every time you do something stupid and I point it out, he steps in and cools me down, and I'll be the first to admit he makes good points - but now?" He shook his head, taking another step to Aldric, who stood his ground, his gaze remaining level, frown remaining still. "Now it wouldn't work - because I've figured you out, kid. You lie with the truth." Another step, Qrow now less than a foot from Aldric.

Neo tried to pull the gun, but found it stuck fast to Aldric's belt - the spy holding it there with his semblance, and placing a phantom hand on her shoulder, to try and tell her he had this. She took the hint, and though she let go of his gun, he did notice her cupping her free hand, a knife sliding through her sleeve and coming to rest in her palm. She gave him a brief, curious glance, but otherwise didn't act.

"Qrow, you know that sounds -"

 _"Right!"_ Qrow rested his hand on the hilt of his blade, face aglow with fury. "You and my niece vanish for a fuckin' week, the war all but ends, Vale gets hit with the biggest warning shot in human history, and she comes back with no arm?! No, kid." He shook his head, sliding the blade off of his back. "No - that's too many coincidences, _especially_ for you. _You_ took her arm off to get her to stop fighting, _you_ told the terrans what they'd need to finish off Atlas, _you_ convinced them to knock out Vale's electricity. _You_ sold us out the moment you realized you could have _your_ world over ours!"

Aldric took in a long breath, trying to stay calm - and it was because of this, and the much more enclosed space they found themselves in, that he smelled more clearly the copious amounts of alcohol radiating off of Qrow.

This guy was _plastered,_ even more than usual.

Aldric frowned, "what happened, Qrow?"

Qrow blinked, "no, don't you -"

"Qrow what the fuck happened?" Aldric advanced on Qrow, first swiping his hand through the air and tossing Qrow's scythe from his back, and then reaching up to plant it on the man's shoulder, the smell growing worse the closer he got; and it was once he got so close that Aldric felt the man's skin was hot, and there was a tinge to his cheeks. Considering how much alcohol this man operated on, he'd had to have taken a _lot_ to get here, and to Aldric, that meant something had to have happened - and he was taking out this bender-fueled rage on him. "You're so drunk I'm surprised you can stand, and if you were here for Ozpin you would have brought me to him, or given me his message immediately." He was also willing to place a small bet on Qrow not having been drunk yesterday, when they had been given back to Remnant, which meant this was a recent development. " _What happened?"_

Qrow, breathing heavily, leered into Aldric's cybernetic eyes a few seconds, before the tension seemed to melt out of him. His shoulders slumped, he let out a long, smelly breath, and he fell back a few steps, back hitting the wall with a thump, the anger that had been fueling him vanishing like an improperly fed fire.

"Met 'em in Mountain Glenn. They're..." He gasped, "they were gonna occupy, kid. It didn't matter that they'd agreed to spin the story like it was a plot from... 'Non-governmental agencies' they called it... They said they were gonna occupy. Had to, they said."

Aldric frowned, "you're speaking in past tense." He said, as the drunken huntsman slid down the wall.

"They said they'd only bring back their soldiers for one thing, kid. They threatened to leave us to do all the rebuilding ourselves unless we gave it to them. That... Those damn people, who knew about our world, told 'em, they said. Couldn't get Amber, they knew, but they also knew they didn't need her for ours." Qrow rasped, the rage that had fueled his previous lucidity having vanished, and his words now beginning to slur.

Though Aldric feared he knew, he still knelt down and asked, "told them about what, Qrow? What is 'ours'? What did the terrans want?"

"The Relic of Choice." Qrow buried his head in his hand, holding it tightly. "Oh... They _said_ it was to make sure Salem wouldn't get all four. _Said_ that the safest place for it would be on Earth, with them. _Told_ us that it was to have a get out of jail free card... But you don't just _ask_ for that. They wanted it. Insurance, in case the portals close again. Something they could study, unlock Masters even if they can't trade for Dust."

And there was the final piece. The last thing Aldric needed to make some kind of sense of the White Witch's plans: She was pulling a Thanos. She wanted to uncover and locate every one of the relics, such that she could come in and swipe all of them in one fell swoop. Aldric was willing to put anything on the bet that the terrans negotiating in other countries were making similar deals: Give us your relic, or you'll be on your own. Failing that, though, the next most surefire bet was to obtain the identities of the final two Maidens not confirmed by material written by Roosterteeth before Aldric and the plane had been taken from Earth. Doing either of these would give Salem everything she'd need for the coup-de-grace mentioned by Cinder, and if he applied this puzzle piece into his own machinations, then it all fit as close to perfectly as he was willing to attribute.

Salem sparked the war between Earth and Remnant to piss the two planets off, and let Earth believe that it held military superiority. Remnant, shaken and, in places, practically destroyed by the United Nations' planetary blitzkrieg, would have to capitulate to any of the Earth's demands and gain their resources, infrastructure, and perhaps some defensive supplements, or reject them and face having to rebuild by themselves - and the subsequent risk of a major Grimm attack due to the negative emotions that would be flying about in the postwar kingdoms. To say nothing of the risk of having Earth roll in and occupy the planet. Be it by willingly giving up their relics or revealing the identities and locations of the relevant Maidens, all of the pieces Salem would need to zerg-rush and subsequently claim all four relics would be out in the open and in place for her to claim them. This would be where the Vytal festival came into play: _Whatever_ she ended up doing, tensions would already be high between the two planets by sheer virtue of the recent war, and if she sparked another, and added the Grimm into the mix, both worlds would be in chaos and falling to pieces fighting eachother and staving off the Grimm. This would allow her to claim the relics freely given, or abduct the Maidens and allow Cinder to absorb their powers - or, more terrifying, _both._ Then, with all four relics, the power of all four Maidens in one woman, plus four Masters, Aldric included, Salem could do whatever it was the relics would allow her to do in the pursuit of her endgame. Snap her fingers and wipe out half the universe, create a thousand Grimm Dragons, understand the anti-life equation, wish on the dragon balls, whatever - the point being: _Bad_ juju on an apocalyptic scale.

Worse, was that her planning for this meant one of two things, neither good. The best of the bad options was that the other three Masters were actually back on Earth, and that Aldric was the only one on Remnant. They had been given all of the necessary knowledge by Salem, and they were leaking that information to Earth such that the UN would know it and could leverage it over Remnant. Aldric liked this option because it explained how Earth would know about these things without foreknowledge, but didn't like it because that meant there were as many as three subversive elements at potentially the highest levels of government in the United Nations. The worst option, however, was that somehow Salem _already knew_ about RWBY, the show, knew that Earth had that knowledge, and had planned accordingly. Aldric liked this option because it was the easiest, it explained a lot of Salem's master strokes, and meant that all four Masters were still operating solely on Remnant, but abhorred it because that meant Salem knew as much as he did - and worse, because he was the only one on the manifest under the age of forty, and because he'd shown he'd had his finger firmly on the pulse of Earth's pop culture, that meant she may suspect him of knowing about RWBY himself, perhaps even from day _one._

In any case, Salem was ten steps ahead of everyone working against her, and Aldric had a _bad_ choice to make. He could do absolutely nothing, let the UN take what relics and information they could, he could intervene himself and potentially secure and hide one of the Relics away, meaning Salem would only ever have three, or he could instead intervene ostensibly on Salem's behalf, and give her the opportunity to secure it well ahead of schedule. The first option was the safest of all of them - it kept the status quo, but that was as good a thing as it could be a bad thing, because if Salem knew about RWBY and suspected him of knowing as well, not doing anything would do nothing to change her opinions of his loyalty; and, sure, having anywhere from one to four relics on Earth under armed guard and probably with a nuclear warhead leaning up against them as a last resort, sounded nice, but without any Huntsmen to augment these defenders, Aldric feared that any attempt by Salem to recover these relics would succeed, period. The second option would allow him to know where one relic was at all times and would allow him to directly control its location and what did or didn't defend it, and he perhaps had the best opportunities of everyone to shore up its defenses, due to his powers and his understanding that it could augment them and allow for even more vast and varied options. But it ran the risk of _anyone_ \- Legion, League, Watchmen, UN - discovering that he'd taken it and him subsequently losing the army of soldiers, allies, and informants he'd built, sending him to a place even worse than he'd been when he'd first arrived on Remnant, as _everyone_ would be hunting for him and looking for his head.

The third option sounded like suicide, plain and simple. It was _willingly_ giving an infinity stone to Thanos, _purposefully_ giving Sauron the One Ring, _knowingly_ giving Darkseid the anti-life equation; this option had him giving one fourth of literal godlike power to the one woman in the world he desperately did not want to have it. It was stupid beyond description. It was tantamount to suicide. It was hastening the apocalypse. But it gave him one major advantage he potentially couldn't get _at all_ in any other situation:

Salem's unquestioning faith in him.

Yes, he'd have to piss her and Cinder off with the whole 'better to beg forgiveness' thing, but in that situation he'd be giving a little bit of bad news before presenting what basically equated to a divine token. Whatever the case was with Salem's awareness of Earth - if she was using the Masters to influence it, or if she knew about RWBY already - and whatever her level of trust, or lackthereof, with Aldric, if he just up and _handed_ her one of the four things she wanted more than anything else on a silver platter, any questions of his loyalty would be gone in an instant. She'd distrust _Cinder_ before she did him, and that kind of faith, that kind of unflinching trust, was something he could desperately use. It afforded him an inordinate amount of breathing room in regards to other potentially subversive operations with the Watchmen, and when the time came for Vytal and for Torchwick, Taurus, and potentially even the United goddamn Nations to all openly betray and operate against her, the question of 'who could have done this' wouldn't, under any circumstance, be answered with: 'Nebo Aldric'.

There was, unfortunately, the factor of the more legitimate half of the Watchmen in all of this. Letting everything go as it would wouldn't do anything; taking it himself or letting Salem take it would put him in their crosshairs, _especially_ if he walked up to the exchange like a jackass and started killing his way to it. If he took it himself or presented it to Salem, it would have to be done in a way that didn't compromise his standing with the Watchmen. He would, in other words, have to be literally _anywhere else,_ with loads of witnesses and an ironclad alibi, when the theft went down. As well, considering the risk to UN/Remnant relations that this stunt would pose, it would have to be done when the Relic was completely in Earth's possession, and preferably when it wasn't even on Remnant anymore, meaning the attack would have to happen in the precious few hours right before it got to where it was going, such that the UN couldn't accuse Ozpin of trying to take it back.

The good news was that he had an idea for both scenarios. Were he to steal it himself, it wouldn't be difficult to fake a throat injury and have Neo take his place for the few days he'd need to track it down, take it, and hide it. Were he to allow it to be stolen, he'd just have to play Goud while it went down. The bad news was that it was the latter two scenarios that appeared far more attractive than the one where he let things handle themselves.

 _So the question..._ Thought Aldric, as he nodded to Qrow, who was rubbing at his eyes. _Is what is the most important matter? Keeping it out of her hands and risking my cover, or giving it to her and securing my cover... Basically until I throw hands at her?_

The thought did occur to him that he could combine options two and three. It wouldn't be _impossible_ to try a Xanatos Gambit, where he won regardless of the outcome. He could tell Salem and Cinder the deal was going down, let whoever they chose recover the relic, secure his alibi in the eyes of the Justice League, and then use Neo to cover for him while he went out to track down the Master that took it, kill him, and then go hide it. In a perfect world, Salem would get royally pissed and think the Master had taken it for himself and gone to ground, but in a more realistic one she would likely blame Ozpin having sent some Huntsmen to track it down, and them having somehow succeeded in doing so. Of course, the worst case scenario was that she went right back to distrusting him, perhaps even moreso than before, even with an alibi, but he wasn't fond of that option, nor did he think that would actually happen - all of the variables considered, the likeliest conclusion Salem would make would be the Ozpin one.

So that added a fourth option, but said option was monumentally more difficult than the first three, bordering on impossible. Perhaps the worst development of all of them was that Aldric knew he had all of - _right now! -_ to make that decision, because the moment he was done talking to Qrow, that was it: He was locked into _in_ decision. In the end, Aldric boiled it down to what kind of difficulty he was willing to deal with: None at all, a significant amount, a terrible amount, or a fucking terrible amount? The status quo, a monumental amount of daily paranoia added onto what he already had to grin and bear, potentially the single most explosive decision he could ever make, or _definitely_ the most explosive decision he could ever make? Fighting no one, fighting more soldiers he'd already proven he didn't have much trouble with, fighting no one again but still sentencing those soldiers to death, or fighting a fucking _Master?_

Aldric sighed.

 _Fuck._


	48. Outside Context Problem

_Chapter 47_

* * *

 _For the Record  
_

 _Jesus fucking Christ. If it isn't one thing, it's another._

 _You know, I find it simply amazing how often the standards for 'dumbest decision ever' keep getting higher for me, and subsequently how often I have to **raise** those standards. _

_Seriously, originally the dumbest thing I've ever done was try to fight a demon with a fire axe axe, a bow made out of airplane cables, and a flare gun. There was no way I could have topped that - that alone would be at the top of **anyone's** life list of idiotic things, and yet a day later I made the conscious choice to play spy for what basically equated for a doomsday cult, and holy **shit** did it snowball from there. _

_Picking a fight with a demigoddess, betraying everyone and everything I know, outright lying to everyone who trusts me, betraying my allies to gain even more, fighting an army of modern soldiers with a sword and shield, walking into a pseudo-nuclear bunker with a pistol and a police baton, bluffing the strongest man on the planet, telling my Mom that I'd done all of this, you all know as well as I that the list goes on and it only gets crazier the further it goes. Every single time I make a dumb choice, I'm always convinced it's the dumbest thing I can possibly do, and that nothing before or after could top it._

 _So now I'm not even going to bother labeling it. My next feat will be stupid beyond comprehension, and you know what? By the end of this year - no, by the end of the **week** I'm convinced I'll be doing something dumber. That was just how my fucking life works._

 _Now, you're probably wondering what the fuck I'm rambling on about now._

 _Well, I'll put it to you this way:  
My plan **was** what I said it was: To play Commander Shepard's Damage Control and visit my 'crew', as it were._

 _I got as far as Yang (my first stop), before the universe went: "Haha! No." And Qrow, plastered and drunk off his **ass,** showed up to tell me that the UN's basically going to every single motherfucking kingdom and demanding, on pain of no Earth infrastructural support (if that's even a phrase) for their rebuilding, either their Deity Brothers Relics, or failing that, the identities of their Maidens. _

_Subsequently revealing to me Salem's master stroke: She's pulling an MCU Thanos, revealing and getting out in the open **everything** she needs for victory, such that she can just one-two punch the whole goddamn world come Vytal, first by sparking another confrontation between Earth and Remnant, and then both of them and the Grimm, and then by finding every Maiden, using Cinder to absorb all of their powers, and then stealing every single one of the Relics._

 _Worst part is, with the inter-global climate she's creating, she'll be able to complete all of this in **days.** Cinder and I wouldn't even need to hunt down the Maidens - she could just send the Masters and their handlers out to find them, kick their asses, and round them all up. Then Cinder comes around, steals their power, opens up the vaults, takes the relics, and then..._

 _Well, like I said: Ever read Infinity Gauntlet?  
*Snap*._

 _So, I have a choice to make, and as per the beginning of this record, it's egregiously stupid, but let's be honest: It won't be the dumbest thing I'll do. Give it a week. Give it a **day. GIVEITAGODDAMNHOUR!**  
_

 _See, with Salem Thanos'ing everything, it occurs to me that I most likely won't go to her castle immediately after Vytal. If I'm correct, I may not go there **period** until we've killed the Maidens and obtained the four Relics... And as has been pointed out to me on numerous occasions by Torchwick, while ironclad proof may not exist, it isn't difficult to notice the coincidences in shit going wrong and my not being around when they do. Worse is that I suspect Salem of potentially knowing about RWBY, the show, and subsequently the thought may be in her head that I know about it as well, seeing as I'm the youngest guy to survive the plane crash and thus the likeliest candidate for it to be on my radar._

 _Resultantly, she may not trust me, and the hiccups I continue to introduce to her plans may lead to fullblown suspicion. So I need to either stop operating against her, which I can't do, or I need to do something that so drastically benefits her that the thought of distrusting me won't ever enter her head._

 _See, now, I could go a lot more into detail about that... But the interaction, reaction, and subsequent plan **of** action I got from Cinder invalidates a lot of the thoughts and ideas I'd originally come up with... And since I've gone to the Garden so many goddamn times now that describing the whole thing, top to bottom, like I usually do, is just asinine at this point, I'll instead just get **to** the point, because things managed to go better and worse than expected. _

_First is the simplest... In a manner of speaking: I left Neo at the hospital. Faked a throat injury and had it vetted by Deer to excuse her being mute, but before I left I gave her an experiment to run while I was gone. The long and short of **that** one is that Plan B I mentioned an entry or two back. I used the Power Glove to expedite the process a bit (since that's always given me my best results), and made a Master Sword. And a Hylian shield because it just seems wrong to only have one.  
Side note: If I remember right, the implication was that the 'choosing' the sword does was explained by Skyward Sword as being Fi, an AI-Spirit-like-thing that lives in the sword, who judges the wielder of their worthiness. Well, if that's true, she's a crafty bitch, since, because I skipped the whole 'drawing the sword from the stone' bit by just forging it from the Power Glove, she turned around and **locked** the thing in its sheath. Like, nothing I do can pull the sword out of its sheathe... And she's managed to hijack the Power Glove to boot - I can't despawn it, either proving that the Zelda Goddesses' magic is stronger than mine, or I don't have nearly as much control over my abilities as I like to think. Or both. _

_Once again: These magic powers are starting to become just as much of a source of unbridled fear as they are a wellspring of endless strength.  
I think I'm going to start keeping a periodic table on me. I figured out how to draw water vapor out of the air and fill a cup with it, but I also know I can 'feel' the particles in the air if I focus enough. So, I keep a table on me, practice enough, strictly speaking I can start messing around with atomic recombination. Go Dr. Manhattan, and not need to rely so goddamn much on my magic._

 _But regardless, at least it gives me a somewhat easy method of judging someone's worthiness: If the sword lets them unsheathe it, they must be capable of using it.  
Thus my leaving Neo with an experiment to run. I told her to go around to all of Goud's contacts and ask them to try and draw the sword, and I made it simple on her by telling her to just tell them that the 'who/what/when/where/why' is too complicated to write out, so I'd give them the details when my voice came back.  
And if they asked where 'Yuno' went, 'she's' out getting my arm fixed up._

 _So, hopefully that'll bear some fruit... Else I'm just going to put it in a chest and pitch it in a mountain and start up a legend about a magical sword. I figure that has about just as likely a chance of finding someone worthy as me giving it to a bunch of Main and Supporting Characters would._

 _After that, I slipped on some people clothes, snuck out of the hospital, and found Cinder.  
She promptly revealed to me she's a bit more savvy than Neo gives her credit for... Or she knows me too well. Because when I told her that the 'request' I'd dropped her earlier, to ask Salem what she'd think of me being a double agent for her against Ozpin was less of a request than it was a 'brace yourself' warning, she straight up said she'd pegged that was the case the moment I'd said it.  
_

 _Yeah.  
See, this should have been an omen, because me getting exactly what I wanted, once again, proved to be exactly what I didn't want, and just threw the rest of the things I'd planned on into disarray. I had to draw on so many ideas and details from so many originally disparate plans and scenarios that the resultant mess of a gameplan was an unrecognizable beast, continuing the trend of my plans never going to plan, and that not necessarily being a bad thing, because of how goddamn paranoid I'm becoming._

 _Moving on: We then proved again that we're on the same page when I offered up that I was doing it as a means of locating the Maiden as my explanation, to which she said she'd figured, or else why even do it? Given those two facts, she spun the story that way to Salem, who cleared it as a... Well, not a 'good' idea, but an idea that could work._

 _She was pissed when I mentioned I didn't know yet where Amber was.  
But that frown turned right the fuck around when I told her that I'd figured out that Beacon's relic wasn't even in Beacon at all. I fed her some more details I'd learned through the Watchmen, and then told her that the UN had demanded either the Maiden, or the Relic, and that, since the former obviously wouldn't happen, Ozpin had no choice but to agree to the latter, or forfeit Earth's help in rebuilding Vale, and that I know when and where this deal was going down._

 _Now, remember when I said that should have been an omen?  
Here's where it kicks in. Because my **plan** had been for her to basically go, 'holy shit, I need to talk to the boss', take a few days to call Salem and to set up some kind of attack on the terran convoy transporting the relic to Earth. (Side note: I bet you **money** it's going to Area 51.)  
But I failed to consider the fact that Cinder simultaneously has a superiority complex, and has been growing an **in** feriority complex as a result of the secrets Salem's been keeping from her. _

_In short: Cinder wants to prove herself as wholly trustworthy and capable to Salem, in the efforts of getting the White Witch to talk more openly, and share more of her secrets of power with her._

 _So instead of calling Salem and getting her to send a Master to do this (which would have allowed **me** to slip away from Beacon to fight and kill said Master, to take the relic), she grabbed Mercury, sent word to the White Fang to have a functioning bullhead ready for us, and now we're in Mountain Glenn, waiting for the deal to go down. _

_Again: Yeah.  
 **Yeah.  
Yeah.**_

 _All of my plans were thrown out the window. Ruined and destroyed, but simultaneously improved and legitimized.  
First: The Watchmen won't expect me to be out working against them, because Neo's taking my place and is giving me an alibi... And since the plan is to attack when it reaches Earth, there's even less chance for them to suspect me, as opposed to believing that there may be Masters on Earth feeding Salem information.  
Second: The Legion of Doom won't even remotely suspect me if something goes wrong... Because Cinder's right here to watch it all go down, and to vouch for me and my loyalty. After all: I **did** get this information, and when Cinder chose to act on it, I did provide a plan that would basically guarantee success, and alongside her and Mercury, was instrumental in said success, proving to Cinder and to Salem that there can be no question of my loyalty. I've gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the Legion's success. _

_Now, that may sound stupid beyond belief.  
And let's be honest: It is.  
Oh **god** it is.  
But as we've been sitting here in Mountain Glenn, I realized this: Since we're making the likely assumption that Salem isn't bringing anyone home until we've killed the Maidens and obtained all four Relics, had everything gone to plan, and had **I** obtained the Relic, then Salem would only have had three of the four, and the chance would have existed and perhaps had been high that, instead of recalling **everyone** to the castle, she would have instead merely appointed one person courier for the three relics she had, and made the rest of us search for the final one._

 _And since I always go with the worst-case scenarios, that basically means I'd lose my chance to reach her castle... And all else equal, when I **would** reach it, Earth and Remnant would have trashed eachother so fucking badly that I wouldn't have any of the resources I've spent the better part of the last year building up. Earth and Remnant would have torn eachother apart fighting themselves and the Grimm, and compounded with the damage **we'd** do in the hunt for the Maidens and the Relics, there would hardly be anything left for me to call on when I finally would locate Salem's Domain. _

_That would basically be **all** of my plans **gone** , right there.  
And yes, the chance exists that after months of fruitless searching, she'd recall us all to her castle so we could plan accordingly, but that still would run a heavy risk of Earth and Remnant destroying eachother in the interim.  
And, again, yes, that's the worst case scenario. I know I'm overly dramatic like that. But isn't it better to prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised by the best?_

 _Now, this does... Obviously, have one major (one might even describe it as 'existential') risk to it, in that I'm fucking **giving** Salem all four of the relics.  
But... I'm willing to bet that obtaining all of them doesn't mean instant victory for her. These are four weird-ass what-the-fucks, not six stones going in a gauntlet for a snap of the fingers - and even if they were, I'd still have all the time it would take for her to place the proverbial stones in the gauntlet and snap her fingers before defeat was inevitable. _

_In short, in doing this I will have a very... Very... Very short window in which to operate.  
Buuuuuut, I'll also have at least nine months to come up -  
_

* * *

 _"Aldric."_ He heard, whispered through the cold, late-night air.

The spy looked up from the dim screen of his tablet, an unamused expression on his face, as he stared blankly at the assassin's son, as he knelt back down behind the window he'd been looking out of. "I _just_ sat down." He whispered, leaning over to nudge Cinder.

She awoke with a brief start, before she stretched out, popping a few bones, before following Aldric's gaze to Mercury. "Are they here?"

Mercury nodded, as Aldric saved his document, killed power to the tablet, and stuffed it in his bag. "Two buildings down, a few terran cars just rolled up." He said, over the distant sounds of machinegun fire. "They're clearing out Grimm." And he nodded over his shoulder, brandishing his binoculars. "Saw a bullhead on its way, VAF colors. So I bet one of the terran rotor-wings won't be far behind."

Aldric yawned, stretching both of his arms, and picking up his gear, Cinder following suit, as Mercury took up the binoculars again and watched outside. Aldric and Cinder equipped themselves again for war, the latter sliding his new utility belt from his waist, and stripping his shirt from his back and his pants and boots from his legs. This attracted a look of utter confusion from Cinder, but Aldric paid her no heed as he dug into one of the pouches of his utility belt. There was a method to his madness, and it had everything to do with his armor - or, to be more accurate, his lack thereof.

He had, in short order, gotten sick and fucking tired of getting shot all the damn time when he went up against the terrans. His favored knightmare suit usually held its own when things got personal, but when there were thousands of guns firing on him every second, the flaws in said armor became readily apparent, very fast. Add on that he'd actually _found_ the armor before they'd left Vale's walls. The gauntlets and boots were fine enough, and he took those with him, but the chest piece had been riddled with so many bullets and bomb blasts that it was useless as anything but a really expensive paperweight. So Aldric didn't even bother bringing it with him, instead deciding he needed a replacement, which he now pulled out of his belt.

Aldric sensed Cinder watching him, wearing an expression of both confusion and rapt fascination as Aldric opened up one of the pouches and pulled out a small glass vial, inside of which was a small throwing-star with a light blue center, and an indistinct object sitting next to it. Clad only in his skivvies, Aldric held the vial up to what meager moonlight was penetrating through the ill-maintained, abandoned building, frowning at it and giving it a few shakes, the liquid inside the throwing star's center briefly appearing cyan as the pale moonlight shone through it, before he shrugged, clenched the vial in his fist, and then crushed it in his hand. Cinder heard the muffled sound of glass breaking, and then in a blink of an eye, where once Aldric's hand was empty, now there was a bodysuit that rattled and clinked, almost like chainmail.

Aldric grabbed the shoulders of the suit and held it up, twisting it around and examining it in the low light. This wasn't a can of fish he had wanted to open, but it was so low on the list of nuclear options that it straddled the line of not being one in the first place. Add on that Aldric had been expecting an imminent duel with a Master, and an eventual fight to the death with Cinder and after her, Salem, he'd known he'd need an exponential leap in his defensive abilities. He knew, as he slid the suit on, that it wouldn't be perfect; Vibranium could absorb all the physical force it wanted, but there were far more instances of the Panther's suit being cut through than there were examples of Cap's shield getting broken, but this would offer him a whole hell of a lot more protection against gunfire and massive numbers than his previous set of armor.

And it was far easier than he would have thought to wear a Black Panther suit underneath his usual attire, compared to the armor he'd gotten from the Garden, which was bulkier and harder to hide. From the neck down, so long as he wore the knightmare gauntlets over his hands and adopted long sleeve shirts, it wouldn't even be possible to tell he had it on in the first place.

"Care to explain?" Aldric heard Cinder whisper, as he adjusted the fit of the arms, finding that the suit breathed a lot more than one would think, looking at it.

Aldric turned to look at her, and he saw her appraising the suit, an eyebrow arced and the ghost of her previous confused and fascinated expression still on her face. So he grinned, "oh, I was the first to eat my fuckin' words when Ant Man came out. Thought it would be ridiculous but it turned out to be awesome. So I commited a grievous sin and combined Marvel and DC." He nudged the belt with his foot, "Batman's utility belt, Ant Man's Pym Particles... Turns what was already something that could hold a minor arsenal into something that could hold a fully-stocked _armory."_ He did, indeed, have a small chunk of kryptonite in the belt - a fact of which he was very proud of.

Cinder nodded to the side, "I was going to ask about that next, but my curiosity was directed first towards the suit. I never would have thought you would wear chain mail."

Aldric grinned, "you know that magic metal my shield's made out of?" She nodded, and he patted his chest with a light 'tink tink'. "This is made of the same stuff."

"And you're choosing... Just now... To wear it." She deadpanned, as Aldric slid his pants back on. "As opposed to _any_ time before today."

Aldric wagged a gloved finger, "ah, but! Realize that I haven't really had a _chance_ to put it on before now. Yeah I've been stocking the belt since I made it to Beacon, but the invasion came so fast that I had to make due with the knightmare look. Add on that I have no way of explaining the goodies in the belt, I had to choose to go for my weapons, things Goud Etiolate had a precedent for, instead of it when they showed up." He explained, now sliding on his boots and outer leg armor. "Then there was the shit with Xiao Long and the _boat..._ This is the first chance I've _had_ to put it on."

Cinder nodded to the side, as she picked up Kylo Ren's lightsaber. "And... Did it not come with head protection?" She asked, as Aldric slid his shirt over his head, and then grabbed his longcoat.

"Lady, I do a lot of stupid shit, but there is indeed a line I won't cross, and running around in a cat mask crosses that line." And wearing the helmet, even in combat, kind of defeated the purpose of wearing all of his clothes over the armor: It was a dead giveaway that he was packing more than just a few plates here and there.

She blinked, "a _cat_ mask?"

"Comic books, Hot Stuff. If you value your sanity, don't." He grunted, fitting his gauntlets on each of his hands, and then bending down to grab his sword and pistol. "I'm looking into replacements, but until then..." He kicked at the red, white, and blue discus leaned against the wall, his foot bouncing off of it with a light twang. "I'll stick to Old Glory here."

Cinder scoffed, as she clipped her hilt to her belt. "You named it?"

"Well, 'Captain America's Shield' is a mouthful, and the girls have been pestering Goud _day and fucking night_ to give his weapons better names." Aldric responded, hanging the shield in question from his back. "Haven't told them what I've settled on, yet. At this point it's a game, and if he gives in, he loses."

"If you clearly didn't get results, I'd be worried about you." Cinder murmured, shaking her head, but with a wistful smile, as the two approached Mercury. "Have they arrived?"

"Bullhead landed." Mercury responded, as the two knelt down. "I think - yup, Rotor-wing's coming in. Took the long way around..." He said, as he pulled a few more pairs of binoculars out of his own bag, and placed them on the ground. "Probably means they're going to take an even longer way _out,_ to throw off potential tails." He hummed, "or... They'll be transporting it by ground, explaining those cars."

Aldric picked up the binoculars and knelt down, coat pooling around his legs as he peered down in the same direction as Mecury, Cinder doing the same. "Would make sense... We can be pretty fucking thorough when it comes to throwing off spies." Aldric responded. "Back before World War Two, the Nazis stuffed everything they needed to rebuild their armies, tanks, and planes inside buildings that looked like schools and libraries. Few years later, I think it was where they were researching the atomic bomb, the US disguised the entire facility by literally hanging giant canopies over it that, from the air, made it look like it was a residential neighborhood. Even hired people to ride bikes across it."

"How do you _know_ that?" Mercury grumbled.

"They're very thorough." Cinder complimented, an impressed look on her face as she too looked down at the landed bullhead and the several humvees forming a perimeter.

"Psychology class, of all things, and that's not even the half of it. We disguised the greatest land invasion in history by throwing a bunch of false plans over the radio, and then inflating hundreds of thousands of balloons to look like tanks, jeeps, and artillery, such that when they were seen from the air, it looked like we were going to invade thousands of miles north from where we intended to." Aldric always wondered how that must have gone down, a straight-faced military General looking another straight-faced military General in the eye and suggesting they blow up a bunch of balloon tanks to throw off the Nazis. "Even had one of the greatest and most decorated Generals of the time overseeing the whole thing, to give it added effect."

"You people are fucking crazy." Mercury scoffed.

"Dude." Aldric grunted, " _my_ plan to find the Fall Maiden's comatose half-corpse was to straight up tell our mortal enemy that I'm working for _his_ mortal enemy, and daring him to do something about it." Aldric found it thoroughly entertaining, as well as pretty fucking scary, how everyone he dealt with knew he was spying on them for someone else now, even Cinder and the Legion of Doom. Literally the scenario he feared the worst was now a reality, and somehow that was perfectly fine.

"My point."

"And his." Cinder added, as she looked up into the air. "There's the rotor-wing... Three o'clock."

Aldric looked up into the dark night sky, and grunted in affirmation: Out in the distance he could see the faint red and green lights of a helicopter, slowly growing more distinct as it grew closer. Eventually the sound of its wings spinning and beating at the air grew audible, and when it came in for a landing, Aldric saw several soldiers from the humvees dismount and form a secondary perimeter, outside the first, while every other turret gunner turned their guns inward, as the bullhead opened up. Out came Ozpin, in whose hand was a thick cuboid case, then Qrow, Goodwitch, Port and Oobleck, and then finally -

Aldric blinked, "huh..." He wondered if he should have seen this one coming.

"What?" Cinder asked.

"Blondie stepping out of the pilot's seat." Aldric grunted, "that's Rose and Xiao Long's father. Showed me a picture, pretty certain it's the same guy." He said, as Taiyang stepped out of the bullhead, sliding on a pair of gauntlets, their brass knuckles shining in the moonlight.

"Why would he call on a _retired_ huntsman?" Cinder asked.

"Long and short of it is because Rose's mother also had silver eyes, Ozpin back then let them get away with a _lot_ of shit." Aldric explained, "so he's in the loop, so to speak. Knows about Ozpin being the original Master, knows Qrow and his sister can turn into birds, whole nine yards. Ozpin probably plucked him out of Patch because he needed bodies, and he couldn't just _drain_ Beacon of all of its staff." Though he did wonder who was running things with them gone.

"And he just... _Told_ you all of that." Mercury wondered, arcing an eyebrow, as the Justice League assembled in front of their bullhead, and Agent Coulson, as well as a cadre of special forces soldiers, dismounted their helicopter.

"Once I told him I was from Earth, and we established that he was too, he started letting a lot slip." Aldric explained, "and... You know: He may have trusted me a bit more after I none-too-subtly left him a letter telling him to send someone to check out Dust 'till Dawn."

"Oh you _dick."_ Mercury whispered, struggling to hold back a laugh.

Aldric shrugged, "I needed to set a precedent. So I broke into Beacon and left him a note, told him that something may go down at this location, and then after the exams, I walked up as Goud and told him I was the 'Aldric' that had left the note. Lent some credibility to me, and convinced him to hold off on smiting me right then and there."

"And what if we'd been caught?" Cinder inquired, coolly.

"Are you seriously saying you would've let a fifteen year old girl and a telekinetic catch you?" Aldric asked, as the two groups began advancing on each other in tandem, the turrets ringing them tracing their every movement.

"Point." Cinder conceded.

They let silence wash over them as they watched the UN and the League exchange words. All of the League seemed apprehensive about what they were about to do, none moreso than Ozpin, who, after some prodding by Coulson, presented the case to them, and opened it up. All three of them leaned a little forward, focusing on the case. Inside was a large, lantern-like object, covered in ornate gold plates, its center glowing with a light yellow hue.

 _Well... It ain't an infinity stone, but it might as well be._ "One down." Aldric murmured, as he shifted his gaze over to Coulson, who produced a small, fork-like device from his coat, and approached Ozpin.

Coulson hovered the device over the relic for a few moments, turning down to his phone and waiting for something. After a brief amount of time passed, he nodded, seemingly satisfied with what his phone had shown him. He slid his phone into his pocket and the fork-thing in his jacket, exchanging more words with Ozpin as the Headmaster closed the case. Ozpin clenched his jaw and pursed his lips, grip on the case tightening for a moment, clearly unwilling to relinquish it, but knowing well and good that he had to, else risk something potentially even worse than what he courted by giving it to the terrans. So he handed it to Coulson, who accepted it gingerly with both hands. He nodded once to Ozpin, bowing his head briefly, before Ozpin did the same, and they each, in unison, backed away towards their respective modes of transport.

"Alright... Now's my only shot." Aldric grunted, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal bead. "Now, you're _sure_ this thing'll work on Earth?"

"For the thousandth time, _yes._ Doesn't need CCT connection, and as long as we're in fifty miles we'll get its signal." Mercury said, exasperatedly.

"Just making sure." Aldric huffed, picking the bead up with his semblance, taking a moment to aim, and then hucking it as hard as he could at the helicopter.

By the time the little device reached the helicopter, its blades had begun spinning up again, masking the noise of impact. As Aldric watched Coulson and his guards board their aircraft, he sensed Mercury retrieve his scroll and turn it on. After a moment, he nodded, confirming that their tracker was working like they wanted it to. The helicopter, however, didn't move for ten long minutes, its occupants no-doubt waiting until the indigenous of the planet had long since flown away.

Aldric and the Legion then watched the helicopter finally take off and rise into the air, flying in the direction opposite of Ozpin's airship. Cinder was the first to step away, nodding as she did so, and returning to her pile of belongings to finish packing them up. Mercury was the second, leaving after the helicopter reached the distant border of Mountain Glenn, but Aldric kept watching, as it shrank so small and went so far that all he could see was its faint lights, glowing in the darkness.

 _I wonder how they intend to get our airship through the wormhole._ Aldric wondered, as a loud clap of thunder echoed throughout the air, briefly preceeded by a distant lightning strike. _Sure, it'll fly through just fine, but have they considered -_ Aldric blinked when he witnessed a brief, orange blume in the same direction as the helicopter.

He blinked again.

Had he seen that right?

"Uh..." He leaned back, calling out over his shoulder. "Hey, ah, Merc... Can you check your scroll again?"

"Aldric, man, stop asking - it _works!"_

"Is it explosion proof?" Aldric asked, in a bewildered tone. "Because I doubt it's explosion proof." A beat, "but if it _is_ explosion proof... Then my next question is for Cinder... Hey Hot Stuff - _"_

"What the _fuck?!"_ Aldric heard Mercury call out, sensing him glaring at his scroll, as Aldric peered down and saw the humvees taking off in the direction of the explosion, tires squealing.

"I guess that answers that, then." Aldric nodded, getting to his feet.

"What happened?!" Cinder demanded, as Aldric turned to her and Mercury.

"Tracker's offline!" Mercury barked.

"Probably because the helicopter exploded." Aldric deadpanned, sliding his hands into his coat, lips pursed and eyes wide in an expression of dull surprise and shock.

Cinder turned to him, "why did it explode? We saw Ozpin leave, and he wouldn't risk attacking them. Not on Remnant, not where he'd anger _your_ world."

Aldric agreed, but felt that was besides the point. "Well that seems unavoidable now, but if it wasn't Ozpin, and the Big Boss doesn't know about it..." He trailed off, giving Cinder an expectant glance.

She blinked, then realized what he was getting at, and shook his head. "No. She may be keeping secrets, but this isn't one of them, it never was, and I'm sure of it. She doesn't know, else she would have told us to act, or told us to refrain. This has to be someone else." She shut her eyes, bowing her head and clenching the bridge of her nose in thought. The half-Maiden stood there, in that pose, for several seconds, before nodding, hair bobbing up and down with her head. "Whatever the case may be, we must assume that whoever destroyed that vehicle knew about the Relic. We need to recover it before they do, capture them if we can, or kill them if we can't."

Aldric found that there was little he could do in this situation but agree, this had come so far out of left field that he'd believe any explanation if it was offered to him - he'd believe the hand of god struck down that helicopter.

But there was one thing he couldn't help but point out, "so, even if we give it the best possible estimate and say that was about... Thirty miles away, that helicopter went down thirty miles outside of Mountain Glenn, which itself is literally on the border of Vale." He explained, " _someone's_ going to have seen that happen. Be it Ozpin, the UN, or just some bumble-fuck Huntsman. That poses a problem any way you look at it... For me, because if any of them show up and ID me, they'll ask questions I don't want to answer, and for you two, because half of the point of you staying underground all this time was to not be ID'ed before Vytal."

Cinder looked thoughtful, nodding along as he spoke. Aldric watched as her eyes were lit aglow by the power she'd stolen, and with a flick of her hands, three masquerade masks appeared in them. Aldric gave her a look that said everything it needed to, and after a moment, she reciprocated with a tilted head. "What?"

"Lady do you think no one will be able to identify you because they can't see your cheekbones?" Aldric deadpanned, reaching for one of the rear pouches on his belt.

"Gotta admit, I agree with him." Mercury opined, as he stood up, his bags packed. "Easiest way to identify someone is through their face, but even if they obscure it there are other ways. Gait, body shape, weight, build, fighting style... You obscure a face and someone good will unconsciously start paying attention to those things." He nodded to the masks in Cinder's hands. "You only obscure _part_ of a face, and they'll have even more to commit to memory: Hair, eye color, facial structure... And with those ones specifically, it's not difficult to imagine what one would look like _under_ that mask. It's why Adam Taurus makes most everyone else wear bulkier or full-Grimm masks."

Cinder frowned, "but he himself wears a half-mask."

"He's also pretty into symbolism. Knows how to work a crowd. He does it on purpose, to obscure his identity, to make himself into a symbol, and to flaunt his mortality." Mercury continued, with a wave of his hand. "Point is, if you want a mask, you want to go big or go home, and then you'll want to pretty much do what Aldric's doing."

Aldric blinked, turning to Mercury with an exaggerated expression of surprise. "The fuck am _I_ doing?"

"You wear baggy, bulky clothes. The armor you usually run with, and that coat over it - they all obscure your build. You put on a mask, and maybe some platform shoes... Or even cheat a little and wear pants two sizes too big and just _float_ , with some boots hanging there, you'd be able to keep yourself hidden from most everyone that doesn't get paid in coins."

"It suddenly occurs to me this might be why Neo's good at what she does: She can skip the whole middleman." Aldric nodded, impressed, and filing that away for later. "And it also worries me: Now I'm wondering if she hasn't been stocking me all this time and I just didn't know about it."

"Probably." Mercury nodded, not even hiding his smirk. "Ever since Torchwick retreated to the Garden she's been gone more than she hasn't."

 _Hm..._ Despite the curiosity of the reveal, Aldric put on a terrified expression, as his free hand slowly went to cover his groin. "Mercury, I'm scared."

"Focus." Cinder cut through their conversation, "that means Aldric is covered, but -" She trailed off when, off in the distance, gunfire, loud thunder, and explosions could be heard.

 _So maybe not thirty miles._ Aldric thought, though he wasn't fully certain how far and how fast sound could travel, especially given all of the variables present. "Alright, let's just play it this way." Aldric pulled out a thumb-sized vial from one of the rear pouches on his vest, "get rid of your dress." He nodded to Cinder, "and... I dunno. You've got the best mind for this stuff." He said, crushing the vial, and having the pile of clothes inside of it expand to regular size, before he turned his back to let them change, making for the window, frowning out as he could see in the distance the fighting going on.

 _Must have some kind of electricity semblance..._ Aldric thought, watching lightning gathering around the sky and jumping to the ground far too frequently to be natural. _Who the hell could it be, though? The only person I could think would be Raven, but she operates out of Mistral, and she had to be **prompted** to go out and hunt for relics. She can't have done this on her own, and I'll say I believe Cinder when she says Salem didn't know about this,_ _either._ Else why would she jump straight to the 'let's take it' solution? _So let's assume this isn't anyone I'm familiar with._ Aldric felt his heard drop. _That means there's two solutions: This is either a Huntsman with really good connections, or perhaps acting on Ozpin's behalf, plausible deniability-style, or..._ He sighed. _Or some country on Earth, involved in this exchange, woke up a Master and directed them to sabotage this, and take the relic for themselves._ God _damn_ they didn't wait long to get started on that, now did they?

Either way he looked at it, though, Aldric was in for a bad fight. The last time he'd fought a full-fledged Huntsman, he'd lost both eyes and his arm. Last time he'd fought someone with magic, he'd lost both eyes and his arm.

After a few minutes passed, Mercury and Cinder were changed and ready to go. The former did little to change his usual attire, simply adding a jacket and ripping up a shirt to use as a makeshift shemagh. The latter came out in a set of BDU pants and a sweatshirt, its hood pulled tight over her head, with a bandanna tied over the lower half of her face, and her favored masquerade mask shielding the upper half.

Aldric grinned, "you two look you came out of Mad Max." He said, throwing one of the Pym Disks at the pile of clothes, shrinking it down, and then gathering it back up in a vial.

"You haven't put on a mask." Mercury pointed out.

That was a fair point, Aldric considered, as he stuffed the vial back in the belt. He couldn't use the Nathan Drake mask - not only because he didn't want to let them see it, but because he was pretty sure he'd up and lost it during the fighting for Vale. He had _no_ idea where it was. The Face Camo had taken one too many hits during his fighting in Atlas, and that was another rabbit he didn't want to pull out of the hat in front of these two. It wouldn't be impossible for him to copy these two and just tear up some clothes and tie them around his face, but with his luck, they'd get torn right off the moment the fighting got good, so he'd need an actual _mask._

Which meant using more magic to make one.

He was getting real sick of how much of a crutch those powers were becoming, he'd made the damn belt to _avoid_ having to magic-up a solution to every problem.

He nodded once, "alright, I've got an idea." He said, deciding he should probably go with as great utility with this thing as he could. His head was one of the more irreplaceable parts of his body, after all - so he'd want something that could take a hit from pretty much anything on Earth or Remnant, including the things he'd made, chief among them being the lightsaber. Of the weapons currently on the field, the three lightsabers floating around were the most dangerous, and while he had a little faith the Black Panther suit could fend that kind of heat off for a few seconds, he wasn't going to bet his head on that. Good news, though, was that he knew for a fact there existed a lightsaber-resistant metal, straight from it's setting, to boot.

So, Aldric held out both hands, and with a pulse of his powers, what once was empty space between them, now was nestled a helmet, of black and red metal, with a T-shaped visor.

 _Still a little ridiculous..._ Thought Aldric, twisting the helmet around in his hands and then lifting it over his head. _But I'd bet on Darth Revan over Black Panther any day._ Settling it on his head, he found himself surprised that, even without his Radar, he could see perfectly. The moment it touched his head, a Heads Up Display booted up, and where initially all he could see out of was the T-shaped visor, the moment the HUD finished initializing, it was as though he wasn't wearing anything at all. _Least it's better than Kylo Ren's mask._

He nodded once, turning to the two of them. "Get it out of the way." He said, sliding his hands back in his coat.

"You stood there, making fun of us, and in the next breath you -"

"Come on." Cinder cut through, waving her hand and then stepping towards the window, peering outside and seeing the distant fighting still going on. "We've likely little time."

Aldric and Mercury nodded, and soon they abandoned their building to race for the crash site. Some theories about who the attacker were and who they represented were presented, but both of them essentially mirror images of each other: That this was meant to be seen as a rogue element, separate from Ozpin or the UN, such that either side could claim to have lost the Relic in its entirety, and as such no questions would or could be asked of its location, and their possession of it would remain secret. Neither option made sense to Aldric, though - the UN _had_ the damn thing, and Aldric had _seen_ Coulson get into the helicopter, there was no way he could fake that dead; and Ozpin wouldn't risk damaging the Relic like that.

So, with little time and even less to go on, the three of them raced for the crash site. They found themselves in a rocky, arid land that Aldric was willing to swear looked as though it had been ripped out of Dragonball. They peaked one particularly high hill and came to a halt as, in the distance, they saw not just the aftermath of a helicopter crash, but the last shots of a _war._ The helicopter appeared to have been split in two from the tail, and all of the humvees and soldiers were dead or dying - some appearing scorched and burned, as though struck by lightning, and others appearing as though they'd been flattened or torn to pieces.

And in the center of the chaos stood a lone man, observing his handiwork, not even out of breath.

He didn't even turn to them as the Legion sprinted towards him. Aldric frowned on approach, as he found that he could _only_ see the man. His Radar didn't appear to be working like it should. He could see the heavy armor hanging from the man's shoulders, the winged helmet obscuring his face, and the cloak-like raiment covering his torso and back, but he couldn't see anything under that. He couldn't see the man's face or his eyes, he couldn't look under the armor to get a look at his chest, he couldn't see any of it.

 _Yup..._ Aldric sighed. _Master._ The UN had gone and fucking did it: Made a living weapon of mass destruction. Either Coulson had been bullshitting him, or, more likely considering he was dead, someone had gone off the reservation to make it happen.

But either way: They were in a _bad_ spot.

Cinder seemed to be somewhat aware of this, and as the three of them came to a stop, she called out over the howling winds and the deep thunder, _"Who are you?!"_

The Master looked over his shoulder, scowling as he took in the group. Then he about-faced, turning to face them completely. With a large sweep of his hand, he threw uncovered his torso and revealed the armor underneath it, as he scowled at them. Aldric's frown lessened as he watched the man hold his hand out in the direction of the helicopter; the younger of the two Masters couldn't make heads or tails of what the older of the two was doing.

But then, stealing his attention, was the sound of groaning, grinding, and shifting metal, coming from the helicopter, and he could sense what it was that was causing the noise. A block of iron at the end of a short haft, jerking from side to side, trying to pry itself out of the mass of twisted and warped metal, answerin the call of its master.

Aldric felt his heart sink, as the last piece of that puzzle fell into place. This guy was a Master, and like Aldric, he was from Earth, and _like Aldric,_ that meant his powers worked based off of his own perceptions, and add on the fact that he most likely already knew the nature of his powers from the word 'go' due to direct access to Rooster Teeth's information. Then there was the fact that this guy had a mission, and unlike Aldric, had no compunction to hold back, no fear for what would happen if he granted himself godlike power.

Add in the armor, the helmet, the cape, and now the motherfucking _hammer?_

They were so fucked.

"You two need to be ready..." He breathed, attracting the gazes of both of his turned to him.

The half-Maiden turned to him, frowning, and asked, "why?"

Aldric swallowed dryly. "Whosoever holds this hammer..." He rumbled, voice wavering and broadcast out of his mask. "If he be worthy..." It blasted out of the helicopter, hurtling through the air with the sound of lightly humming metal, before coming to a halt in the man's hand. "Shall wield the power of Thor."


	49. Ragnarok

Chapter 48

* * *

"Who the fuck is _Thor?!"_

The Master, perhaps now only able to be known by the moniker he'd conquered from the weapon he wielded, was the first to respond - rearing his strong arm and, with a loud grunt, heaving it with all of his strength. Mercury's head snapped back to the hammer, already halfway towards him; he leapt out of the way, but even that instinctual reaction took too long, the hammer slamming into his shoulder and sending him tumbling through the air, as it sailed straight on by. Cinder watched with wide eyes as the hammer slowed to a halt, mid-air, and then reverse course, careening right back to 'Thor's' hand. Her attention was then stolen by a _zhoom!_ coming from her side, and she turned to see Aldric gripping tightly another weapon from another world, and though she couldn't see it, his eyes were wide and his jaw clenched, his mind racing, because they, in a word, were _not_ prepared for something like this.

While technically not _him,_ because this man had the hammer, that meant he had all of the powers of Marvel's Thor, and while good for him, that was exceedingly bad for Aldric and the Legion. They had an assassin, a _half-_ Maiden, and a Master who both feared and lacked full control over his powers, going up against _Thor._ This was a character who could box the Incredible Hulk, who had been thrown through suns, and fought _literal Gods,_ big 'G' and all, and _won!_

Worse was that he was pretty sure he didn't have much that _could_ hurt this man - not without breaking into some of the higher-end nuclear deterrents, which was a genie he couldn't put back into the bottle, especially not around Cinder. Even worse, and perhaps worst of all, however, was that either way he looked at it, this man holding Mjolnir was in and of itself a bad thing - he'd either summoned the 'Unworthy' Mjolnir, which meant that literally anyone could walk up and pick it up should he die, and the problem would repeat itself, or he'd summoned the _actual_ Mjolnir, and his swinging the fucking thing around meant he was worthy of it.

And here Aldric and co. were, trying to kill him. What'd _that_ say?

The masked Master and Maiden exchanged glances, the latter seeming to realize from the former's countenance that the situation had gone from bad to _dire._ She nodded once, eyes narrowing from behind her masquerade mask, before she turned back to Thor, her own saber appearing in her hand and igniting with the sound of a plasma torch sparking to life. The red light from her blade, and the blue from Aldric's, met in between the two to create a purple glow that reflected in the young Master's circular shield, and the elder Master's winged helmet.

There was a single long, arduous moment of a nothingness, a silence, a calm before the storm and the brief moment before every battle where the entire universe seemed to hold its breath. It ended with the passing of an eternity, the blink of an eye, and a clap of thunder.

 _"Scatter!"_ Aldric shouted, as he ducked behind his shield, Cinder leapt to the side, Mercury dove away, and lightning dropped from the sky and struck the master.

The lightning arced down from the Master's head, to his arm, to the hammer in his hand, before he thrust the mighty weapon forward, and the lightning he'd summoned blasted forth, charging through the air and right into Aldric's shield. It collided with the discus and rebounded with a sound reminiscent of an electric guitar. Despite it being functionally impossible, the lightning felt as though it had some kind of physical force to it, and Aldric found himself being pushed back, inch by inch, but Cinder took advantage of the Master's distraction, charging him, her bright red blade held low and angled up. As Aldric tried pushing against the lightning, struggling to take each step, Cinder reached the Master, and stabbed upwards.

In the blink of an eye, the lightning was cut off and the Master heaved the hammer in a downward arc, almost appearing as a blacksmith tempering a blade, as his hammer collided with Cinder's sword. Sparks flew and Cinder spun around, recovering her footing and attempting to cleave the Master in two with an upward slice - only to have him bat aside her serrated lightsaber with another zap and another shower of sparks. Cinder took the weapon in two hands and pressed the attack, swinging up and down, left and right, at angles that looked impossible for a human to make, and every time the Master responded in kind, his entire body moving with every swing of the hammer. It appeared all Cinder could do just to hold his attention - as neither she nor he moved an inch in any direction.

So, to act as a force multiplier, Aldric charged in, teeth bared behind his helmet. He leapt into the fray and chopped at the Master with the side of his shield; the Master took the blow to his cheek and stumbled back a step, having to move quickly as Cinder stabbed at his ribs. His upward swing to defend her blade, however, left him open to an attack from Aldric, who whipped it from side to side, to try and burn off his legs. The Master, however, used the momentum of the hammer to pull himself out of Aldric's range and to briefly stun the two. He raised his hammer for another attack, but Mercury came sprinting back in, slamming his cybernetic foot into the Master's back and sending him stumbling right back to Aldric and Cinder.

The Master recovered quickly enough from this, swinging his hammer in a wide arc and forcing Aldric and Cinder to back off or take the hit. He regained his footing, only to lose it again when Mercury followed up his first attack with a second, even more powerful kick to the back of his knees. Strong as he was due to the hammer's magic, the Master couldn't disobey simple physics - and having one of his knees bent and his balance thrown off was enough to send him stumbling to the ground. He, however, took this in stride, and instead of throwing his hands out to catch his fall, he brought the hammer down on the rocky ground, slamming it into the earth and causing it to quake, crack, and splinter as he formed a great crater around him.

The Legion had to struggle to keep their footing, as the hammer buried itself several inches in the heaving ground. The Master's head snapped up, hidden eyes locking onto Cinder, mouth curled up and teeth bared in rage. He tore the hammer from the ground, flinging it in Aldric's direction and forcing him to crouch below his shield to avoid being pelted by it. The Master then reared his hammer and prepared to throw - only for Mercury to leap onto his back, grabbing his strong arm with both hands and repeatedly slamming his heels into the man's back, each impact preceding the sound of a gunshot and a grunt of effort and pain from him and the Master, respectively.

Before Cinder could charge or Aldric could straighten up, the Master bodily hauled Mercury over his head, slamming him onto the ground with a loud 'oof' and knocking the wind out of the assassin's son. This jarred his arm from the young man's grip, and, now freed, he swung the hammer down in a powerful arc, aimed right for Mercury's head. Mercury, however, found himself pulled by an otherworldly force and was slid out of the way of the hammer, which again buried itself in the ground, deeper than the first time. Mercury shot a quick glance Aldric's way, and saw him reactivating his lightsaber and lowering his hand, having pulled him out with his semblance. The two shared a nod as Mercury leapt back to his feet and the three of them charged as one.

Aldric and Cinder hit the Master from the front, the latter swinging her lightsaber from the left, the former, from the right. The Master deflected one of them but found the other locked to the hammer's haft. Cinder used the man's own strength, the hammer's weight, and both of their momentum against him, and forced the hammer back to the ground, holding it there as Aldric slammed his own blade onto the hammer and joined her. The both of them using all of their might to keep the hammer immobilized, Mercury hopped into the air and roundhoused the Master in the side of the head, whipping it towards Aldric, who then pounded it back to Mercury with a punch from his shield. Mercury grabbed the Master with both hands and slammed his metal knee into the back of the man's helmeted head, before pushing him to Cinder, who removed one hand from her lightsaber in order to latch it onto the Master. She roared out as her hand and her eye were both lit aglow, trying to fry him.

The Master's grunts of pain lasted for all of two seconds before another lightning bolt surged down from the heavens, slamming into him and sending the Legion flying back, scattering them to the winds and leaving him unaccosted. He got to his feet with slow, purposeful steps, each breath coming in great, angry heaves, as he looked from Cinder, to Aldric, and then over his shoulder to Mercury.

 ** _"My -_** " But he was interrupted by the sensation of something coiling around his throat and blocking his windpipe.

The Master clenched his throat, trying to pull the invisible garrot wire away, only to find nothing there. Cinder looked from him, to Aldric, who was on his knees, bracing himself against the ground with one hand, and holding the other one aloft, lightsaber cold and held in his hand only by two fingers, while the other three were extended and pointed right at the Master.

 _"Go!"_ Aldric grunted, chest clenched tight. _"Go!"_

Cinder didn't need anymore prompting, she grabbed her still-lit blade and charged the Master. He tried to make the choice to ignore Aldric's attempts to choke him, but again Mercury leapt on his back - now using his cybernetic limbs to lock his strong arm in place. Immobilized and partially disarmed, all the Master could do was raise his free hand in a vain attempt to defend himself, as Cinder reached him and jabbed her serrated red blade forward in a precise stab. The tip of the blade rammed into the man's hand -

And stopped fast.

The tip of her blade rammed into the palm of the Master's hand and dug into it, grinding against it with the sound of plasma grinding against steel, but lacking the sight of red carving through skin or the smell of fire roasting flesh. Cinder braced both feet behind her and pressed harder - pushing the back of the Master's hand to his chest as he fell back a step. She slowly began to push closer and closer to the Master's hand, the tip flattening out, the plasma spraying out in all directions like a star, the blade growing shorter, the hilt grew closer, and her pushing harder - but none of this changed: The man remained unharmed, unburned, and untouched.

The Master, breathing heavily, slowly leveled his gaze on the half-Maiden, his expression growing furious and livid, face wrinkling and turning red.

 _ **"- turn!"**_ He croaked, before once again bodily hauling Mercury over his head - only this time, instead of slamming him onto the ground, he twisted his arm around and rammed his flank onto Cinder's bright red blade.

 _Then_ the air was filled with what had been missing just a moment before: The sound of flesh sizzling, the smell of it burning, and the chorus of a man's screams of pain. But instead of coming from the Master, it came from the assassin's son, as the blade dug halfway into his flank, before the Master tore him off of it and threw him off to the side. Now with his arm free, he brought it around again and slammed the hammer into Cinder, who barely ripped her blade away from the man's hand to intercept the attack. It absorbed some of the force, but couldn't have taken all of it, and she still went flying. Now with one enemy briefly incapacitated and the other having had a chunk boiled off of his body, the Master turned to Aldric, still desperately trying to keep his windpipe closed and praying he'd lose consciousness before the inevitable.

Considering the lights flashing in the sky, and the thunder accompanying them, Aldric was pretty fucking sure that wouldn't happen.

He dove out of the way of another blast of lightning, having to let go of the Master's throat as a result.

Now fully uninhibited, the Master dashed over to Aldric, making it to him just as he landed on the ground. Aldric had to roll out of the way of the hammer, but couldn't dodge the shower of rocks and debris that was thrown at him when it was torn out of the ground. Aldric's new armor took most of the attacks for him, but as he felt some of the heavier rocks land on him and not fall off, he was starting to realize that, as good as it was, it had a major weakness he'd never considered: It was moldable. Compressible. It could absorb vibrations and deflect physical force all day long, it could take all the punches from the Hulk that it wanted, but it was functionally, _only_ a suit of magical chain mail. It wasn't firm like his shield - if something had more weight or more momentum than he did, nothing on earth would stop it from flattening against him, and nothing proved this faster than when, on his second roll, when he rolled onto his back, the Master was above him - and the hammer was coming down.

It smashed into his chest.

The armor did its job: Aldric didn't feel the impact.

But the hammer's wielder had him beat in physical strength, the hammer itself had him beet in sheer mass, and Aldric's back was pressed against the ground.

Everything was stacked against him in this, and when that hammer hit, the armor absorbed the initial impact, but the hammer kept going, pressed down by forces of gravity and muscle. For the first inch, Aldric didn't feel anything but a pressure against his chest. For the second inch, Aldric's head snapped up, wide eyes locked onto the helmeted, masked face of the Master above him.

Then he felt the first rib snap, skipping right over fracturing and going straight into just snapping like a twig. After the first, then came a second, and a third, and then the worst pain in his life, as he felt his sternum break into pieces. The air was instantly pushed from his lungs and Aldric was barely even able to gurgle in pain, his chest caving in as though he'd come out of a Dragonball Z fight. This lasted for the longest two seconds of his life, before the Master brought the hammer back up, the only reason he wasn't as flat as a pancake being that he intended for a second strike.

Aldric didn't give it to him, using his semblance to call his shield back to his arm and then cowering beneath it, but that was only his backup plan - his first option came from him planting his foot so far into the Master's groin that his grandchildren could've felt it. He used his semblance to make the impact as hard as he could, and then used it again to throw the Master off of his feet and send him tumbling back to his rear.

Coughing, wheezing, gasping for air, his entire chest feeling like it was made of twigs and playdough, Aldric rolled over onto his hands and knees and then pushed himself to his feet, sensing Cinder rushing past him. He made a blind grab for her, to try and stop her, but missed - and thus had to watch as she reengaged the Master.

She slashed at him with a vicious two-handed swing, it hit his chest as he struggled back to his feet, but merely grinded across it, scorching his armor but doing little else. The Master thrust forward, pounding his hammer into Cinder's chest and forcing her back several steps. He scrambled to his feet, but found himself blasted by a bolt of lightning. It had just as much effect as the lightsaber, perhaps even less so - because he stopped, tilted his head, then turned around to face Cinder, his scrunched up, incredulous expression saying 'Did you _really_ expect that to work?', before promptly showing her what a real lightning blast looked like, and shot her with a bolt from his hammer.

She threw up her blade, using it to catch the lightning, though Aldric wasn't aware if this was an ingenious understanding of plasma physics, or just a really lucky 'oh shit!' move. Either way, the magical lightning slammed into the stick of plasma and didn't move an inch further, but that didn't stop her from falling back a step, soon appearing as though she were pushing against a wall, struggling against a torrential wave. Teeth gritted, feet dug into the ground, and both hands bracing the blade, Cinder found herself being pushed back. She growled, and but a moment later, the fiery aura of a butterfly's wing sparked to life around her left eye. She used this power to shove forward, breaking the stream of lightning and stunning the Master.

Cinder then bolted forward, one moment ten feet away from the Master, the next mere inches away from him, her blade fading away and finding itself on her hip, as a new, glass dagger appeared in a reverse grip in her hands. Aldric frowned, his hazy mind not able to come up with a reason for why she'd be abandoning the lightsaber, until she stabbed upwards - and the blade not of burning fire but of cutting glass, and Aldric sensed it cut into the gaps in the man's armor, and then continue forward, slicing through his armor and cutting into his flesh, blood soon following, flowing out of the wound, down Cinder's glass blade and onto her gloved hand.

 _Okay..._ Aldric grunted, _you know what? That's right... Fucker does get stabbed a lot._ He hauled his broken body to his feet, clipping the hilt of his lightsaber to his belt, then cupping his now free hand. _Time to dust off the old glove._ He thought, as a single image appeared in his mind, and his Power Glove responded, creating a tomahawk.

He charged back into the fray as the Master smashed his elbow into the side of Cinder's head, and then hit her chest with the hammer with a vicious back-swing. She went sailing towards Aldric, who hopped up, dug his feet into the ground, and caught Cinder with his shield-arm. He spun into her momentum, spinning her around then throwing her at the Master. She adapted quickly enough, spawning a second dagger and bellowing loudly as she flew back into battle. The first dagger came down on Mjolnir, shattering into hundreds of pieces and causing his arm to droop, just enough so that her up-swing sliced open a gash in his strong arm.

The Master growled and again made to backhand Cinder, but she was pushed out of the way by Aldric's semblance, appearing to slide across the ground as though pulled by wires. The Master over-extended himself, hammer dragging along the ground as he stumbled forward. He failed to regain his footing or his balance when Aldric reached him, and as such he found a tomahawk buried several inches into his shoulder, so deep that it was stuck fast, Aldric having to repeatedly jerk it out with the sucking sound of air entering a particularly deep and bloody wound.

The Master, however, wouldn't let this go unavenged - and as Aldric struggled to rip and tear the blade out of his back, the older Master came up with a powerful, lightning-infused left hook. He buried it into Aldric's chest, his armor took most of it, but that didn't eliminate the pain of his broken ribs shifting as the fist pressed into them and pushed them into places they weren't meant to go, nor did it remove the fact that vibranium, as were all metals, was conductive - and since Aldric had covered himself in it, this blow hurt more than it may have in any other situation.

With a blast of electricity and a small shockwave, Aldric stumbled back several feet, coughing and wheezing, blood spraying out with each breath. Cinder charged in, burying a blade into the Master's back, but she received a similar fate - the Master spinning around and smacking her with the side of his hammer. Aldric actually saw Cinder's aura flicker at this, as she landed - but what he saw next was what surprised him, as Mercury, one arm pressed firmly against his nearly bisected stomach, leapt over her tumbling body and sprinted into the fray. He fell to his knees and slid under a wide, lumbering swing from the Master, and then hopped back up, delivering three swift roundhouses, before spinning into a back-kick that landed on the man's stomach. This final kick detonated in a minor explosion, which he used to soar out of the way of the next attack, flipping over backwards and landing, already coiled up like a spring.

Aldric stumbled over to Cinder as Mercury kept the Master busy. The hammer-wielding titan seemed unable to handle Mercury's speed, but that didn't eliminate Mercury's grievous injury; truly, the only reason Mercury was even standing was because two miracles had combined into one: The wound had been cauterized by Cinder's blade, and it somehow hadn't carved into his spinal cord. Mercury ducked under another swing from the Master, before reaching up, grabbing the back of the man's head, and jerking it down, ramming his knee into the Master's nose twice before finishing it off with another roundhouse. The Master stumbled off to the side, but his recovery had him slam the hammer into the ground, spin on it like an axle, and once he was facing Mercury, he tore it back out and began twirling it by the lanyard. Mercury fell back a step, arms held up and knees bent in a defensive stance, but that didn't even remotely prepare him for the Master's attack, which came when he brought the revolving hammer down onto the ground and sent a shower of rocks at Mercury, all of them blasting towards him at muzzle velocities.

Mercury cursed and jumped out of the way, but in the second it took him to do so he'd already been pelted by a dozen jagged, high-speed stones, and compounded with the damage he'd already taken earlier, he had no aura to take the impacts for him - he was left appearing as though he'd played chicken with a machine gun, blood now freely flowing down his arms and the still fleshy parts of his legs, and more than a few holes in his chest joining the missing chunk in his abdomen.

Aldric reached Cinder and helped her to her feet, the both of them gasping for air as they exchanged a glance, then turned to the battle raging between Mercury and the Master.

"Can't beat him senseless... Can't burn him... Can't electrocute or freeze him... Can cut him, but we have to get close to do it." Aldric wheezed, his helmet feeling a lot hotter than it had been moments ago.

"We need to get the hammer away from him."

"I shrink it, it arguably becomes deadlier. I grow it, and he still lifts it, we're even more worse off as he'll have a magical mallet. We get it away from him, he summons it right back." Aldric countered, as Mercury continued dodging flying rocks, barely keeping ahead of them.

Cinder nodded, frowning through a wave of pain as she pressed her hand against her own ribs, hissing. "Your axe is still in his shoulder, and he's barely noticing."

"He's _Thor._ Fucking god of thunder. Of course an axe in his back won't slow him down. Not noticeably." Aldric realized as the rocks slowed down, what Mercury was doing: He was forcing the Master to make a small crater around him, until it was so deep that the rocks he'd shoot out would just hit the edge of the crater, or until he'd just ran out of them entirely, or, finally, just got bored.

The lattermost seemed to be what happened, as the Master stood to his feet, catching the hammer by the haft and eying down the heavily breathing Mercury. Mercury slid to a halt and returned his arm to his side, wincing in pain, now growing pale from the blood leaking out of his body, one of his wounds so deep and so grievous that Aldric could see the meat, and below that even a spot or two of his bone.

"What fuels the hammer?" Cinder asked, abruptly.

Aldric blinked, but then realized what she was getting at: If the hammer was inherently magical, maybe she could absorb its power, and steal it from the Master. Now, as much as that would solve the immediate problem, that also carried the long term consequence of Aldric eventually having to deal with _Lady Thor,_ and nothing was worth that.

So Aldric shook his head, "believe it or not, I wasn't the biggest Thor fan. I saw the movies, but unless he showed up in the big crossovers, I didn't read his stuff." He huffed, as the Master began approaching Mercury, with a leisurely pace. "I know it's something called 'Odinforce', and I know that it's distinct from magic." He didn't know either of those things, because something else tickled his mind that Odinforce was where Thor got his power, not the hammer. "Your better bet would be to drink from the source." But even that terrified Aldric, as that meant she'd have Master powers to amplify her Maiden abilities, both what she had and what she would get.

Of course, the alternative was death.

Just something he'd have to deal with, he rationalized.

Cinder nodded, "could you distract him?"

"Not without help... And we need to relieve Mercury about now-ish." He said, as Mercury fell back onto the defensive, ducking and dodging the lumbering swings and kicking only when he had the chance to. "There were people _way_ stronger than us who fought Thor and still lost, and my little telekinesis trick won't work again." Which also eliminated the possibility of creating a blood clot and killing him the American way: With clogged arteries.

"So it would need the both of us."

"And we're each half dead." Aldric said, ribs grinding against eachother, as Mercury slipped up, and it cost him a hammer strike to his knee - pulverizing his leg in a shower of sparks. "But put those two halves together, and that means we're fully dead, and that means he can't kill us - now come on!" He ripped his bolter off of his belt and as he and Cinder charged, he fired.

The bullets slammed into the Master's back and exploded, the penetration of the rounds doing more damage than their explosions, telling Aldric that his budding idea of trying to burn him from the inside out with his lightsaber wouldn't work: The only way to _reliably_ injure this man was to either overpower him, which neither of them could do, or to cut him, which was risky as all get out. So Aldric continued to fire until he reached the Master, before clipping the gun to his hip and dropping to his knees - sliding across the rocky ground as the Master's hammer swung right over him. The Master recovered fast, however - completing his swing and turning it into a rearing of the hammer for a titanic downward strike, like that of a mallet on an anvil. Aldric's response was to bring his shield to bear as he slid to a halt, and the man brought the hammer down.

And here, Aldric confirmed the differences between the suit and the shield. Where the suit deformed and yielded like chain mail, the shield was firm and unyielding, which meant once it absorbed the impact, physics dictated it had only one place to go: Right back at him. The hammer slammed onto the shield with the thunderous, deafening sound of a bell being struck. Aldric felt the shield press into his forearm as the man's superior strength worked against him, but that lasted for only a moment - as the energy and the force of the impact was caught by the vibranium and directed back outwards. The hammer recoiled violently and the man was sent flying as, expanding outwards in a mighty dome, was a visible shockwave, kicking up dust, loose rocks and debris, and even the Master himself as it blasted outwards, the only noise audible being that of a deeply ringing bell.

When the shockwave finally died down, everything inside of ten meters that hadn't been nailed down or prepared for the strike had been thrown to the winds, leaving a wide clearing that bore few to no scars of the battle raging. Aldric almost stood to his feet, before he sensed Cinder sprinting right towards him, and he realized what she wanted. She hopped up onto the shield, and the moment he felt her foot touch down, he thrust forward, launching her faster than a rocket towards the Master. Still stunned and seeing stars from having his attack reflected as it had been, the Master hadn't had any time at all to recover or prepare for the flying Fall Maiden - whose hand was outstretched, a swirling red vortex cupped inside of it and a beetle-like bug of Grimm appearance wriggled in her palm.

She landed on the Master with an appearance of a predatory feline pouncing on his prey, and instantly a viscuous, fibrous, oily-black substance shot out from the bug and latched onto the man's face. Aldric scrambled towards the two, clawing at the ground with all four limbs as he tried to gain his footing and some traction, before giving up entirely and flinging himself at them with his semblance - soon landing on the man's hammer-arm and roughly planting his shield on it, pinning it to the ground as Cinder growled, one eye ablaze with magical power, the oily fibers snaked under the man's helmet, and the man himself scowled at the both of them.

But something was wrong.

For a moment, nothing happened, but after that moment passed, Cinder's frown of determination and anger slowly melted away to one of confusion and indignation. Aldric felt the muscles in the man's strong arm clenching, and he had to struggle with all of his might to keep him from moving, and he chanced a look at the hammer, seeing the triquetra on its side, but before he could focus on it, the Master's scowl turned to a slowly building bellow, his struggle growing, as though his only plan to win this struggle was the Goku plan: Shout _really_ loud.

"Wh - what -" Cinder managed to breathe, before the man smashed her in the face with a left hook.

Now that she was no longer straddling him, pinning his legs to the ground, he reached over with his left arm and roughly grabbed the back of Aldric's head, the younger Master feeling the roots of his hair threatening to give out. The Master yanked hard, tearing Aldric off of his strong-arm, and then wrapping his legs around Aldric's neck in an MMA leglock. Aldric felt his lungs instantly start begging for oxygen he couldn't supply, and with his shield no longer in his possession, he did the first thing that came to mind: And bit. He bit so hard that he actually tore through the man's pants and drew blood from his calf, though he paid for it in feeling one of his teeth crack and his jaw flare up in pain. The Master grunted in pain and released Aldric, who tumbled away - and instantly realized his mistake.

As Aldric hauled himself to his feet, the Master did the same - hammer clenched tightly in his right hand, held forward, threateningly, and the scorched red white and blue shield settling into place on his left, held closer to his chest, defensively, and the visible portion of his face twisted into anger. But Aldric wasn't focused on the shield itself, but rather the fact that it was now on the man's arm. Had he been seeing things, or did he see it _float_ there?

Regardless of what he'd seen, the Master now had Mjolnir _and_ Old Glory, and he showed this off by intimidatingly banging Mjolnir onto the shield twice, each one with another powerful shockwave. Aldric let out a long, exhausted breath of air, shaking his head. He sensed Cinder several meters behind him, eyes unfocused as she tried to get back to her hands and knees, Mercury was even further than her - having been picked up by the first shockwave and now firmly unconscious, resting against a bolder. Aldric was half dead, could feel his ribs poking into his lungs, and now the goddamn _Master,_ who through sheer factor of being older than Aldric was, as far as he understood, supposed to be stronger than him, was armed with the strongest weapon and the greatest shield in comic history.

Aldric gulped, but fell into a defensive stance regardless, his mind going to those two pouches on his belt he _desperately_ didn't want to dig into.

But was starting to realize he may have to.

This man had proven himself worthy at _least_ of the comparison. He'd shrugged off lightsabers, gigantic bullets, knives, swords, tomahawks, arrows, and now had resisted Cinder's Maiden-killer. He had _one_ more idea he wanted to try, but he'd have to buy time for one of the others to wake up - because he couldn't try it with this man's attention on him, and if this idea didn't work, he'd have to go nuclear. He would absolutely have to, there would be no other option.

Aldric cracked his neck, let out a quick breath of air, and then charged the Master. The Master, likely believing himself to be holding all of the advantages, let Aldric come to him. The younger Master leapt into the air with his left arm reared, roaring out in defiance before he thrust that fist forward, it colliding with the Master's stolen shield with a much weaker toll. Aldric had to yank himself down to the ground with his semblance to avoid the Master's horizontal swing, and then had to leap out of the way to avoid his vertical followup. Aldric formed a hardlight knife in his hand and slashed at the Master's leg as he tumbled around him, before jumping to his feet and trailing that knife up the man's back. The Master barked out in pain, and it only grew worse as Aldric reached the apex of his jump, and locked his free hand around the tomahawk sticking out of the Master's shoulder. Aldric planted both feet on the man's back and then _ripped_ the hatchet out of the man with a wet _shluck,_ before kicking off of him.

The Master got the last laugh, however - managing to ping Aldric's leg with his hammer as he spun around in a rage. Aldric was sent spinning wildly off course, hitting the ground with a grunt of pain and tumbling to a halt. Aldric was almost again on the receiving end of another chest-crushing blow, but he rolled out of the way of that, resulting in the hammer burying itself into the ground. This also had the unfortunate side effect of causing an earthquake, this one so violent that Aldric couldn't get to his feet in time to avoid being punted by the Master. The impact itself didn't hurt at all - the sweet, sweet vibranium suit took the brunt of it - but rather the man's boot digging into Aldric's loose ribs was what caused him to scream out in pain.

 _I should **really**..._ Aldric thought, as his back hit a particularly sharp boulder, and it crumbled underneath him. _Really rethink my whole..._ He groaned, unsteadily getting to his feet. _Moratorium on senzu beans..._ Knife held in a reverse grip in one hand, and tomahawk held in the other, Aldric raised them both, the former in a defensive stance, the latter offensively, as the Master strode towards him, arms swinging with each step. _Solve every problem I've had, really._ He thought, using his semblance to force his ribs back into place before they shredded his chest wall any further.

Aldric and the Master reengaged. The Master swung his hammer at the mandalorian helmet on Aldric's head, Aldric used his knife and planted it on the hammer's haft, locking it in place as he brought the tomahawk down on the shield. Taking a sheet from Ruby and Qrow's books, Aldric didn't strike the center of the shield so much as he hooked the blade around its edge, and as he began to lose the test of strength against the Master, he wrenched the hatched downwards - pulling the shield aside and opening up the man's chest to attack. Aldric then let the hammer slide off of his knife and nimbly dodged it coming down next to him; he used his semblance to flip his knife grip around to a more traditional one and then stabbed upwards, cutting through the Master's armor and sliding it in between his ribs.

The Master promptly slammed his head onto Aldric's, stunning the younger of the two and causing him to stumble back. But as the Master turned his attention to the knife in his chest, Aldric forced himself back into the fray - throwing himself at the Master, pounding his face with a left hook and hacking at his strong arm with a chop of the tomahawk. The Master responded by digging the side of Aldric's shield into his flank, causing him to stumble to the side, where the Master dug his hammer into Aldric's damaged ribs. Tears welling up in his eyes and his teeth gritting, Aldric kneed the Master in the gut, causing him to double over - opening his back to a chop from the hatchet. The Master jerked himself back upright, smashing the back of his head into Aldric's jaw and causing him to stumble back, which let him one-two-punch him with a jab from the shield and an upward swing from the hammer.

Aldric regained his footing and caught another shield punch, the edge of his scorched defending disc settling into his mechanical hand. The Master then thrust his hammer at Aldric's head, but Aldric used his semblance to redirect it, the hammer just dragging along his nose with an otherworldly humming sound that Aldric could hear in his skull. He then caught the man's wrist with his organic arm, and now the two were caught in another test of strength, Aldric only able to keep him from winning with the undivided attention of his semblance. The both of them were covered in blood, equal parts theirs and their enemy's, the muscles in their arms bulging, chests clenched tightly, teeth bared, and their arms shaking from the effort as they struggled against eachother.

Now, unable to kick him without risking his balance, and unable to try something clever with his semblance without letting the Master's arms go, Aldric had only one method of attacking him. The Master thought of something similar, and the both of them reared their heads at the same time, before bringing them on home, helmet colliding with helmet with an iron bang. Once, twice, three times they headbutted eachother - Aldric's vision beginning to blur at the edges, but the _Master's_ helmet beginning to _dent!_ That alone got a lopsided grin out of the young Master, but that didn't solve the problem of how he'd keep going like this - eventually he'd knock himself out or give him a horrendous concussion.

Fortunately, that didn't end up being a problem: Cinder came in, kicking the Master in the side of the head and sending him sliding across the ground after a brief explosion. She and Aldric retreated back several steps, the both of them breathing heavily, as the Master labored back to his feet, and struggled to remove the weapons from his back and chest.

Aldric stooped down low, his entire body feeling like a bruise, and scooped the shield off of the ground, sliding it back onto his fleshy arm where it belonged. "So... Well run dry?" He rasped.

"I don't know." Cinder huffed, voice muffled by her own disguise. "I... There was nothing like there was with the Fall Maiden. No wellspring to drink from."

Aldric's eyes snapped over to the hammer in the man's hands. "Could be the hammer's siphoning it off. Lacking literally everything that gives it its powers, it's using him to fuel it." He swallowed, "or maybe he had to dump everything into it, and he doesn't have anymore... Or Mjolnir and the Norse Thor really did exist, and he just found it." At this point, he was open to anything. "Got any other ideas?" He huffed, as the Master dropped Aldric's blood-covered knife to the ground, and began reaching for the tomahawk jutting out of his back.

Cinder shook her head, "we know how to damage him... But we are not doing enough." But, she didn't add, they couldn't run, either - they _needed_ the relic.

"I've got one last idea." Aldric said, attracting her attention. "Plus side... It's _way_ more powerful than a lightsaber, and I don't need to be close to him to use it."

Cinder frowned, "down side?"

"I literally have no idea if it will work or what will happen to me afterwards, if it does. May die, may just fall out, somewhere in between..."

"I don't..." Cinder frowned, gaze shifting to Mercury, then back to him. "Can you avoid it?"

"Not without pulling on something even fucking worse." Aldric responded. "I just need you to distract him, until I give the signal." He said, handing Cinder the shield.

Cinder gulped, and nodded, accepting the shield. "I can do that." She said, affixing the shield to her left arm, giving it a brief, appraising look, as the tomahawk was torn out of the Master's back. "It's lighter than I thought it would be."

"You want to be technical, it's _made_ of light."

"Shut up, Aldric." Cinder groaned, "what's the signal?"

"You'll know, lady."

She rolled her eyes before launching herself back into the fray.

 _Alright..._ Aldric thought, cupping both hands next to his hip. _Plasma. Really dense... Plasma. Holy fuck I hope this works..._ He thought, his body becoming enshrouded in the silver fire of his magic.

Cinder reached the Master and used her shield to intercept a vicious hammer blow. One eye aglow with magical power, she pushed the hammer away and hit him in the gut with a straight right. She ducked under a sloppy swing from the Master's hammer and chopped at the injuries on his strong-arm, her impact resonating with a gout of fire, and managing to stun him enough such that he _dropped_ the hammer, hand spasming. Cinder followed this up by broadsiding him with the flat of the shield, creating enough space between them that she had the chance to grab at the hammer.

Unfortunately for her, her hand slid right off the grip - it so slick with the Master's blood that she had no traction. With no time to try to take it again, she ducked behind the shield in time for the Master to ram his fist into the scorched star on its center. Cinder was pushed briefly to her knees, but was able to completely avoid the man's followup attack, and counter with several quick strikes on the freely bleeding points on his body. She had cocked her fist, wreathed in flame, for an attack on his face, but gasped and abandoned that idea when she heard the hammer dig itself out of the ground and come flying towards her. She hopped to the side and avoided Mjolnir, which settled back in the Master's hand; he spun into the momentum it made and then threw it at her with all his might.

It crossed the distance between the two in a second and slammed onto the shield with another explosive shockwave; Cinder was sent skidding across the ground as it hung their, pushing against her shield. She braced both legs behind her and pushed both hands against the shield, struggling against the might and momentum of the hammer, but unable to win out - it eventually carrying her with it and sending her flying. She, the shield, and the hammer hit the ground, it began to shake and the Master charged towards her.

Cinder struggled to get back to her feet. She was barely able to crawl out of the way of another attack, and had to roll onto her back and cower behind the shield to protect against a third. It was then, however, she realized that the ground was still shaking despite the hammer having been stolen out of it. Then, chancing a peek from beneath the shield, she saw Aldric in the distance - hands cupped to his side, a basketball-sized orb of bright blue energy shining out from within them, all of the silver fire that marked his calling upon his ill-controlled powers funneling into the mass in his hands. Before she could even question it to herself, she saw the muscles in his neck bulge, saw his teeth bare themselves, and saw his legs brace behind him, and realized whatever he was doing, was about to come. So, with all of her strength, she blasted twin gouts of fire from her feet, and rocketed away from the Master.

He looked poised to follow, but was interrupted, his attention caught by the loud, almost titanic roar coming from behind him. He turned to face Aldric, who was pouring _everything_ he had into this. All of his power, all of his magic, he forced all of it into the glowing mass in his hands - and when that wasn't enough, he called on _more._ The fire surrounding him began to fade away, his pupils began to dilate, eyes going from gunmetal gray to two deep, onyx orbs, and the mass in his hands grew blindingly bright.

 _"Maximum..."_ Aldric thrust his hands forward, as the Master shielded himself with his hammer. _"EFFORT!"_ Aldric screamed, so loudly that his voice cracked and his throat went hoarse.

Exploding out from his cupped hands was a beam of energy, larger than he was, managing to reach almost to the clouds in the night sky. It lit up the quarry in which they fought, as though it weren't even night at all, proving so bright that Cinder briefly had to shield her eyes from it. The Master didn't, however - he trusted his hammer, and the powers it granted, to protect him.

The titanic beam of plasma energy slammed into him with a physical force, roaring like a thousand hurricanes, burning like the unbridled heat of a young star, and pushing him back several feet. He immediately grunted and groaned with the effort of resisting it, but found that this was different to the lightsaber's he'd shrugged off before. To compare their power to this would be tantamount to compare a match to an atom bomb. Aldric was harnessing something that had the capability to destroy planets, and he was pouring energy into it that could transcend universes and cross time and space. What was the power of a comic book demigod to something that intertwined the skill and precision of science, and the limitless infinities of magic?

Under this relentless assault, the Master didn't last but ten seconds before he stumbled once, and that opening, that one chink in his armor opened up another, and another, and another, and he was soon awash by the plasma, being burned and beaten by the fourth state of matter. Aldric didn't let up until all of the energy he'd poured into it blasted out, and for a solid thirty seconds he shot this man with one among the strongest, non-reality warping attacks he was aware of. This was a nuclear option.

And it worked.

When the attack finally faded away, it left in its wake a massive, circular crater around Aldric, and a huge fissure in the earth extending until the horizon towards which it had been fired. Mjolnir was on the ground, its metal end glowing white hot, the Master laying beside it, unmoving. Aldric was in barely better a state - back hunched, both arms limp, breathing heavily, swaying back and forth, eyes partly glazed over, a tight pressure in his chest. His jaw and his left arm hurt like hell, and -

Aldric blinked, jaw slowly going limp.

"Oh so that's what happens." He slurred, before falling face first onto the ground.

Cinder gasped, calling out, _"Aldric!"_ As he hit the ground.

She rushed over to him.

Completely unaware of the Master stirring to life.

"Aldric!" She called out again, dropping his shield and kneeling beside him, pressing her fingers to his neck and feeling no pulse. "No..." She looked down at his chest, then her hands. "No." She cupped both of her hands together and pressed them to his chest, as the Master got to his feet, hand closing around the haft of his hammer.

He paused, however, on the third utterance of his name. _"Aldric!"_ She called out, pumping up and down on his chest. "You can't - you're not done yet!"

This pause only lasted for a moment, before he tore Mjolnir from the ground and began lumbering over to her, each step a heavy stomp on the ground, his arms swinging limply from side to side. Cinder now noticed him approaching, and redoubled her efforts, trying desperately to restart Aldric's heart. But all that she did was in vain, as the Master reached her first. She scrambled for Aldric's shield, but was hit in the flank by the hammer and sent flying before she could. She was like everyone present: So close to dead that she could almost see the metaphorical Reaper waiting for her. It was all she could do to get up to her hands and knees and brace for another attack.

Which never came.

Confused, she turned her head towards the Master, just in time to see him kneel down and pry the red helmet from Aldric's head. She heard him gasp and saw him stumble back a step, limply dropping the mask and his hammer at the sight of Aldric's bruised face, the blood leaking from his mouth and nose. She then witnessed as both of his mangled, scorched hands reached up to his head, and his breath quickened, soon almost hyperventilating as he dropped to his knees. He tore off the helmet, revealing a head of long, shaggy, dark hair and two blue-gray eyes, both filled with a primal sort of fear and anxiety that Cinder couldn't properly identify.

The Master reached for the hammer and snatched it off of the ground. Thunder picked up again as lightning gathered in the stormclouds above. Cinder finally reached a sitting position as the lightning shot down from the heavens and hit the hammer, which itself was tapped to Aldric by an increasingly frantic-looking Master. He said something she couldn't here after feeling for a pulse, and then zapped Aldric again with another bolt of lightning. He only stopped when, after the _eighth_ lightning strike, an openly smoldering Aldric appeared to begin breathing.

Cinder, now on her feet, took advantage of this lull in the violence, of this break in the battle, to approach the two, to limp towards them.

"You stay..." The man began, his voice lacking the reverberating, otherworldly quality it had when he'd adorned the helmet. "The _fuck_ away." He got to his feet, appearing just as unsteady has her, but a fire in his eyes hinting at a reserve of energy he appeared to only have just now found.

Cinder paused, straightening her stance and trying to meet that fire, but well aware that even if they were both exhausted, both nearly dead, with that damn hammer of his, he'd be the one to win the fight. She needed to stall, to come up with something.

"Did you just revive him?" She gasped, shifting her gaze down from one Master to the other, barely breathing, one. _"Why?!"_

The Master, seemingly having forgotten she was even there, recoiled his head, then turned it towards her when she spoke. His frown returned, but it was clear he barely had the energy to do whatever he'd done to Aldric, let alone to get back up and fight. They both were in the same boat, and both were doing the same thing: Taking this lull to build back up whatever they could, and gain any information they could find.

"If this is him..." He gasped, turning back to Aldric, "we're near Vale... Then you..." The man growled. "You're the one she goes _on_ about."

Cinder blinked.

Then, as she looked into the man's eyes, pieces started falling into place. She'd seen the fire in them before, had seen flecks of gray in their blue before. She'd seen this man's hair color elsewhere, and even could recognize his facial structure, aged and rounded as it was.

"You're from his plane." She said, slowly. "A survivor... Rescued by another of us." A beat, "his father."

He didn't even register the comments, his fury merely growing. "Never told us who else had survived the crash. Only that others had... She'd said she had people in Vale... Another terran, a Maiden loyal to her..." Cinder could see in his eyes the turmoil, could see him trying to work everything out with what few pieces he had been given, not unlike his son, but at a much slower speed than he. He turned to look at Aldric, expression softening briefly, before steeling again when he returned his gaze to Cinder. "Way she talks about you. You know what it is she wants. How she thinks."

"I do." Cinder nodded. "And you intend to ask me the why of it."

But he shook his head, "I know _why_ she does it. You ask her about it and she won't fucking shut up." He growled, "'cycle' this... 'Necessary' that... She's a fucking madwoman and you know damn well and good I'm right."

Cinder shook her head, "many who find themselves at the precipice of an unpopular opinion are, Mister Aldric. But I care not for her ideals or her philosophies, I care for what she can grant me."

"Says that a lot too." The Master grunted, turning his gaze back to his son. "You haven't told him, haven't you?"

Cinder shook her head, "he knows what we fight for, and he chooses to continue regardless." She said, "for much the same reason I do... But that doesn't answer why _you_ betrayed her. You are powerful, but I confirmed what your son suspected. _All_ of your strength rests in that weapon. You could have had so much more, and yet you put it all in your paltry earning and ran, thinking it worthy to fight _her."_

Aldric Sr. shook his head, running a callused, scorched hand through the sweat-slick hair. "Yeah, she's strong. But I knew from day damn _one_ that I had to get out of there." He gave her a disgusted look. "Do you _know_ the things she's done? She _wants_ to do? Of course you do - you hunted her down on _your fucking own._ " He said, as though it were an insult. "But him..." His frown fell to one of sorrow. "What did you do to him to make him fight for _her?"_

"As I said, Mister Aldric. He _chose_ to."

Aldric's father shook his head, and pushed himself to his feet with a tired groan. "I don't think he did. You couldn't have told him, or else he would _refuse_ to fight for you. For _her._ He fucking _wouldn't._ " He pulled the hammer off of the ground. "Maybe - _maybe_ he helped you because you saved him, but he wouldn't have stayed. So... I want you to tell me what the fuck you did to him, or so help me god." He pointed it at her, threateningly.

Cinder was unmoved. She forced her expression to become neutral. "I think you underestimate him." She said, coolly. "Just as you underestimate her. Your weapon... It is mighty. It is powerful. But it _pales,_ as do you, in comparison to what she is capable of."

"And yet I'm here, and she's not." Said the father, confrontationally. "Now... I'll let you leave, _alive,_ which is more than can be said for your friend there." He nodded in Mercury's direction, prompting Cinder's facade to briefly cracked, as she realized Mercury hadn't even twitched ever since he'd disengaged the Master. "But I want you to tell me what you did to him. How I can undo it."

Cinder turned the crack in her facade to a smile. "What makes you _truly_ think he isn't happy?" She nodded past him, "look at that. That attack... I think it left the bonds of Remnant, shooting out to space. You have seen her, and as you demonstrate you have _spoken_ to her... Perhaps more than any other Masters. So you know that is but a taste of what he can do... And he knows it too. He is powerful, but only seldom does he truly access that power... Or do you think those flames are simply there to differentiate Master and Maiden?" She asked, "from what I've seen, since the day he learned to use this power he's only grown more and more fond _of_ its use.

"He stays both because he believes what it is we do, and because he _wants_ to see the height of his power. He craves that challenge, that satisfaction, that struggle, and he finds them every day here." She said, noticing the Master tightening his grip on Mjolnir's haft. "So I instead will counter: You lay down your arms and surrender, and I will let you live... Perhaps even bargain with our once-mutual master for your life _beyond_ the obtaining of these relics." A beat, "To return another day. To see him - to get a chance to make him see _your_ way. Merely put the hammer down." She pressed, noticing Aldric begin to stir.

His father, however, was too enraged to notice. "Let me list off the _shit_ you and yours have done to us. You stole us from our world, crashed our goddamn airplane, killed _scores_ of us, gave us powers we didn't want for a mission we have no reason to follow. You open up a portal to our home - only to force us to spark a war between us and you, which caused _MORE_ of us to die by nuclear fire, Grimm attack, or people killing people!" He roared, voice growing louder with each word. "And to top it all off, you want us to steal _God's toys_ so you can do something so heinous I can't even fucking describe it, because of some fucked up moral philosophy?!

" _You want me to put the hammer down?!"_ He screamed, charging Cinder, _" **fine!"**_

Cinder fell to the defensive, ducking behind Aldric's shield and using it to deflect the attack from Aldric's father. Aldric Sr. threw himself into the offensive, every swing of the hammer powered by rage and anger, becoming slow and predictable as a result, as Aldric himself awoke.

His vision was hazy at first, the entire world felt cold, like the dead of winter, and he was both exhausted and starving. But those feelings were put to the side as his mind started working again, he realized where he was, and he heard the sounds of a groan, Aldric turned to his side, and saw a heavily wounded Master throwing everything he had left at Cinder, who herself was barely keeping up.

 _God... Damn it._ Now, maybe she was trying to rope a dope, but Aldric could tell the both of them were at death's door, and if he had to bet on who'd last longer: An anime villain or a comic book superhero, he'd put his money on the latter. _God damn it._ The bad news was that the time was up - they'd exhausted all of their options, and the Master was still kicking, still angry, still trying to kill all three of them. The good news was that Aldric could tell that the Master was at death's door, just like he and Cinder were. All it would take would be one more blast, one more push. _God damn it._

Unfortunately, he was tapped. All out of energy, he could _feel_ it - there was nothing left in the proverbial tank. All of his power was _gone_ in the wake of the blast wave, he'd used it all. All he had left was his belt, and he may even not be able to use _that,_ because of how tired he was.

 _But..._ He thought again, seeing through hazy eyes Cinder cower behind the shield and weather a series of blows from the hammer. _I have to..._ If he didn't, the Master would overwhelm her, she'd die, and then so would he. He couldn't let everything he'd done, everything he'd built, he couldn't let it all be for nothing at the moment of truth. He _had_ to win, here. He _couldn't_ lose.

So that meant it was time to escalate. This guy wanted to play with a hammer?

Well, Aldric didn't have a hammer, but he did have a gun.

A _big_ fucking gun.

While his organic arm wouldn't obey his commands, his cybernetic replacement still had the strength within it to lift itself and dig into Aldric's belt. He opened up the pouch that contained the nuclear options he felt comfortable walking around with, and out came a small vial which, when crushed, had expand from within it a large, solid metal gun. Green lights alongside both sides of its split, rail-like barrels lit up, and a single canister in its center glowed with the energy contained inside.

Aldric's hand found the trigger, as Cinder launched her offensive. He watched her execute a perfectly timed one-two punch, first chopping the Master in the throat with the shield, then creating a long blade in her free hand, which she viciously chopped at his strong-arm with. With him stunned by the throat attack, and his arm wide open, Cinder had the time she needed to _specifically_ aim for the injuries she and Aldric had created, the weakest parts on the man's arm.

Which made it all the easier for her to sever the limb at the wrist. Four rapid, vicious swings, like a lumberjack chopping at a tree, was what it first split flesh and was stopped by bone. The second split his radius with a horrendous crack, the third, his ulna, and the final swing cleaved his arm off entirely, all with a spray of blood. The older Master stumbled back, gasping and choking on the pain of his limb being cut away, and the younger Master waited, seeing his enemy's armor begin to first glow, but then fade, as would smoke from a fire.

When Aldric saw terran clothes begin to fully replace the once regal armor, he pulled the trigger.

It took one second to fully charge - a large green orb of violently spasming plasma collecting at the end of the BFG. The moment it was ready, the plasma shot away, and Cinder again used her powers to herself avoid what she knew would be a coming storm. The Master saw the green glow grow closer, and turned to face it, just in time for the mass of plasma to slam into him. He was enveloped in it, screaming in a pain he'd never felt before, as it burned at him, tore at him, flayed flesh from bone and burned both to ash. The glow grew brighter as more time passed, but this brief eternity passed in but the blink of an eye - and after its momentum failed, the orb of plasma burst in a mighty explosion. Aldric shielded his eyes, though still saw the vibrant green glow of the detonation.

When the light faded, he opened them again, and unlike before, where had been the Master on the ground, unconscious, all there was now to mark his existence was the hammer he'd claimed as his own, and the charred, scorched marks on the earth on which he'd stood.


	50. Rules of Nature Goes With Everything

_AN:_

 _First:_

 ** _HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!_**

 _Second:  
_

 _Ha._

 _Finally:_

 _I've been planning **that** moment pretty much since I left Aldric Sr.'s fate as 'never found the body'.  
There were some changes and some pipe dreams that never made it to the light of day, among them being an indescribably massive desire to have set up an Inigo Montoya moment and had Cinder kill him instead of Aldric, as well as having Aldric kill him instead through a massive reference to 'Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe' and grow the hammer, but instead I ended up choosing this one because I think it fit thematically, not just with what I wanted to have happen, but with the entire story, both pre and proceeding it. _

* * *

Chapter 49

* * *

"Oh... Gawd." Aldric rumbled, as Cinder limped her way to him, briefly pausing to scoop Aldric's Revan mask off of the ground. "Make that... Two gods we've killed." A beat, "kind of." And wasn't it sort of ironic that Aldric had killed a figure from a major religion, with the BFG 9000?

Cinder raised one of Aldric's arms over her shoulders, and slid her own arm under his, hoisting him to his feet. "What _is_ that?" She asked, nodding to the lifeless hunk of metal at their feet, before she fitted the mask over Aldric's head.

"It's a big fuckin' gun." Aldric said, nodding over to the hammer. "So..." He grunted, as she helped him shamble his way over to Mjolnir. "Might've just been the head trauma, but had he taken off his helmet?"

Cinder nodded, "I didn't learn his name, but he was a survivor of your plane crash. He betrayed our leader, intended to take the relic for himself."

Aldric hummed, "what a fuckin' idiot." He grunted, noting the irony.

The two reached the scorched magical mallet. Aldric slid his arm from Cinder's shoulders and slowly lowered himself to his knees, leaning down to inspect the hammer. With his right arm a useless hunk of bruised, limp flesh, Aldric ran the fingers of his cybernetic limb over the haft, closing them for just long enough for the weapon to register him, and for the triquetra to appear on its side. Now Cinder too stooped low, interest flaring in her eyes. "It... _Is_ magic."

"Of a sort." Aldric nodded, shuffling over to the other side, where he found the inscription, and finding it to be exactly what he expected it to be. "Hm." He nodded. "Well this ain't going anywhere."

Cinder looked to him, then to the hammer. "If he be _worthy._ " She recalled, to Aldric's nod. "But what makes one worthy?"

"That's where..." Aldric's voice cracked, as he felt a rib poke into his lung; he did his best to clear his throat, but there was an audible rasp to his voice even now. "Where I'm lost. Grand total of... Two, three, I think, people picked that thing up legitimately. Two of those three being unique circumstances." Aldric continued, as Cinder helped him straighten up. " _Four_ if you count Superman, but again... Unique circumstances."

Cinder silently regarded him for a moment, before shaking her head. "We need to go. You are nearly dead and I am not far behind."

Aldric would give her that, and allowed her to guide him to the burning helicopter. The only brief pause coming from the two confirming Mercury's death, looting him for his valuables, and then Cinder appropriating one of Aldric's Ant Man disks to shrink his corpse down to a size where it took only one brief pass with a lightsaber to incinerate it. Aldric kept the BFG, shrinking it down and stuffing it back in his Nuke Pocket, deigning it better with him as a paperweight he might have an application for, than boiled by a lightsaber. Once they removed as much evidence of their presence as possible, the two approached the helicopter. When they reached it, Cinder left him leaned up against a rock jutting out of the ground, while she went closer. She used her powers to shield herself as she waded into the fire, and after a few minutes, she bent down, and then straightened back up, before exiting - now holding a horribly mangled and dented briefcase in her gloved hand.

Playing devil's advocate, Aldric nodded to the case. "Sure it's in there?"

Cinder ran her hand along the glowing hot metal, it cooling with an audible hiss, the bright red glow dulling down as she did so. She nodded once, "I can sense it... It is there. It is real." She said, reverently.

Aldric pursed his lips, nodding. "Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair." He said, accepting Cinder's help, and now leaning on her once again.

"You _are_ aware, I would hope, that such a phrase is typically indicative of mountainous pride before a thunderous fall."

Aldric wasn't sure if the feeling of something dropping in his stomach was shit draining in the most expeditious way, or the sense of impending doom. All he could be certain of was that he was _damn_ glad his identity was still hidden. While, clearly, Aldric couldn't see it, Aldric could tell from the tensity in her muscles that Cinder no doubt had an 'Oh shit!' expression on her face that mirrored his own, as Ozpin's voice crept across the quarry scarred by the battle of Masters.

"Let me do the talking." Aldric whispered, so low and so throatily that it barely crept past the two of them.

Cinder nodded and turned the two to face down Ozpin, who had returned with his group, all geared up for war and ready to finish off the half-dead Master and Maiden. Ozpin, specifically, looked livid, to the point where Aldric swore he could see said anger radiating off of him.

Aldric lightly pushed Cinder forward, such that she had to take a step, before he tightened his grip and pulled back. "Sarah..." Aldric said, aloud, "we..." He gasped, "they might be with _her."_

Cinder realized what he was doing, and looked from him, to the League, back to him. "But, aren't they -"

"We just fought a guy with Thor's fucking hammer, lady!" He barked, "this could just be another layer! We have to go -"

"Oh, you're not going anywhere." Qrow grunted, as Goodwitch briefly pulsed with a purple light, and Aldric and Cinder found their retreat halted, as though they had walked into a wall.

Aldric slowly moved his only good hand to his scorched belt, as the head of the League took a step closer, the anger Aldric _thought_ he'd seen earlier now clearly becoming visible, as an emerald fire licking at the silver-haired man's skin. "Do you two _realize_ what you've done?!"

 _"Take my gun and point it at them."_ Aldric grunted, and Cinder did just that.

 _"Don't come any closer!"_ She shrieked, in a far lighter, meeker voice than she usually used.

To his credit, Ozpin _did_ stop, but he wasn't any happier. "That was _it!"_ He called out, "two planets - that was what would keep the peace! Buy us their help in rebuilding! You just slaughtered their people _on our planet - AFTER THEY'D LEFT US - **IN GOOD FAITH!** "_ He screamed, his voice briefly taking on an otherworldly rumble, the ground shaking beneath him.

 _He doesn't know._ Aldric thought, finding comfort and terror in that. _He can't know._

"If another war starts, if this ceasefire fails, if _**PEOPLE DIE -**_ " He thrust his finger in their direction, as his other hand readied his club in a sword's grip. _"That blood will be on your hands!"_ He screamed, "give us the relic! I will not promise anything but _death_ should you refuse me!"

"Listen, man..." Aldric called out, as his fist closed around one vial in particular. "I hope you are who I think you are... But you know I can't take that chance -"

"You have _no damn idea_ what it is you're stepping into, little boy!" Ozpin growled, briefly striking the cane on the ground, swinging it like a golf club, and even that small tap against the ground caused another quake that threatened to steal Aldric's feet out from under him.

It also, however, masked his ripping his hand out of his belt, and thus allowed what happened next to come as a complete surprise. Aldric threw the vial at the ground, it shattered, and then the ground shook even more, as something grew out from within it. It stood at nearly fifty feet, appearing theropodal in nature, with gigantic, thick plates of armor covering its body. Two wing-like arms extended out from both sides of its body, and a long tail snaked along the ground.

Metal Gear Ray _roared_ out to the heavens, its cry piecing the sky and shaking the chests of everyone in the vicinity. Its head then dropped down, leering down at the Justice League. Ozpin, Qrow, the rest of the League, they all stared up at it in shock, while Cinder turned from it to Aldric, and then down to the poucn he'd pulled it from.

"How?" She whispered.

"Atoms are... Like... Ninety nine percent empty space. All else equal, best way to shrink something is to close that distance." Aldric's general assumption was to just think the Pym Particles somehow managed to fix the issue of magnetic force pushing electrons apart, because without that, his theory fell apart. "Just be happy I went with Ray and not Liberty Prime, Sarah." He said, leaning back and finding Goodwitch's telekinetic wall gone. "Come on!" Cinder turned the two of them around and practically carried Aldric as they retreated.

Ozpin's head snapped down, but before he could try to run after them, Ray's 'wings' began hissing, as they lit aglow with intense heat. It charged the League and they, unable to ignore it for fear of their own lives, engaged.

Except for one: _"Tai, go - get them!"_ They heard Ozpin call out.

 _Oh you've got to be fucking kidding!_ Aldric and Cinder limped faster, but Taiyang was fresh-faced and without injury - they only bought themselves a few seconds.

Cinder, however, had an idea, "on my word, turn us around!" Aldric grunted in affirmation, and as Taiyang was almost upon them, she called out, _"now!"_

Aldric spun the both of them around, Cinder raised his bolter and fired fast enough to make it seem as though it were automatic, and each impact and each bolt's explosion caused Taiyang to break off, dashing to the right, as Aldric shouted, "third pocket, right hip!"

Cinder stuffed the gun in her sweatshirt and dug into the pouch pressing against her hip. Out came a vial, which, after she crushed it, revealed a bushel of small silver orbs, each with a single button on them. Aldric ordered her to hit one button and throw the bunch as Ray slammed his massive blade into the ground, causing the ground to briefly quake. Cinder did as she was told, and the grenade she's primed burst into blue flames, whining loudly. She spun the bushel once before winging it at Taiyang.

But Aldric didn't at all expect him to _bear hug_ the bushel, and, in the scant seconds he had before they exploded, gather them up into his hands. The plasma grenades exploded in a gigantic blue fireball, but it halted just past Taiyang's fingers, and then shrank down - the fire running along the blonde warrior's arms and sinking into his body.

 _Oh... Of fuckin' course._ Aldric thought, his heart sinking into his chest. _Bitch had to get it from somewhere._ Yang's entire _shtick_ was taking hits and converting the damage into more power for her, and since Raven clearly didn't have those kinds of powers, that meant it was only logical for her to have inherited it from her father, who had a far greater mastery over such an ability.

Because the universe just wanted to _fuck_ him, at every available chance, _that'_ s why.

 _I really wish I'd fucking gone with Prime!_ Aldric thought, as the blue fireball dissipated into nothing, and Taiyang's eyes glowed with the power he had just stolen. "In my defense, Sar... I was hoping that'd distract him, more than it would kill him." So that eliminated his lightsaber and hers as an offensive option, it would just be like a battery to him. "But I've got another idea..." He grunted, pulling out another vial and toying with it in his hand, "how long would it take you to do preflight checks on an aircraft you've never flown before?" He asked, as the blonde warrior flexed his muscles and affixed his glare upon the two.

Cinder blinked, "uh... I have no idea." She said, "five... Minutes?"

Aldric looked past Taiyang, the League's battle with Ray was going well, for them - it was already sporting a healthy amount of damage. None of them had yet tried cutting off its big fucking swords, but that probably had something to do with them struggling to deal with its ranged attacks. Missiles, bullets, bombs, and its blades carved apart the earth around them and the League buzzed about almost like bees trying to kill it.

Aldric deposited the vial, and then his shield, in her hands. "I can do five minutes." He said, as Cinder gave him a concerned look. Aldric, however, gave her no chance to argue, and then shoved off of her, barely able to keep his balance as he limped over to Taiyang, his only good arm held out and head cocked to the side. "Alright." He gasped, "come at me, bro!"

Cinder, though she clearly objected, seemed to realize that it was their only option - of the two of them, she was the only pilot, and though a lot of his ribs were floating around in his chest, Aldric's armor meant he was the better suited of the two to be trading punches with the father of a brawler. So as Aldric brazenly approached the man, arms held out, she peered down at the vial in her hands, seeing a boxy-looking jet, unlike anything she'd ever seen, from Earth or Remnant. She closed her fist over the vial, then about-faced and threw it, and when it shattered against the ground, it expanded into a gigantic, dual-winged vehicle with olive green armor. Cinder rushed inside, of it while Aldric made it within feet of Taiyang.

The father of the brawler gave him a piteous look, eyes still aglow with the energy he'd taken.

"I know enough about you people to know the kinds of hits you took fighting one." He said, leering into the T-shaped visor masking Aldric's face. "Just give it up, kiddo."

 _So, I keep calling myself Cap with all the passive stuff aura did to my body._ Aldric thought, cybernetic arm held slowly going to his organic one, grasping it firmly. _Let's put my money where my mouth is._ He roughly pulled it into place, mentally overriding the pain that kept it limp and practically forcing it to start functioning again through force of will alone, before bringing both hands up in a boxing stance, "whew... Maximum effort."

Taiyang let out a sigh, frowning, with a shake of his head. "Okay." He said, adopting his own fighting stance.

Aldric let out a quick breath of air, then lunged forward. He threw a jab at Taiyang, who palmed it out of the way and, with a scowl and a loud grunt, slammed his fist into Aldric's chest. It, however, rebounded explosively - appearing as though all of the energy he'd absorbed had been poured into that attack and had been dispersed on impact. Aldric hadn't felt a thing, but Taiyang didn't appear to be so lucky, flying back with a surprised yelp.

 _Mhm..._ Aldric thought, settling back into a neutral stance. _Just like I thought._ It was less impact force that made it through the Black Panther suit than it was simple, raw, sheer weight, momentum, and mass - none of which Taiyang had too much of an advantage of over Aldric. _I just might be able to pull this off..._ Until Taiyang realized that his helmet wasn't made of the same stuff as his suit.

Regardless, after Taiyang recovered, he sprinted back after Aldric, and over the distant roar of the battle with the humongous mech, Aldric could just barely hear the engines to the Pelican beginning to whir to life. He didn't have time to revel in it, though - as Taiyang breached his defenses and unleashed a flurry of punches faster than Aldric had ever seen before. The older fighter quickly figured out that, every time he punched Aldric's left flank, he called out in pain, and was soon focusing his attacks on Aldric's more heavily injured side, each strike causing his broken ribs to grind against eachother, to press harder into his organs, to shear open his insides just a little more. All the vibranium suit did to eliminate the force of impact, and even though they were both just human, and not even approaching the last Master's level of strength, Taiyang's own strength was still sufficient enough to push Aldric's ribs and cause injury unrelated to the impacts.

Aldric quickly found himself first on the defensive, and then on the retreat, it taking all of his exhausted, ailing, bleeding energy just to try and intercept the rib strikes that were only exacerbating the situation. For every one strike Aldric managed to defend against, two more made it through his upheld arms and caused more damage. Aldric barely even had the time or opportunity to counter, and whenever he did, it was seldom that Taiyang wouldn't bob or weave out of the way, or intercept the attack. Worse, was that Aldric quickly realized Taiyang was intentionally pushing this fight towards the dropship - and whenever Aldric tried to take control of the momentum of the fight, Taiyang would punish him for it, eventually managing to break another rib through sheer attrition.

Blood covering the inside of his helmet, and every breath a wheezing, raw gasp, if Aldric had been out of energy before, he could barely even _stand_ now, to the point that he was partially hunched over. Taiyang, on the other hand, sported a grand total of _one_ bruise, stood tall, and was ready, rearing, and full of energy, the piteous look still in his eyes.

"Come on, kid." He said, "just stand down." He practically begged.

Aldric, however, had to force himself to stand up straight, with a pained groan, and the sound of his back creaking from the effort. "Ah..." He swallowed, bringing his arms up. "I can do this all day." He said, vision so blurry that he could barely even see Taiyang, let alone the battle with the Ray, behind him.

Taiyang shook his head, "alright, this is it." He said, charging forward.

Aldric was barely able to bring his arm up to block a left hook; Taiyang took his responding uppercut to open him up to a wide punch to his ribs, causing the young fighter to seize up in pain and list over to the side. Yang's father followed it up with a jab to Aldric's helmet, so strong that Aldric stumbled back, vision going gray and stars sprouting up. Shaking them away only made the pain worse, and left Aldric ill prepared for Taiyang's coup-de-grace, as his left fist became enshrouded in fire and he clapped it to his right, which exploded with energy.

Then _he_ exploded, as a missile came roaring in and detonated right in front of him and Aldric. Both of them went flying in opposite directions, and Aldric found himself sliding to a halt underneath the now idly hovering Pelican. He, however, was out of it - he'd first spent everything to fuel the Dragonball Z attack, and then what little he'd recovered he'd spent weathering Taiyang's beating. He wasn't Goku, he couldn't just rest for thirty seconds and then go back to fighting on the level of a god, he could barely loll his head back and forth, let alone haul himself to his feet and put up his dukes.

Fortunately, Cinder seemed to know this, as the Pelican listed forward and lowered itself down, now hovering inches above the ground as its ramp hissed open. She was sprinting down it before it was even fully extended; the half-Maiden tenderly grabbed Aldric on his less injured side and hauled him up to his feet with a grunt. She half-walked, half-dragged him inside.

 _"Up."_ Aldric rasped.

"What?" Cinder's head snapped over to him, as she hit the button to bring the ramp back up and close off the dropship.

"Climb." He gasped, "this... It can get to orbit. They can't follow us that high."

Cinder nodded, bringing Aldric to the captain's cabin and strapping him into the copilot's seat. "Brace yourself." She said, "I barely recognize half of what I see, so this won't be gentle."

Aldric descended into a fit of wheezy, groggy giggles, which were soon drowned out and stopped first by the ship violently jerking to the right with the sound of a loud impact, and then Cinder scrambling for the flight stick and pulling it as far back as she could, while climbing into the pilot's seat. The engines picked up and Aldric was pressed back into his seat as the ship sped up, climbing higher and higher into the air, going faster and faster. Aldric heard a few more pings hit its hull, no doubt the League throwing what little they had at it that they could, that wouldn't be of a detriment to their battle against Ray.

Then, something strange happened. Aldric blinked, and all of a sudden, where the sky outside the windshield was dark, it was made of metal, and where Aldric had first been sitting on a chair, he found himself on his back on a grated floor. There was something poking into his arm, and he felt as though he were in a lot less pain than he had been just a moment ago, though in its place was a feeling of soreness, like his entire body was just one great bruise. Speaking of his body, he realized that most of his clothes were missing, replaced by bandages wrapping almost every available inch. With a groan, he turned his head to the side, and found an IV hooked up to him, feeding him whatever was inside of its fluids, and Cinder was sitting on a chair on the wall, one of Aldric's few remaining overcoats draped over her like a blanket.

Another blink, and while the scenery didn't change overmuch, he found that the soreness had dialed down, and Cinder was in a different chair, awake now, and idly rifling through his utility belt, examining the small vials of the various tricks and goodies he'd shrunk down and prepared. He made to speak, but little more than a grunt escaped his lips, catching Cinder's immediate attention. She placed the vial and the belt down and slid off of her chair, kneeling beside Aldric, but what she said fell on deaf ears, almost literally - as Aldric blinked again, and again time slipped him by.

Now, however, he woke up with a clearer head, and the soreness was manageable. His throat still felt dry, but his ribs didn't feel like they were actively trying to shred his organs. He actually felt like he could sit up, now, and he did - which attracted the attention of Cinder, who, upon seeing him more lucid than before, she rushed towards him.

"Aldric, slow down." She called out, rushing over, feet banging against the ground. "You've been out for two days, take it slow."

"Oh... Holy shit." Aldric groaned, lethargically, running his hand over his face and through his hair. "Three days, fuck."

Cinder shook her head, "two, Aldric."

"Mm..." He nodded. "I missed being in outer space?" He arced an eyebrow, rubbing his eyes.

To which, she shook her head again. "No, we are still up here." She said, "I felt it prudent to wait until Vale had cooled down."

Aldric nodded, "sounds smart." He said, yawning. "Shall we get moving?"

Cinder acquiesced, helping Aldric to his feet. The blanket covering Aldric pooled around his feet, revealing the little but bandages covering him from the waist up, and the unspoilt pants Cinder had scrounged out of his belt covering his legs. Aldric saw his suit, mask, and weapons folded up in a corner as they stepped up the stairs and into the captain's cabin. He noted, on second glance, that his shield had been wiped clean - the red white and blue now reflecting with a sparkly sheen, the star standing proud on the center. Cinder helped him to sit down in the copilot's seat, and as she climbed into the pilot's seat, Aldric found that she'd closed the shutters in front of the windshield.

 _Makes sense..._ There wasn't an atmosphere to filter Remnant's sun, leaving the shutters open would blind them every time they walked in and looked out.

Cinder stretched for a moment, before leaning over the controls, and tapped away at a computer. The shutters opened up, slowly revealing first the great blue sphere below them, and then the black, starry void surrounding it. Aldric could see the green, draconic continents of Remnant slowly coming into view, many blanketed by milky white clouds.

 _Strange..._ Aldric thought, a frown settling on his face. _I thought... I'd be in awe._ He'd read a lot of stories about astronauts being stricken with a sense of overwhelming awe, and a feeling of being tiny, when they looked upon the Earth from outer space, but Aldric felt nothing. _Maybe because it's not_ my _world?_ He wondered, leaning back into his chair, as Cinder pushed the dropship forward, and slowly began their descent back to terra firma.

"So... How did you capture a dragon in that belt?"

Aldric scoffed, "ah! Well..." He chuckled, "technically it's a giant robot... And very fucking carefully." He said, "had to go out into Forever Fall to magic it up without anyone seeing."

Cinder nodded, "and you just... _Carried_ it with you?" She asked, "why?"

"I call it my 'nuclear option'." He said, "wicked, stupid, _fuck-awful_ powerful things from fiction that just up and break the mold of this world." He had also chosen it specifically because, if _one_ Raiden could take it apart without dying, the entire Justice League of Remnant could do the same with only a few bumps and bruises. "Same with the BFG I killed the Master with."

Cinder blinked, "that reminds me, actually... What happened, there?" She asked, peering down at Aldric, "after you blasted him?"

The thought also prompted Aldric to lean up in his seat, and search the world, to see if it wasn't bearing some sort of visible scar from that. "I think the lesson to be learned is that trying to fuel that kind of stuff _myself_ is a bad idea. I took that from a story where people can break planets on accident... Because I don't care what who says, at the very least Goku could kick _Thor's_ ass." He said, seeing no such blast scars. "But considering the lack of feeling in my arm at the time... Pretty sure it took _all_ of my aura and gave me a heart attack. So... Lesson learned!" Which also put a damper on his pipe dreams of trying to ape the kaioken, or other various transformations. "I pin my lack of success simply on the fact that I didn't have enough time to finish it off."

Cinder rolled her eyes, "so why do you wait to use those things?" She asked, "I am certain someone as... Versed, in your own culture as you, would know of something that would make your struggles trivial."

Aldric nodded, "thus the nuclear options." He said, with a wave of his hand. "But to answer your question... Fuck - truth be told, Cinder, I've been scared of my power _before_ I knew I was basically a reality warper." He said, "but now? Well... Ozpin has this theory running, about the powers of Masters and Maidens. That magic _is,_ what its wielder _thinks_ it is. Ozpin, coming from a time before advanced science or high fiction, merely thought of magic as a way to manipulate the world around him - and his best efforts only made things like fire, barriers, strength, and that sort. Maidens, from antiquity to now... Well, there isn't much evidence, aside from the person sitting next to me." He said, "so, without telling me, Ozpin tested that theory... On _me,_ after he figured out that the nanites that make the Power Glove _shouldn't_ work the way I had them working. The long and short of it was that he told me I was a reality warper, capable of _literally_ anything as long as I had a basic understanding of it. Then, rapid fire, I started pulling lightsabers, bolters, plasma grenades, and Metal Gears out of my ass.

"Coming from a dude who, just _one_ year ago, could barely snap a twig over his knee? That's terrifying, Cinder." He said, "that thing I shot the Master with? Came from a video game whose hero's literal one and only goal in life was to just kill demons. The giant robot? One whose goal was ironically to _avoid_ combat - and you may understand _why."_ He ran his metal hand through his ill-washed hair, briefly realizing he couldn't remember the last time he'd showered or shaved. "And, in a word, those are _not_ the worst things I have on me." He wouldn't be kidding if he said the only reason he'd opted out of having a Flood Spore, or some similar kind of biological terror, had been his lack of any foolproof method of containment.

"Your 'nuclear options' must take unassuming forms..." Cinder responded, but after a beat, she added, "though I suppose I should consider my audience when I say such things."

Aldric had to force himself not to laugh, for fear of cracking his barely mended ribs. "Lady, you make me laugh and I'll probably barf up a lung." He said, "but, that's not the only reason. Yeah, my power terrifies me like nothing else, but... Those things in my belt? The _worse_ things I specifically avoid? They're not _mine._ If I grew to rely on them, as opposed to simply having them there in an emergency, then if I ever lost them, I'd be toast. That power wouldn't be _mine,_ it would be that weapon's - and someone else could easily take it." He explained, "and considering the things I'm hoping to do, the people I fight, and the situations I'm frequently in... I can't really have that, now can I?"

Cinder nodded, realization dawning in her eyes. "Thus why you always fall back to your shield."

"Pretty much." Aldric yawned. "I can control that, it has use beyond its immediate function, and if I lose it, I am still capable of fighting without it. Compare and contrast my lightsaber, which is much the same, but is arguably even safer for me to lose, because if someone stole it from me and tried to use it against me, they'd be just as liable to chop something of theirs off as they would to injure _me_."

"Then call me curious. I looked through your belt while you were unconscious... But I couldn't recognize many of the things you had."

Aldric snorted, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "Trying to figure out what heat I'm packing?" He grunted.

"It would help to know."

He let out another breath from his nose. "Put it to you this way, Cinder. I have a small green rock in a lead pocket on that belt that literally has no use on any living creature in this universe. And after today..." A beat, "well... However long ago it was we fought MC Hammer... I feel perfectly justified in it."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Actually, it does." Aldric responded, pulling out a vial with his journal in it. "Gonna do this, then sleep some more. Wake me up when we get to ground?"

She nodded, "sure."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Fun fucking fact:_

 _Black Panther, shrugging off explosions and machine gun rounds, and all that?  
Bullshit. _

_I mean, no, maybe half bullshit. The suit works as advertised: It stops/absorbs/jargons impact force, but it doesn't stop objects from moving. So if I have more momentum or am physically stronger than whatever's hitting me (say: A bullet hitting my chest), then it'll just bounce off and I won't be effected. But if **it** has more momentum/mass/strength/whatever than I do (Say: A moving car... Or the hammer Mjolnir.), suddenly things get screwy in ways I never had to deal with, with the shield, the long and short of which being broken down to the fact that the suit, instead of being made of firm plates, is essentially a bodysuit of chainmail, which compressed, bends, flattens, whathaveyou. _

_So if something with more massjargonjargonjargon hits me, the suit bends, my body resists it (thanks Newton!), and that means that all the goddamn magical metal in the world won't stop my ribs from breaking if it bends when I get hit in the chest by the hammer of Thor._

 _I'm also pretty sure that's why Cap's arms didn't get turned into jelly when he got smacked in the Avengers: Old Glory is a single, solid, plate of vibranium. Firm and unyielding, Cap's a supersoldier to begin with, and Thor wasn't trying to kill him. All of that together, and the more superior defensive capabilities of the shield outclass that of the suit._

 _So while I may be bullet proof, now, I'm nowhere near punch proof. Not for the level of people I've been fighting, anyways.  
Or knife proof, actually - doesn't Black Panther get stabbed **repeatedly** in the comics, while wearing the suit?  
Why the fuck am I wearing this, again? God damn it. _

_And, here's the strangest part: I bet through my word choice above, I probably 'sound' frustrated and a little pissed.  
But at this point? _

_Well, I'll put it to you like I put it to Cinder. Paraphrased: I've got a chunk of kryptonite on my belt because I **honestly** wouldn't be surprised if Superman burst into here because he felt a disturbance in the Force._

 _Ugh, Jesus Fuck.  
Mercury's dead, Cinder and I killed someone who wielded Marvel's Mjolnir, basically making him Thor, I had a heart attack when I tried to pull something from Dragonball Z to kill him, had to drop a literal Metal Gear on the Justice League so we could get away, got my ass whooped by Taiyang Xiao Long, and now we're in outer space flying back down to the ground. _

_Seriously. Superman. Would not. Be. Surprised._

 _I'd go more. You **know** I could go longer. But despite the fact that I've been out for two days (and I installed some of those CIA programs on this tablet, so I know for a fact she never even so much as turned it on, let alone tried reading this), I'm fucking exhausted. So I'm gonna sleep, probably going to piss myself when I realize I gave one of God's toys to Lady Satan, and then I'm probably going to get stabbed by my sociopathic... What the fuck even is she? And I'm not even going to be questioning my life anymore. _

* * *

"Aldric."

The Master groaned, "gimme... Like... Eight more days." He said, stretching his aching back, peering over to Cinder, then out past the windshield, as the dropship came in for a landing in the midmorning Remnant countryside. "Smooth flight."

"Indeed." Cinder nodded, "we're outside Vale... It shouldn't take more than two hours for us to return on foot."

Aldric felt like he should focus on something more important, as he pushed himself to his feet, and made for his pile of clothes. "How about... You tell me how in the flaming fuck you figured out how to expertly pilot a spacecraft." He said, "considering you're seventy plus years behind my planet on the science, and had... Like... Two days to study."

"Actually." Cinder began, as Aldric regarded the vibranium mail. "I took a leaf from your book."

"Oh?" He questioned, deciding discretion would be the better part of valor, and shrank the suit down with a throwing star, the idea going through his head that it would be better and easier to just shrink it now than it would to put it on, go back to Vale, only to take it off again in the hospital, when he swapped out with Neo and put on his Goud face again.

She nodded, "what I lack in your raw, magical power, I can make up for in skill. Your words." She said, "but also you like to tell me how much you... Grant yourself, in a manner of speaking, merely by willing it into existence." She let out a long breath, as Aldric slid on his pants. "I knew enough just by looking at it to get us in the air and to open and shut doors." She explained, "but after that, I knew I wouldn't be able to get us back. Not without cheating, a little bit. And keeping in mind what you said about personal understandings and mental connections... I took what I knew about flight, and used my own meager-at-the-moment abilities to add onto it. Thus -" She waved at the interior of the ship, as it landed itself.

Aldric looked up at that, blinking. "Well holy shit." He'd never even thought that he could use magic to cheat at school, only to cheat at life. "You learned how to turn on the automatic pilot." He shook his head and whistled, "wow." A nod, "nice, Cinder." A thumbs up, before he slid on his shirt. "Real good."

Cinder rolled her eyes, "can I keep it?"

Aldric burst out into laughter, before immediately kneeling down, fleshy arm pressed to his ribs. "Ah! Fuck you!" He laughed, "that... That was good." He shook his head, "you... You know what? Fuck it, yeah, sure. Keep it." He said, pouring through it with his radar in his ever-paranoid attempts to make sure she wasn't pulling the rug over him; finding nothing, he continued with, "it's a workhorse, and I've got something a bit easier for me to handle in the belt."

Cinder nodded, "thank you." She said, swiping a hand over a button that opened the bay, to let them outside.

"So what're we doing with the you-know-what?" Aldric asked, his eyes settling on the briefcase in her hand. "Just... Leaving it in here?" He asked, over the whirring of the motors in the bay door and the sound of wind whistling inside.

Cinder nodded, "it is not as easy to find it as you would think." She said, "leaving it here... In a random place, would protect it as well as keeping it on my person." She paused, "and should any random passerby come across this vessel, they would think to search _it,_ and not... Say... A pit dug in front of a tree next to it."

They made their exit from the dropship quickly, the only brief pause before they began back to Vale coming from the two masking its presence with branches, leaves, and detritus from the woods. Once they removed and hid as much evidence of its presence as possible, and after Cinder buried the Relic, the two fled the area at a leisurely walking speed. Surrounded by trees, their return to Vale was once again held up when they were faced down by a pack of Beowolves. Aldric's face fell to one of blank annoyance, as he mentally prepared himself for another fight, whereas Cinder merely glared at them. They ran off at her look, prompting a shake of a head and an impressed whistle from Aldric.

"That's supposed to be our boss' influence, right?"

Cinder nodded. "During her battles with Ozpin, she learned how first to dominate Grimm, then to create them, and make her influence over them viral. They still have near total autonomy when they are not in her immediate vicinity, it is not a hive mind, or even a control she has, but rather an influence, and those she counts as allies benefit from said influence."

"She tell you that?"

To his surprise, Cinder shook her head. She seemed reticent and hesitant for a moment, before she sighed, face settling into a pensive frown. Before Aldric could comment on it, she spoke again. "No." She said, "I... Suppose I have never told you how I came to be involved with her." Aldric shut up, and shook his head. "It is... A long story. But when I made my decision, to pursue... Well, the pursuit of power." She said, with a sidewards nod. "I had done so not after a Grimm attack, but a bandit raid. I think there were other survivors, but I never found them. I had to hide in an ancient ruin and pray they wouldn't find me." She explained, "I found, in those ruins, a very old book. It led me to another in the same ruins, which led me to another, which had marked on it another location... Which I would discover later as another set of ruins."

Aldric hummed, "implying these books were the Boss', and these ruins were back from her and Ozpin's time." He said, not really having the mental capacity to sit through the whole story.

Cinder nodded, "Ozpin brought Earth values, Earth philosophies, Earth ideals... I think the reason society as it exists today, exists today, because of Ozpin himself and his history with Rome." She explained. "But Salem... Did not come from Rome. She did not come from Earth. where Ozpin came to this world... Salem was born into it. The books she left were journals. My discovery of the first allowed me to follow her on the journey she undertook eons ago. Learn what she did, as she did, and in her own words." A beat, "if I had days, I could not describe to you everything I learned. I saw her life through her eyes, learned _her_ ideals, _her_ philosophies, _her_ values... And through them, I was able to find her, herself... And, impressed, she chose to take me in. To train me, first in the ways of aura, but then in the ways of magic, to prepare me for when I would inevitably obtain that power for myself."

Aldric grunted, "hm... Maybe when all this is done, you can point me in that direction. Would sound like a fun little walkabout." He said, idly wondering what Cinder had learned that could have so intrinsically colored her worldviews.

She nodded, "perhaps." She said, "not many would agree with what she does or why she does it... But I suppose in the end it doesn't matter, so long as I am given what it is I desire."

"Power overwhelming?"

Another nod, "I don't ever want to have to worry about my life or the lives of whomever I deign to care."

Aldric noticed a catch to her voice as she said this, which he pointed out. "Got something you need to say?" He asked, as they reached a clearing, and found the bullhead the Fang had left for them.

Cinder remained silent until they reached a road, and began following it to the south. "When my village was torn apart, I was scared, Aldric." She began, "scared and angry. Scared that I may die, angry that neither I nor my family were strong enough to protect ourselves... To just be allowed to _live_ another day." A pause, her hands sliding into the pockets of the clothes she had scavenged from Aldric's offerings. "I don't seek power for its own sake. I just want to be able to protect and provide for myself, to be able to stare this harsh world in the eyes and make it blink first. Such that I may have the freedom to pursue the life I would want, on my own terms. But... Do not mistake that for a disinterest, or distaste, in those who do _not_ have power.

"Rather, a pity." She explained, "when Emerald died, I had been for the first time in a half decade faced with mortality. I mourned her, as did we all, but perhaps differently than you or Mercury, as you three..." Her face set in a frown, it appearing she was trying both to physically restrain herself from speaking, but also trying to force the words out. "I would consider friends. The first I have had since my home burned. But her death also strengthened my convictions... _One_ mistake, was all it took for one of the most skilled thieves I knew to die. Mercury almost followed, had you not intervened.

 _"Then..."_ She sighed, "days ago, Mercury perished as well, and I've come to learn something."

Aldric groaned, leaning back into his chair and arcing an eyebrow, turning over to Cinder, whose expression was guarded. "Oh?"

"Life is fragile." She said, "but... We are not." She said, indicating herself and Aldric. "You and I... We are different. From Emerald. From Mercury."

"How so?" Aldric wondered.

Cinder's response was to spark a fire with a snap of her fingers. "We each possess the will to act, and our power only grows to match that will."

Aldric nodded, letting out a long sigh. She was trying to put to words not that they were different because they had magic in a world where so precious few either had or could access theirs, but rather the idea that they each had a goal, and would do anything and everything they wanted in the pursuit of that goal - and instead of stopping them, the world _yielded_ to their will. If they found an obstacle, they simply grew in strength to surpass it, never to be stopped. Cinder could steal the power of Maidens, and Aldric was increasing his mastery over his own abilities. Alone, the two were mighty, but together, they were unstoppable.

Aldric said as much, "it sounds like you're rewriting your idea on self reliance."

She nodded, "Emerald and Mercury both died because their beliefs reflected my own: That the only ones they could truly trust and rely upon in a pitched fight were themselves. But when tested, those beliefs failed them, and life left them." She explained, "you and I, however... Neither of us alone could have taken on that Master. He was, simply, too powerful. But when we worked together, he fell almost immediately." They passed a roadsign, telling them how far away Vale was from here , and Cinder cast a serious look over at Aldric. "And forgive me if I am wrong, but is an idea like this not what you have been pushing from the very beginning?" She asked, "that of... Trust?"

Aldric grinned, "well holy shit, you _do_ listen when I talk." He said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his coat. "And here I thought you just let me go because it was easier than shutting me up."

She nodded to the side, "well, I _do,_ but I find it better to let a person rant. They may slip up, tell me something unintentionally."

"Very true." Aldric nodded, extending his hand over to Cinder. "Guess that makes us Partners?"

Cinder turned her head, gazing down at his hand as the two walked the road, before raising to look into his eyes. "Friends." She asserted, before shaking his hand.

Aldric nodded, "friends." It didn't escape him that, after the two finished shaking, she kept ahold of his hand for a moment, as though she didn't want to let go, before relenting. "Nebo Aldric and Cinder Fall, against the world." A beat, "alright, Hot Stuff. As a friend -" He pointed at her, accusingly, a grin growing across his bruised face. "Did you _choose_ that fucking last name?!" He chuckled.


	51. The Best Medicine

_AN:  
A short one, compared to some of the monsters as of late, but you know what?  
I think we needed it._

* * *

Chapter 50

* * *

They returned to Vale when the sun had set and the shattered moon was at its height. Aldric and Cinder parted ways, and the spy made his quiet return to the hospital. He found that, with his radar, it was remarkably easy to avoid people and sneak inside, but one woman, he found, he could never pull the rug over on that regard. He hadn't so much as twitched into his room, before the ice cream psychopath's eyes opened. He found it surreal, as he slid inside, that he was looking at himself sitting in a hospital bed, covered in almost the same mummified bandaging he himself wore after his fight with the Master.

Were she tired at all, Neo didn't show it - merely smiling, pulling her scroll out from underneath the hospital bed's blankets, and hitting a button.

 _"I spent_ so _much time staring at myself naked."_ Her scroll spat out.

It took all of Aldric's self control not to laugh, instead adopting the kind of smile that one was trying to crush down into a frown, but was unable, as he held up a finger. "Lady..." A chuckle escaped his lips, and he sighed. "You had that _ready."_

She nodded, and his visage melted off of her body, and replacing it was that of Yuno Magenta, who stretched languidly before standing up from the bed. _"So?"_ Her scroll squawked, as she handed Aldric some hospital scrubs.

Aldric shed his clothes, "we found God's vibrator. Killed another god - with a little 'G' - and then dropped a giant robot on Ozpin and his allies."

Neo nodded, ever-present smile merely widening. _"I figured."_ She wrote, _"did you have anything to do with those earthquakes a few days ago?"_

He nodded, "probably." He said, standing up, and noting her smile shrink a bit as she saw his new bandages. "I tried magic-ing up something I knew could destroy planets. But it didn't work - just gave me a heart attack for my troubles." He patted his chest, before gathering up his clothes and his weapons and depositing them in the corner, "thanks for fixing my arm, Yuno." He added, with an exaggerated tone, noting, as he stood up, that the Master Sword and the accompanying Hylian Shield were also leaned up in this same corner.

Neo rolled her eyes, and pulled a slip of paper out of her back pocket, causing Aldric to wonder if she hadn't put them there on purpose, because she knew it would prompt the question. Aldric turned and accepted the sheet, unfolding it and seeing that it was the list of names he'd given her, of all the swordsmen and women he knew in Vale, and a few others. From Ruby to Pyrrha, all of the names were crossed out, except for one.

"Hm..." He grunted, nodding his head, crumpling it into a ball, and tossing it into a wastebasket. "I should'a seen that coming, really."

 _"Do you know something about him I don't?"_ Neo asked, as she helped Aldric into his bed. _"Because he looks like a fool, 'Goud'. From what you told me about that sword, doesn't seem at first glance like it would have picked him."_

Aldric nodded, "sure. But also realize that, where it comes from, it historically likes to pick ten to twelve year old boys. You can count on one hand the number of adult, or near-adult aged, people who drew it." He explained, sliding his back against the bed. "Far as I remember, it looks for heroic qualities more than it does competence - evidenced by the fact that, in one timeline, one of its wielders outright _failed_ , even with it... And as buffoonish as Jaune may be, I'd be willing to say the guy's got his heart in the right place. Entire reason he's still laid up here is because he took a missile for a family he didn't even know." He explained, "and if that doesn't float your boat... Look at it this way: The kinds of stories that sword comes from? They like to fuck with the people reading, watching, or playing them... Or even the characters themselves, _in_ them. So it _really_ doesn't surprise me that the universe threw us a curveball and let _him_ draw the evil-sealing magic sword."

Neo nodded to the side, pulling up a chair next to his bed. _"Guess that makes sense."_ She said, shrugging. " _So should I see the other guy?"_ She asked, nodding to Aldric's bandages.

He shook his head, "he's literal ash. I disintegrated him."

 _"Oh, nice."_ She gave him one of her silent giggles, _"and the vibrator?"_

"Safeish." He said, "as well as it can be." He nodded to her, "how about here? I miss anything?"

She shook her head, _"nothing too much. Everyone's recovery is nearly complete, even your 'Hero'. One may be here a while yet, though - your bird-faunus friend... Myrtle? She was blinded by the sun-bomb, and her aura isn't fixing it."_

Aldric blinked, "bird faunus?" Myrtle was a fucking faunus? How had he _missed_ that?!

Neo nodded, _"don't you worry your little head about the details, Goud. The genetic lottery bit her on the ass. No outwardly visible animal characteristics, but a nice, hollow skeleton to make her life more difficult."_

Aldric grunted, "fuck." He shook his head, "so she's blind. They're keeping her here because they don't have any replacements ready?" Neo nodded, "hm... That'll be fun. Anything else?"

Neo shook her head, running her hand through her blood red hair. _"Little Red's been hoping to talk to you when your throat finishes healing. Deer's story is that there was some shrapnel he never saw, nearly got a jugular, what with all the talking you do."_ She said, with a smirk. _"So he bandaged the hell out of you and numbed your vocal cords. But he also let 'slip' that he'd do the surgery at night, so it'll make sense when everyone wakes up tomorrow and you're talking again."_ She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes, before smirking again and straightening back up. _"Your little dalliance will actually help you, in that regard. One of your new scars could pass for a surgical one."_

He rolled his eyes, "how about the Watchmen? Hear anything from them?" She shook her head, "any fallout from my... 'Dalliance'?"

 _"I heard from Adam Taurus, but that was primarily to send a message along to an old friend of his, also staying here. No fallout yet, but that may change. Little Red and the big-tittied blonde looked pretty distraught yesterday, heard them say something about their father being a few floors down."_

"Probably the giant robot." Jesus, he just _could not_ stop fucking that family. "How bad?"

 _"Not very. Just some burns and lacerations. He was in and out of the operating room by the time the two of them even made it down there."_

Aldric didn't bother asking if she'd followed - of course she hadn't. "I assume he's still here?"

She nodded, _"his little girls are getting out of the hospital in a few days. Of course he is."_

Aldric hummed, deciding not to worry too much about it, as Neo appeared to have been doing a good job giving him an alibi. Instead, with a grin, he pointed out, "so why did I have to drag that information out of you, when I'd asked earlier if anything interesting had happened, and you said _no?"_

* * *

When morning rolled around, Aldric wasn't certain what was more startling: How easy it was to just slip back into the Goud routine, or the fact that he wasn't even startled by the first fact. Regardless, Aldric, now Ash, relied on his internal clock to wake him up, which had the benefit of waking him up bright and early, but also the drawback of doing the same thing. He spent the morning dolling himself up, using some shrunken supplies from his belt and his bathroom sink to wash his hair, brush his teeth, and get rid of the scraggle that was trying to grow on his face. When done, he still felt and looked like hammered shit, but at least he was shaven and his hair didn't look like he hadn't washed it in ten months.

Exiting his bathroom, he got swatted on the ass by Neo, and aside from a roll of the eyes, gave her no satisfaction of a reaction. She guided him down to a cafeteria and the two loaded up on food, their breakfast going by in relative silence. Aldric spared a glance to his Venom Snake arm as he ate, entertaining the thought of doubling down on his growing love of vibranium and swapping it out with whatever Black Panther gave Bucky Barnes. Those thoughts were dashed, however, when he saw the pictures and messages the girls had painted onto it, most of them faded slightly, but otherwise still as fresh as the day they'd been painted on. He sighed, shook his head, and decided he'd just have a vibranium puncher as backup, if _this_ arm ever broke.

Considering the fact that his last opponent had been _Thor,_ he was pretty sure that would be sooner than he'd like to think.

Whatever he may have thought next, however, soon fell to the wayside as he sensed Taiyang enter the room. Neo's eyes were on the blonde warrior somehow before Aldric's telekinetic radar had pinged him. The blonde's blue eyes swept over Aldric for a few seconds, and Aldric figured out what would happen just as soon as the dominoes started falling. Taiyang got himself a plate of food, found Aldric's table, and fell into place right in front of him.

Aldric lazily lifted his head, giving Taiyang an arced eyebrow and a dull expression, mouth full of food.

Taiyang's expression was the opposite of his once-opponent's, one of deadly seriousness. "So I hear you're Ash."

Sorely tempted to speak despite his mouthfull, and shotgun the man who'd punched his ribs and lungs into oblivion with chunks of half-chewed food, Aldric instead nodded, eyebrow still arced, as though silently asking him why he wanted to know this.

"Same Ash that beat my daughter black and blue." Taiyang continued.

Aldric swallowed, coughed, then nodded. "As I remember she gave as good as she got."

Taiyang leaned forward, half over the table. _"How'd you do it?!"_ He breathed, the tension gone from his voice.

Aldric scoffed, and Neo relaxed, removing her hand from one of her many hidden weapons. "Well, like anyone, really. She punched me, I punched her. She punched me, I punched her. Back and forth. In and out. Lasted about... Ten?" He turned to Neo, "fifteen minutes? I forget if you were there." A beat, "no, wait, we had a different voyeur there that night." He turned back to Taiyang, "she's a hellion, that one. Wasn't sure I could handle her until I got her on the ground and started beating her ass."

Taiyang was holding back laughter at this point, shaking his head and picking up a fork. "Exactly how long are you going to keep that up?" He chuckled.

"Dude. Don't tempt me. If you're her Dad, you know her better than I do, and thus you'd know that she'd only associate with someone who could go toe-to-toe, round-for-round, in a fight both physical _and_ verbal."

Taiyang nodded, "don't I know it?" He said, "so: Fear and dead men?"

Neo descended into a fit of silent giggles, as Aldric turned to his food, shamefully. "That's going away."

"Oh hell no." Taiyang nodded to Neo, "whether or not you pick up my kid, I will personally ensure that will _never die."_

Neo blinked, then gave Taiyang an incredulous grin as she retrieved her scroll. _"What makes you so confident he'll pick her up, when he has me?"_ She asked, the glint of a challenge flashing in her eyes.

"And am I the only one that finds it strange that I spent two minutes making sex jokes about Yang, to her father's face, and he seems perfectly okay with the idea?" Was he supposed to take that, and his comment about Neo, as him shipping him and Yang? Or was he just fucking with him? Considering whose father this guy was, Aldric honestly didn't know which option was more likely. He could be doing _both,_ for all he knew.

Not helping matters was the fact that Neo and Taiyang both ignored him, "well you see, ah..." He frowned, then slowly leaned over in Aldric's direction.

"Yuno." Aldric grunted.

"Yuno!" Taiyang snapped back up, "it's simple: Wasn't saying Jack about him getting rid of you. Only that he might end up adding to the menagerie."

"What the flaming fuck are we talking about, right now?" Aldric asked, mouth agape as he looked between Neo and Taiyang. "Am I dreaming right now? Am I high? " Again, he was ignored, though the feeling was mounting that the two of them kept this going just because they liked getting reactions out of him.

 _"I wouldn't put it past her to accept such a proposition. Especially as she made the offer herself. And it isn't necessarily unattractive, either. But he's unimaginably lucky enough just to have gotten me. Do you really think he has a chance to get_ another _one?"_

Taiyang snorted, pointed at Aldric, and said, "she's got you there." Neo rolled her eyes and slid the scroll back over to her.

"Oh, so we're done, now?"

"Don't pick a fight you can't win, kiddo." Taiyang grinned, "but in all seriousness, you were the one she got abducted with, right? The one Ruby ran out to go find?"

Aldric sighed, nodding. "Not something I'm proud of."

"Wasn't implying you were." Taiyang defended, "I just heard your name thrown around by the two of them before the terrans came around. Kind of wanted to meet you even before today."

Aldric was waiting for it, and from the teasing glint in Taiyang's eyes, he knew the older man was as well.

In the end, Aldric's patience and spite wore out, and Taiyang finally gave in. "Fear and dead men?"

Aldric slapped the table, leaning back and grinning into his frown, annoyance shining underneath it. "Fuckin' knew it." He gave Neo a dead glare, "that's not dying anytime soon." He groaned, not even caring that this was probably the first man to bring it up twice in the same conversation; for all he knew it had been on purpose.

She merely tilted her head, grinned, and raised an eyebrow, as though to say nothing more than Aldric had brought it on himself. Taiyang leaned back, laughing uproariously, and clapping his hands together. He leaned back forward and wiped a tear from his eye, "ah man, that's humility, kiddo. Do something stupid and realize it." His head bobbed up and down, "nice."

Aldric rolled his eyes, "at least she ain't stabbing me." He mumbled, "how much says he's literally here _just_ for that?" He asked, leaning over to Neo.

Neo slapped twenty lien on the table, and now Taiyang looked torn. "Ah, hell... I want to leave, but I learned a long time ago it's a bad idea to prove the woman in a relationship wrong." He said, a toothy grin spreading across one side of his face as his eyes briefly glazed over in memory. "I might as well ask, then, ah - what happened when you and -"

" _Dad!"_ They heard a shrill voice call out, just as a certain crimson-haired speedster entered Aldric's radar, and then vanished again - zooming through the cafeteria in a trail of rose petals, before flying over the table and wrapping her hands around her father's chest, the both of them soon laughing as the blonde of the two enveloped her in a tight embrace. "How long have you been here?" She asked, voice muffled by his chest. "What's with these bandages?" She asked, zooming back and examining him, before her head popped up, eyes locking to his. "Were you fighting terrans? But I thought the war was over!"

"Whoa - slow down, kiddo! And be careful with your foot, you're about to kick Etiolate's meal off the table." Taiyang nodded to Aldric's plate, mere inches from Ruby's boot.

"Oh!" Ruby scrambled away, over to her father's side. "Sorry, Ash!" Then a beat passed, and she gasped. "Your voice is back! And your arm! And your Yuno!" She fired off in rapid succession, pointing to each in turn.

Aldric gawked at her for a moment, then, "well damn, lady. You don't let anything as little as the fucking _sun_ exploding over Vale bring you down, huh?"

Ruby giggled, though Aldric, through his radar, did notice how she had to put more effort to keep the smile up. "Yup!"

"Thatta girl." Taiyang tousled her hair, "I heard you kicked some ass, too, kiddo. Did what all of the VAF couldn't, yeah?"

She hummed, closing her eyes and nodding. "I had to go help Ash and Yang!" Then she paused, her eyes shot open, and, "oh! How'd you surf in on that gun-boat-thing?" She asked, leaning forward. "It was so cool!"

Aldric shook his head, "oh hell no, it was stupid as fuck." He chuckled, "and I was... You know, pretty much _dead."_ Self-inflicting wounds enough to make it look like he'd killed his way through a Naval Destroyer hadn't been any fucking fun.

"Yeah, but then you were, like - whoosh!" She threw herself to the side, "and then Pyrrha was all like, 'the shield!', and then you caught it! And then - oh!" She straightened up, "Blake! Have you seen her yet?"

Aldric noticed a barely perceptible nod from Neo, so he held his hand up and shook it back and fort in a 'so-so' fashion. "I mean, kind of? I was mute at the time."

Ruby shrugged, "well, okay, fine... But she helped too! Knew when to throw her gun and everything!"

"Blake being the girl with a worst-kept secret, right?" Taiyang quipped.

 _"Dad!"_ Ruby gasped, "shush!" But her father rolled his eyes.

Aldric, however, couldn't resist a chance to push Ruby's buttons, and said, "but yes." Causing her head to snap over to him, eyes wide, and her father to start laughing. "Lady, I have radar vision. I can see her ears twitch whenever you say her name."

Ruby deflated at this, but, as it dawned on her that Aldric hadn't said anything about it before now, he seemed to be okay to handle the secret. She turned to her father, a crusious tilt to her head, and his response was, "I saw her putting her ears up while I came in this morning. She was talking to Yang. Not many but those who'd want a secret kept would try and hide that, but that's not the best way to hide it."

Aldric was trying to convince himself that this was completely innocent, and that Taiyang wasn't saying that to try and hint that he knew Aldric had been there when they'd taken the Relic. "Yeah, like me hiding how I cheat on her." He nodded to Yuno, who had a knife in her hand in the time it took to blink, an smirk growing on her face as he turned to look at him, blinking innocently.

These innocent conversations continued like this, until well after all those present with food had finished consuming it. Taiyang excused himself, promising to meet up with Ruby once the last of the doctor's tests on him were done, and Neo slipped away to throw out everyone's trash, planting a knife inches from Aldric's thigh when he made a testy joke about it.

Now alone, Aldric and Ruby began their trek back to their respective rooms, "so, now that the peanut gallery's gone." He grunted, "how're you holding up?"

Ruby's ever-present smile dropped a little, before she perked herself back up. "I'm doing good!" She said, putting a spring in her step. "You know - I just had to get healed up." She held her hands behind her back, "you ever wonder why terran bullets can break our aura so fast?" She wondered, "I mean, Yang punches harder than those bullets hit, but they break our aura faster than even she can!"

Aldric regarded Ruby a moment, pretty damn sure she was avoiding whatever was bringing her down. He decided to play along, "I mean, take it from the guy who probably got shot more than should be physically possible... I think it has something to do with how their bullets have no dust. It's just all explosive." It was the only way he could reconcile that, and how he could get punched in the face by a terran and not feel any damage to his aura - it had to do with a distinct lack of dust.

Ruby frowned, not having thought of that. "Maybe?" She tilted her head in thought. "But didn't..." A beat, "I thought that back before we had guns, and we used bows and arrows, they still got deflected by aura?"

"Could they measure aura back then like we can now?" Aldric countered.

Ruby nodded, "oh, yeah. Fair point." She said, "but then, why would they go out and risk digging up so many explosives when they could just use dust?"

"Probably for that exact reason, lady." He shot back, "they figured out the trick, how to..." He bit his tongue, "how to fight better." He nodded, "and are you about to tell me blowing shit up _isn't_ fun?"

She nodded to the side, "well... Okay." She giggled. "So... Do you think its true?"

"Yes." Was Aldric's instant response, with a confident nod.

"You don't even know what I'm talking about!" Ruby pouted.

"Lady, I'm a mind-reader, how do you think I can do half the stuff I can?"

Ruby blinked, "wait, really?" She looked up at him, awe dawning in her eyes.

Aldric snorted, "no."

Her pout returned, "so... I keep hearing that the terrans are from another world - and that's where their name came from - and that this world doesn't have Grimm! What do you think?"

Aldric hummed, "I suppose that'd make sense. Isn't that how the movies usually go?" He grinned, "aliens show up, blitz through the military, kick fucking _ass..._ If they start wanting arbitrary resources that they could get on literally any other planet, but only want from here because there's life, then you'll _know._ " The two shared a grin. Aldric again noticed a forced quality to hers, however, and decided to go for the kill. "Seems like you're doing a lot of thinking about them."

Ruby paused, "well, we were just at war with them..." She said, slowly trailing off into mumbles. "And now that they won, shouldn't we try to understand them?"

Aldric nodded, as the two entered an elevator. "Perhaps... But..." He hummed, turning to look at her, noting how her expression was falling. "Was that the first time you'd killed someone, Ruby?"

She blinked, opened her mouth to protest, but it died before it could pass her lips. Her shoulders slacked and her head fell, and she wordlessly nodded. The elevator was silent for a few moments, save only for the sound of the cables grinding as they lowered them down to the ground.

"I... Can relate, Ruby." He nodded, "I hadn't killed before Fear and Dead Men, either." He lied, "how're you holding up?"

She shook her head, "I can't stop thinking about it." She admitted, before letting her head hang. "All of it." She turned to him.

Predicting her question, Aldric nodded. "That's normal, Ruby. It's the same for me." If he actually spent all the time he'd lost sleep over, actually doing something, he'd probably have killed Salem by now. "Shows you you're human." He dropped his hand on Ruby's shoulder, gripping it tightly. "Look." She looked up, "I won't lie to you... It absolutely will not get better... _But,_ that's why you have friends, Ruby. That's why you fight to protect them. 'Cause what goes around comes around, Red. You fought to help me and Yang, and without hesitation all those others came around to help you do it. But now that the fighting's over, we have to live with the things we've done - and you can be damn sure none of us are going to make you go through that stuff alone. So you need help, you need folks to talk to, we'll all be there, yeah?"

A small smile curled up the corner of her mouth, and she nodded. "Yeah." She said, as the elevator dinged and they reached the ground floor. "Now, I might not be the best advice giver, but I've got a good idea to keep that smile going." He leaned down, giving her a conspiratorial look. "You wanna go fuck with Jaune?" He whispered, as the elevator doors opened.

She giggled, and nodded, her smile widening.

"Good!" Aldric snapped up, "we just gotta grab some stuff, real fast." Aldric made it all of two feet out of the elevator, before something clicked for him. "Oh holy fuck, the power's back!"

* * *

"Wait... Say that again?" Said the meek voice of the blonde Arc, as he stared at Aldric and Ruby.

"It's a magic fucking sword, Jaune! Get with the program!" And Aldric pitched the Hylian Shield at Jaune's face, prompting the latter to shriek as he held up his hands, and Ruby to start laughing as the shield bounced off of them with a bang.

"How else do you explain why no one else can pull it out?" Ruby asked, giving a tug on the purple hilt of the blade, and unable to rip it out of its sheath.

Examining the shield, Jaune gave the two an incredulous look. "You're kidding."

"Actually, only kind of." Aldric responded, "where I came from, this sword was sacred. Many believed it was magic because only a chosen warrior could ever pull it out." He said, as Ruby rounded on Jaune's bed and plopped the sword down on his legs.

"Are you two just here to throw things at me?" Jaune leaned forward and grabbed the sword, pulling it back up to him.

"Uh, yeah." Aldric grunted, "if that missile wasn't any indication, you're just fucking _horrible_ at dodging things. So we've got to get you better at it!"

Jaune sputtered, "but - but there was -"

"No excuses!" Ruby barked, picking up a cup from the counter and throwing it at Jaune, who ducked behind his new shield until it bounced off of it with a plastic 'ping!'.

"Ah, c'mon!" He said, half-whining, half-laughing, as he peered over the edge of the shield. "Really?"

 _"REALLY!"_ Suddenly came the ear-shattering sound of an orange-haired firecracker, as she swung into the room, hand locked onto the doorframe, and an -

"Nora where the fuck did you get an axe in a hospital?!" Aldric shouted, as said axe was now spinning through the air, eliciting another shriek from the Arc, who cowered behind the shield again. "Holy _fuck,_ lady!" Aldric laughed, after the hatchet banged off of the shield and fell off of the bed.

Ruby's shoulders were twitching as she held in laughter, and Nora came marching in, as though she hadn't just tried to murder her teammate. Ren, as was his custom, followed her, he being among the few present actually dressed in his normal garb, the rest covered in hospital scrubs. Aldric noticed this, and gave Ren a nod. "Hey sexy, they're letting you wear people clothes?"

Ren rolled his eyes, and nodded. "My injuries were forgivably light. I have been out of hospital for two days, now, assisting in the rebuilding."

Nora materialized right next to him, hanging off of his arm. "He abandoned us for _days_!" Now rubbing her face into his ribs, she cried, "he hates us! He hates us all!"

Ren pushed her off of him, she fell to her rump, and was back at Jaune's side, repeatedly beating his new arm with a rubber mallet with a demonic smile on her face. Ren found a chair to sit down, nodding to Ruby, who reciprocated, before joining Nora, one beating Jaune, the other throwing things at him. Aldric slid over towards Ren and leaned against the wall, folding his arms and grinning at his chaos.

"So, you gave the blade to Jaune?" Ren asked.

Aldric nodded, "he could pull it out, and he needed a new weapon pair anyways." He said, before nodding to the duo torturing the man. "And to explain this... Well, we needed some more smiles around."

Ren nodded, "on that we can agree. I must ask, however, why can only Jaune wield the blade?" He asked, voice barely raising over the noise in front of them.

Aldric hummed, "you believe the legends, it's a holy sword. Magic. Legend is that it has the power to repel evil, so the belief is that it might be able to smite Grimm. Only a true hero can use it, blah blah blah." He said, waving his hand back and forth. "Not much survived my village's destruction, but that did, so I brought it with me before the semester started. Had it stashed away, and since Jaune needs one." He shrugged. "Figured... Why not?"

Ren frowned, "there must be some truth to those legends, if none of us could wield it." He pointed out.

"Dude, no one was more surprised about that than I was. I've had people tugging on that sword ever since I picked it up. He's the first one to actually whip it out." It was only after specifically making a few penile jokes in reference to this sword, that he remembered he was talking to Ren - a man who wouldn't react even if Aldric whipped his dick out right in front of him. Of course, considering the company he keeps, and his semblance, it only made sense that he had an indomitable poker face.

"In case no one else has, I must thank you for rearming our leader." Ren said, with a respectful nod.

"Dude, you're freaking me out. You've spoken more often in the last five minutes than I've ever heard you speak ever."

"Call it foreplay."

Aldric burst out laughing, it growing so loud and uproarious that after awhile, he couldn't breathe, and began coughing so hard that he felt some of his injuries rearing their ugly heads. This laughter ended up attracting the curious glances from Jaune and his two torturers, and after them a few new arrivals, in the form of Yang, and Ecru. Ecru instantly locked onto Aldric, doubled up on the floor, then she raised her gaze to the still stoic Ren, who returned her gaze blankly.

Then a wide, predatory grin appeared on her face, "get him, get him, get him, get him!" She called out, leaping onto the spy.

Nora, who had hoisted her leader over her head, instantly dropped him back on his bed and dropped on top of Ecru. Yang joined in next, digging her fist into Aldric's head, and Ruby pulled Jaune onto the pile, fully aware of the futility of trying to get Ren in on it. Aldric, never one to be defeated, and still laughing, snaked his arms out to his sides and used his semblance to both hoist himself to his feet, and balance the pile on his shoulders and his hunched back, giving him the appearance of having scooped up five full-sized people and hauled them all up into the air. He then unceremoniously dropped all of them at his feet, though that didn't stop any of the laughter that had sprouted up, and as everyone got back to their feet, he stretched his back, feeling his spine and a few of his less stable ribs pop.

"Glad to see you're fixing yourself up, Ash." Ecru hummed, hanging an arm around Aldric's shoulders. "How're you doing?"

"My motherfucking friends are using me as a couch, Ecru. I'm _great."_ Aldric rolled his eyes, hanging his own arm around Ecru's shoulders, "see you, guys!"

"Bye Ash!" Ruby, now fully smiling, waved them out, as he and Ecru retreated, the latter twisting one of her legs around one of Aldric's and forcing them to walk out three-legged.

"C'mon, we're gonna see Myrtle. Srebro's already up there!" Said the toothily grinning Ecru.

"Explain to me why we're walking like this."

"Celebrating, fool!" Ecru's grin was infections, as they hobbled from side to side, each step forward taking just a moment longer than they would if they let go. "Pretty much everyone's getting discharged today, and I nabbed Myrtle's medical reports - they said apart from her being blind, she's perfectly healthy! So we're going to break her out, and only bring her back when it's time for her new eyes to come in." She giggled.

Aldric raised an eyebrow, "there's something else in there, too."

"I've been trying to convince Srebro to let us drag her to a strip club, but she won't let me! I'm hoping you'll be the tiebreaker!"

"Lady, that's _awful!"_ Aldric guffawed, as the darker skinned of the two kicked the button for the elevator, and they backed up.

"But it would be so funny! Even Myrtle would think so!" Ecru argued, "and before you think it, _really_ think about it - it'd make total sense for places where guys and girls to to shake their asses for money would be fixed first!" Aldric laughed even harder.

"You _almost_ have me convinced, chick." He shook his head, and the rest of their trip was left in relative silence.

When they made it to Myrtle's room, Aldric was faced with more evidence of the slowly returning power - as he saw lightbulbs glowing as they should, and Myrtle's room brightly lit by the sterile white light. The giantess Srebro was seated next to the diminutive huntress' bed, idly chatting with her - and informing her of the rest of their team's arrival.

"Ash, I hear tell that your voice is back." Ecru grunted, pushing her blue hair behind her ear, and looking to Aldric with eyes whose pupils remained as two fixed, dilated points of black.

"Yup, and _I_ hear that the other senses get better when you go blind, so that means you get even more benefits from listening to my sexy-ass voice." He said, realizing now that he'd gone the entire day without seeing Pyrrha, Weiss, or Blake, and, now curious, began probing the hospital for the two, as he deepened his voice and let out a long, _"hey there, baby!"_

"Oh no - go away. You can't pull it off. You made any sexy you had just go away." Myrtle shuddered.

"Bitch, I'll bring the sexy _back!"_ Aldric laughed, plopping down in a chair. "Just wait until you get _your_ new eyes! First fucking thing you'll see is me, shirtless! Aren't people of your... Gen...Dorial... Persuasion..." He shrugged, "I don't fuckin' know. Aren't girls supposed to like scars?"

"I think that's a question for Yuno." Ecru deadpanned, earning a roll of the eyes from Aldric.

He scoffed, and then let out a sigh. "So how're you all holding up?" He asked, finding Pyrrha and Weiss looking about in the hospital's department store, talking, and appearing to just be killing time and window shopping.

"I'm blind, you asshole!" Myrtle called out, in a tone of faux-anger.

Aldric's response was immediate, "bitch, so am I!" He then unscrewed one of his eyes and threw it at her; despite her current state, she still managed to catch it, roll it around in her hands a bit, and then pitch it at a wall - where it bounced right back at Aldric, who smiled as he screwed it back in.

"Those come out?"

"Yup. Good for freaking folks out, wouldn't you agree?" Aldric grinned at Srebro, who nodded, looking a little more than freaked out by Aldric technically having torn his eyeball out of his very skull.

"So now that you're verbal, what all exactly _happened?"_ Ecru asked, finding her own chair.

Aldric spent the next few hours with a smile permanently etched on his face, as he recounted his version of his and Yang's abduction. Ecru then told him the exact details of what Ruby had done, and how, with Myrtle confirming that she had, indeed, lost her sight by looking at the sun-bomb when it detonated. Aldric felt a small amount of guilt at that, but really, he knew damn well and good that there wasn't much he could do, or could _have_ done about it, and it was a temporary injury to begin with - just as his own maiming of the eyes had been. Something that would irreparably cripple a man back home was treated with minor annoyance, here.

They soon descended into idle chit-chat, talking about whatever the conversation brought them to. Their time at the hospital, what they all thought would happen to their school schedules now that a good chunk of Vale was flattened - with no small amount of ribbing Aldric for being instrumental in that decision. Aldric let the peace wash over him, enjoying it while he could - because, as was soon proven with his radar, this peace would be temporary at best. He found Blake on the hospital's roof, armed but relaxed, pacing, as though waiting for something, which soon revealed itself to be their mutual acquaintance.

Aldric watched their conversation as he continued his own, unable to make out most of it, but at least able to tell that there was an air of hesitance on Blake's end, no doubt from seeing Taurus take up a _noble_ cause, as opposed to his decidedly ignoble one. She was clearly still on the defensive with him, backing away when he approached her, shaking her head many times throughout their conversation, at one point giving him an angry glare and a decisive ' _no'_ to whatever it was he'd said. She ended up being the one to end the conversation, shaking her head again and retreating back inside, descending back to the lower floors and linking up with her team.

Eventually, the day ended, its end heralded by the setting sun and the slowly deactivating lights. Neo found her way back to Aldric and the two retreated back to his room.

"You were gone for a while." Aldric noted, as he fell back into the bed he was rapidly becoming sick of.

 _"I figured I'd give Goud some time alone with his harem."_ Neo's phone squawked.

"Not funny."


	52. Aftermath

Chapter 51

* * *

Aldric couldn't fucking sleep, and it was for one of the strangest reasons he could think of.

It wasn't for the bodycount he'd been racking up, it wasn't for fear that he'd made a mistake during his fight with Thor that would have outed his identity to Ozpin, and it wasn't for thought of how easily he fell back into Goud despite having _literally_ run off in the dead of night for a few days to go and almost die, so he could give a quarter of God's power to a madwoman.

No, it was because, as he laid here for what he knew would be his last day here - damn what the Doctors said, he was _leaving_ tomorrow - he realized he'd damned Neo to a chair without so much as a second thought.

 _I mean... How many different kinds of fucking stupid is that?_ Aldric wondered, rolling his head in the ice cream psycho's direction, the barest of glances with his radar showing him how strangely contorted parts of her musculoskeletal system were by her sleeping in a chair - or, at least, trying to. She hid it well, but even though it had been twenty minutes, her heart and breathing rates weren't slow and steady enough to make him think she was sleeping. _For chrissakes, I'm constantly going on about how fucking terrible and worrying it is that she keeps saying she's into me... And I've killed enough people to be considered a mass fucking murderer! Anyone else did what I'm doing and they'd be war criminals! You'd think that would imply I wouldn't goddamn care about how comfortable the assassin who isn't letting me say 'no' is when she's trying to fall asleep._

And yet, as he pulled his tablet out of his utility belt and grew it back to size, Aldric found himself sliding as far over to one side of the bed as he could. His Radar clued him into Neo just barely cracking her eyes open, then opening them fully as she stiffly sit upright, first stretching her back, then tilting her head, silently questioning his intentions.

As he powered on the tablet and dropped the brightness settings down to their lowest possible, Aldric grunted, "let me let you in on a little secret: I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since we maimed the Fall Maiden, and I'm pretty sure human necks aren't meant to bend that way -" He nodded to her, "for more than a few seconds at a time." Neo arced an eyebrow and gave Aldric a teasing look, realizing where he was going with this. "Yeah yeah, shut up, get up here, and get some sleep."

Neo huffed, rolled her eyes, and did as she was told, sliding her scroll out of her pocket and leaving Aldric with one message before she settled in, pressed right up against him, and dropped her head onto their pillow: _"And here I thought getting into bed with you would require a lot more effort and a knife in an uncomfortable place. Be lucky I'm tired, Mister Aldric - next time I might not be."_

Aldric pursed his lips and repressed a shudder.

* * *

 _For the Record:_

 _Something occurs to me, thinking about my fight with Thor, and the exact how of my little Dragonball Z stunt:  
Might I be overthinking the whole 'How Ozpin Copied Semblances' thing?_

 _Like, all I had to do to open up the floodgates was... Think about it. Really, really hard - it really wasn't any different from anything else I do with magic.  
Could it **really** have been that easy all along?_

 _And it also goes back to my whole joke about me being an Ork. I was only **half** kidding, realize. My powers work a lot like the reality warping properties of the Orks from 40K. So is it **really** just a matter of pulsing my magic, thinking 'Barry Allen, Barry Allen, Barry Allen', tapping my heels, and then drawing on the Speed Force?_

 _I'll have to look into this more when I have the free time.  
And I may or may not have a **lot,** coming up soon - we're all getting out of the hospital imminently, which means I'm going to be exposed to the Postwar Remnant as both Watchman and Student._

 _Not much else, really, aside from the fact that I think Neo's beginning to wear me down, and that I'm fully cognizant of the fact: I found myself feeling bad for her tonight, making her sleep in a chair, so I gave the fuck in and now she's wrapped around me like I'm a giant teddy bear._

 _How'd that guy say it in Wonder Woman?  
I am both terrified and aroused?  
Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.  
Speaking of superhero movies, I've got more than a few I still need to catch up on. I **have** everything released up to Infinity War, but I prioritized more RWBY's fifth volume over that. One can argue how smart that is, considering my track record with RWBY versus my track record with more pop culture stuff, but I digress. _

* * *

_"Oh... Look at them! They're adorable!"  
_

 _Huh?_ Aldric let out a barely audible groan, radar slowly spreading out to find himself and Neo still in bed, and his team standing in the doorway leading in, trying to quietly debate whether or not they should wake them up or let them sleep.

Aldric, however, was trying to figure out when he'd fallen asleep in the first place - one moment he'd been watching Black Panther and being royally pissed he'd cheated himself out of a self-assembling vibranium suit, the next it was midmorning and -

 _Oh fuck me._ Aldric groaned again, as it dawned on him that not only had he not realized he'd fallen asleep, but this morning had been the first time in _months_ where he didn't wake up feeling tired. The bags under his eyes felt less pronounced, the drag at the back of his mind was much fainter, and he actually felt like he'd gotten a good night's sleep. _No. This is not the precedent I'm setting. I'm drawing the fucking line here._ He was _not_ going to go any further than this, he was _not_ going to make the connection between his first good night of sleep and the fact that he was sharing the bed with a woman, and he _certainly_ wasn't going to make any conclusions based off of those two facts.

He took in a deep breath and began to stir, as did the disguised assassin, whom Aldric honestly wondered hadn't just been laying there, fully awake, and only pretending to be asleep. Planting her hand on his chest, she leaned up first, stretching her back and yawning, and giving him a knowing grin. He didn't have to say anything, and she didn't have to sign anything - they both knew how close to the inevitable things were becoming.

Instead, Neo slid out of his bed, and Aldric off of the other side, with Ecru taking that as her cue to come in. "Oh, did we wake you up? Interrupt the post-coital nap?"

Aldric grunted, holding his head in his good hand and wagging a robotic finger in the smugly grinning Ecru's direction. "Don't... Don't joke like that." He cleared his throat. "We're breaking out, now?"

Ecru grew her customary, toothy grin, planted one hand on her hips, and used the other to hang her Lovely Lady off of her shoulder. "Yup! Get dressed, lover boy - your girlfrend can come too!"

To Aldric's surprise, however, Neo shook her head, making a chopping motion with her hand; this attracted curious looks from everyone, even him. Her response came after a few seconds on her phone, _"I heard they've got the international trips going again. I've got people I need to check on back home."_ She said, sauntering around the bed and approaching Aldric. _"As much as I'd love to stay -"_ She gave Aldric a peck on the cheek. _"I must go."_

Ecru, ever the energetic core of the team, was the first to cry out in dismay. "Awww!" She thundered through the room, throwing her arms around Neo. "I wanted to get to know you! I wanted to figure out how to piss off our leader! Stay another day, c'mon!" She and Neo both laughed, as Srebro guided Myrtle into the room, and Aldric got to his feet.

"I didn't know the airships were working again..." Srebro murmured, eyes landing on Aldric, who shrugged.

"Hey - she's the one who's been out the last few days. She'd know more than _all_ of us."

 _"And not airships, rather boats."_ Neo corrected, as she extricated herself from Ecru, who was busy grabbing Aldric's things out of the corner and thrusting them into his unprepared arms. _"I look forward to meeting you all again."_ Squawked her scroll, as she gave Aldric a wink.

 _Get me to let you into my bed and then run off. I'm wise to your act, lady._ Aldric smiled back and nodded.

"Well - we've got to see her off, right?" Ecru whipped back around to Aldric, who shook his head.

"She's the 'never say goodbye' type, Ecru." Aldric said, as he stepped into his bathroom, leaving the door cracked open so the three of them could still talk. _"So Myrtle - how's it feel to have a giant amazonian seeing-eye dog?"_

 _"Like I'm two inches away from accidentally copping a feel."_ Said the diminutive faunus, whose hand was lightly pressed to the small of Srebro's back.

"Are you complaining?" Aldric heard Ecru tease.

 _"Yes."_ Though the blush on the blue-haired rookie's face made Aldric question her answer.

So of course he took that and ran with it, as he slid a pair of pants over his vibranium suit. _"Just wait until you get your new eyes, lady! They have X-ray vision - it's great! You can finally drop the pretense and get your eyefull of Ecru!"_

The giantess gasped, hands covering her face, as Ecru fell over backwards laughing. Myrtle didn't dignify it with a response, and Aldric let the subject drop as he slid on his gauntlets and his boots. Once in full regalia, minus his coat - as he'd spent his last one in futility, trying to save Mercury from bleeding out in front of Thor - Aldric rolled his baggy sleeves down his arms, them bunching up behind his gauntlets. He stepped out of the bathroom, dropping his shield on the weapon mount on his back, clipping his lightsaber and his gun to his utility belt, and retrieving his white cane, which he gave to Myrtle.

"To our newest cripple, with warm regards." Aldric chuckled, as Myrtle ran her hands over the cane, recognized it, and accepted it with a nod. "You'll get used to it faster than you think."

"I'll start up when school gets back into it. Until then, I'm keeping the giant."

"Isn't that supposed to be soon?" Ecru wondered, as she ushered everyone outside of the hospital room, and took the lead to get them out of the building. "I heard from one of the teachers laid up in here that Professor Ozpin's going to be dividing our time up between classes and helping with the rebuilding." She paused, "oh, by the way, Ash - you're buying!"

Aldric blinked. "Buying _what?"_

 _"Breakfast!"_ The three of them shouted in unison.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Aldric found himself in a restaurant down in what had once been behind the Green Line, as such it appearing as though it had escaped a great deal of the terran's mad-dash for Beacon. His team was doing its damnedest to drain his wallet, not at all aware that the money Mercury had dropped for him on the first day _alone_ would probably be enough to buy this restaurant and still go Bruster's Millions for a few years afterwards; funds which, Aldric realized, may only go up, now that the assassin's son was dead and both his bank account and his coin stash were unclaimed. Granted, Aldric wasn't guilt-free in this, either: He'd been running on IV's, hospital food, US Military rations, and magic beans for longer than he cared to admit, so he was _starving_ for some real food, proving to even rival Myrtle's legendary appetite.

Aldric decided to point this out as he tore into his second entree, "so, Myrtle - " He pointed at her two salads, three cheesburgers, and steak. "- how the fuck do you pack on that much food, and how the fuck are you cleaning your plate _while blind!_?"

Myrtle's response as a simple, "how are you paying for all of this?"

"Ah! But!" Aldric held up a finger, "I actually have an answer for that, bitch!" He grinned, as the other two looked back and forth from the shaggy-haired spy to the blind, blue-haired thief. " _I_ had a sugar mama during my summer vacation, and she _owes_ me, now! Paying for Beacon, my arm, my eyes, all that shit." He waved his hand at her, before digging back into his food. "So I've _got_ money... Least until she sees the bill for today, and the medical bills I racked up over this last month, then Miss Ember's going to stab me." He shivered, "but _you?_ You're four and a half feet tall, skinnier than _me,_ and you probably eat your weight in food every meal."

Srebro arced an eyebrow, "Ash, I thought your new eyes were supposed to _help_ your sight, not make you blinder than you used to be." She smiled thinly.

"Oh please, Wonder Woman." Aldric waved Srebro away, "don't mock the sight. Just because I _mention_ something, doesn't mean I'm not aware of other things. Example: I'm well aware of the fact that Ecru's been eying our waitress, and said waitress took her ring off before she came to our table."

Ecru blinked, "Wait -" She twisted around and leaned up in her seat, looking back in the direction their waitress had retreated to, "she's _married?"_ She turned to Aldric, "she looks as old as me!"

Aldric leaned back, closing his eyes, searching the restaurant for the waitress in question. "ID says she's _thirty."_ He grinned at Ecru, "you got something you want to say, Ecru?"

"Yeah - where's your coat?"

"I think Myrtle ate the last one." Aldric turned back to the thief, "bringing it back full circle."

"I'm a bird faunus." Myrtle deadpanned, an eyebrow arced.

"I see no feathers, I call bullshit."

"I see your feathers and raise brittle bones." Myrtle grinned, "genetic lottery kind of bit me in the rear end, there." She inspected an arm with a dramatic sigh, "would've much rather some wings. Even with my chosen specialty, I think I could rock that look."

Aldric gaped at her, "lady - you have brittle bones and you decided to be a _huntress?!"_ He snorted.

"You were blind and you became a huntsman." Myrtle brushed her blue hair out of her face. "Difference is my semblance and my aura let me get away with more than I should. Enemy can't hurt what they can't see, and if they do, my aura takes the hit anyways."

"All I'm hearing is 'break my legs, Ash!'."

"Her hips, more likely." Ecru sniped, elbowing Srebro and causing Aldric to choke on his food and Myrtle to roll her eyes.

"Ecru!" Srebro gasped, a scandalized look on her face. "We're in public!" She was trying to mask a slowly growing grin with an 'o' of surprise.

Aldric slugged down some soda, "you realize if any of RWBY were to walk in here, she and I would just get _worse?"_ He asked, "you do realize that?" He gave Srebro a wild-eyed grin, and her eyes dropped as she realized he was right. "And you!" He turned to Ecru, pointing at her with a knife-hand. "No!" He pursed his lips. "No!"

But Myrtle's evil grin widened, "is our suicidal leader saying he doesn't like faunus?" She asked, knowing damn well and good she was giving him a loaded question.

Aldric knew what his best defense was: Attack.

So he used his semblance to slide around the table so he could lean his head against Srebro, who's gasp was drowned out by Ecru's guffaws and Myrtle's snort. Aldric grinned and slid back to his plate, "sorry sorry, Srebro, I saw my opportunity and had to take it." She nodded, it not being lost on Aldric that there was a rosy tinge to her face, as she buried herself in her food.

Aldric didn't say anything, and after a moment, Myrtle spoke up. "So what did you _do_ to that 'Ember' chick that she's funding... _You."_

"Well..." Aldric gave a sheepish shrug, "when a horde of Grimm shows up and kills your caravan... You tend to be grateful to the little combat-school kid who spends an arm and two eyes to kill them." He said, "and then that same guy makes a name for himself at a Huntsman academy, and _then_ is... Apparently a war hero, now?" He shrugged, "not sure of the nomenclature - but the point is she thinks I'm a good investment."

"Clearly she has no idea how suicidal you are." Myrtle deadpanned.

Aldric chuckled, "right?" He yawned, "nah, she's played the whole huntsman game longer than I have, knows all the ins and outs, knows how good it is to be known as 'an associate of' so and so."

And as he predicted, Ecru leaned forward, "so when do we get to meet her, eh? You've been doing any networking for us?" She grinned, her eyes wide.

"Well - probably not anytime soon, lady! We were kind of... _At war!"_ He actually did have a plan if ever the 'will we meet her?' question came up, as well as a few ideas of what he could offer Torchwick to borrow Neo for the day or two.

As they continued chit-chatting over their growing pile of dishes, Aldric noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a small, winged creature landing on one of the tables outside, and began eying him specifically. Realizing that it looked familiar, and that there was only one reason for a random wild animal to give him an evil eye, Aldric stretched out his radar, and confirmed that it was, indeed, the Qrow crow. The transformed man gave a few caws to get Aldric's attention, no doubt trying to let him know that Ozpin was summoning him, and while Aldric wondered if he was summoning _just_ him, or all of the Watchmen, he nodded in the crow's direction. The crow's head twitched in a responding nod, and it took off.

 _Ah, it never fuckin' ends._ Aldric downed a glass of water, "so I hear tell that there are rumors the terrans were from another war."

The rest of the day went by too quickly for Aldric's tastes, but the good news was, he didn't have to find an excuse to sneak away from his team - who would probably have lynched him if he'd tried. No, instead, the excuse came to him, as GEMS made their triumphant return to Beacon, in the form of Glynda Goodwitch, riding crop hanging loosely from her belt, approaching the group.

"Oh, Professor!" Aldric called out, causing his team to stop dead, Myrtle slyly hiding behind Srebro, such that her still ill-repaired eyes wouldn't be noticed by the telekinetic professor. "How goes it?"

The exhausted-looking woman nodded once, "just fine, young man." She said, "have you a moment? Professor Ozpin wishes to speak with you."

Aldric arced an eyebrow, eyes briefly raising to Beacon Tower, looming above and beyond all of them. "All of us?"

"Just you."

"Can it wait?" Ecru asked, draping an arm over Aldric's shoulders. "I'm pretty sure we can convince the dorms to throw a party now that Fear and Dead Men is back!" She grinned, grinding her fist into Aldric's head.

Goodwitch shook her head, "I'm afraid not, Miss Lemarac. He needs to come with me, preferably now."

His team found themselves unable to put up anything more than a passing resistance, and soon, Aldric found himself following Goodwitch, and wondering if Ozpin having sent her was an omen that she was in the loop, or just a coincidence. Regardless, she led Aldric into the trashed Beacon Tower, and to an elevator, whose doors were slightly ajar.

Aldric, able to sense that one of the cables were snapped, looked to Goodwitch, "ah... The power on in here?"

"Not quite." Goodwitch responded, as she was enveloped in a purple glow, and the doors opened all the way."

"Oh." Aldric stepped onto the elevator, "I've been meaning to ask you about that, Professor. You got any tricks of the trade you can teach?" He asked, "I figured out how to fill up a glass of water." Take hydrogen, add oxygen, burn, or, failing that, take the ambient H2O already in the atmosphere and condense it all together. "But the more fun stuff eludes me."

Goodwitch frowned, humming. "If what you say is true, I must admit you have already eclipsed my own abilities. I found myself taxed to capacity, rearranging the atoms in the air just to fill _half_ of a glass."

Aldric blinked, "uh, ma'am? The air around us is filled with water vapor. It's why the sky's blue. Why bother recombining atoms when you can just do like the clouds?"

"And if you find yourself in an arid desert?" Goodwitch countered.

"Good point." Aldric shrugged.

"When we formally restart classes, come see me after your civil service. We will see exactly how far along you are, and if I can help you go any further." Said the Professor, apparently reconsidering exactly how far along he was, in light of his argument.

"Uh... Civil service?" Aldric asked, as he sensed them coming up on Ozpin's office.

She nodded, "lessons and classes, combat training, and then civil service are to be expected out of every student until Vale is in a far better state than it is now. You will be assisting with the rebuilding process."

"Oh." Aldric nodded, letting out a yawn. "Fun." Aldric just couldn't shake the dissonance he felt, hearing Agent Texas' voice come out of this school teacher's mouth.

Regardless, the two of them reached Ozpin's office a few moments later. It looked, appropriately, like it had survived a bomb blast - the floor was scorched and covered in debris, most of the windows were shattered, allowing the whistling, high-altitude air to fill their ears. The professor guided Aldric through the office, to where Ozpin stood, at its furthest edge, standing at the threshold of a shattered window, the wind leaking inside and causing his suit and his hair to billow in the breeze.

 _Oh... Alone with Ozpin at the high-ass edge of a building._ Ozpin either outright _knew_ Aldric was guilty of something, or suspected it on some level, and was about to Batman 'the fall won't kill you, but that's the point' him. _Or I'm overthinking it, but given my track record, I'm probably not._

"Thank you, Glynda." Ozpin nodded, without turning around, as Goodwitch and Aldric reached him. "You may leave."

Goodwitch nodded, sparing a brief glance to Aldric as she said, "goodnight, sir." Was that fear Aldric saw in her eyes? Or concern?

Either way, Aldric approached Ozpin as Goodwitch retreated. He looked out to Vale, seeing the sporadic areas that had power back, which only served to illuminate the areas that didn't, or the areas that had been wrecked by the terrans.

"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall wield the power of Thor." Ozpin recited.

Aldric blinked, "uh -"

"I found that inscribed upon a hammer I found next to a severed hand, in a quarry outside of Mountain Glenn." Ozpin continued, "immediately following an encounter with two terrans who had awoken their abilities... One a man, whose mask had been scorched by lightning and mangled by impact, and another, garbed in wastelandish cloth... I think who were there to kill one of Salem's Masters."

 _There is no fucking way I'm getting out of this scot-free._ "The fuck were a bunch of Masters doing in Mountain Glenn?"

Ozpin frowned, eyes still not leaving the city. "In order to receive help from your people in the rebuilding process... They demanded either the name and location of the Fall Maiden, or, failing that, the Relic only she can access." He explained, "and since I couldn't give them the former... I had to give them the latter. Only... Someone knew. Initially I thought it had been the Master and the Maiden I had encountered, but after I destroyed the... Machine, they used to distract myself and my allies, and investigated the battlefield, I realized that they had gotten there _after_ the first Master." He sighed, "I believe biblical is a proper adjective to describe their battle. I saw, with my own eyes, a ray of light so bright and so large that it shot off of the surface of the earth, its aftermath appearing as though someone had taken a shovel and dug out a trench through to the horizon. I concluded that this first Master to appear, the man whose hand had been left behind, must have worked for Salem, Mister Aldric. And that the two to follow were an independent party.

"And to be truthful, there is no simple way of putting this." He sighed, "we've lost the relic."

"Oh." Aldric grunted, lowering himself to the ground. "Fu -" Ozpin's hand was around his throat and in the blink of an eye, their scenery changed.

The cloudy night sky instantly cleared, suddenly being filled with more stars than Aldric had ever seen before. Ozpin's office vanished, replaced by a wide expanse of light, and off in the distance, blindingly bright -

 _JESUSCHRISTTHISMADMANTELEPORTEDUSTOTHEMOON!_ Aldric grasped at Ozpin's hand, clawing at it as the livid Master glared at his younger captive.

 _"One chance, Aldric!_ " Ozpin roared, his voice somehow penetrating the void of space - confusing Aldric, until he realized that Ozpin's mouth hadn't budged an inch. _"Qrow told me he had drank too much and informed you!"_ And as he roared, Aldric realized they weren't even _on_ the moon - they were on one of the fragments that had been torn _out_ of the moon, as evidenced by the fact that its rotation was rapidly making the sun set in front of them, and bringing the rest of the moon up behind them. _"And then I see a Master -"_ He tore Aldric's shield off of his back, _"with a shield, scorched black but of this exact size and shape! I see a weapon that exists only in your fiction! I see a gigantic metal beast and a ship that can reach space!"_ Aldric's lungs felt like they were literally going to explode - and with the iron grip Ozpin had on his throat, he couldn't try to buy himself more time and let the air out into the vacuum. _"Hallmarks of **your** magic!"_ Now with the sun having set, Aldric could feel the temperature around them dropping rapidly, it going from boiling hot to freezing cold in seconds, as the sky above was filled with the white of the moon's surface. _" **Your** calling cards, Aldric!"_ The shield vanished from Ozpin's grip, and Ozpin suddenly found himself hurtling through the vacuum - his trip lasting only but a second before he slammed into the moon, and Ozpin followed, smashing his foot into Aldric's stomach and driving all of the air out of his crying lungs. _"I want to trust your alibi - I want to trust the fact that **everyone,** Qrow included, saw you these last few days at the hospital! That your doctor swears up and down your sudden silence was a mistake of surgery!"_ The edges of Aldric's vision were going dark, _"but then I remember that you outright told me you have won the romantic favor of a woman who can make herself mimic the appearance of anyone alive!"_

And suddenly, they were back in Ozpin's office - Aldric choked, gasping for air, coughing and wheezing as he rolled over to his hands and knees.

"I _want_ to believe it, Aldric, to the point that I very nearly _do!_ But it is that one, minuscule, _sliver_ of doubt that demands I ask you! So tell me, Aldric!" Ozpin scathed, "and do not even _presume_ to fucking lie to me!" Aldric was rolled back onto his back, and found Ozpin's cane hovering inches above his nose. _"Did you do it?! Was it you and Cinder?!"_

Aldric coughed, "fuck, Ozpin!" He said, barely able to fill his lungs fast enough to meet demand _and_ speak. "And run the risk of sparking another war between Earth and Remnant - or, if what you say is true, murder my _father_ , who, I'll remind you, could very well be one of Salem's goddamn Masters!" He pushed Ozpin's cane away and unsteadily hauled himself to his feet. "No, Oz." He looked the man in the eye, "no, I didn't fucking take the relic. I'm stupid, Ozpin - clearly! But giving an _infinity stone_ to the one dude who would use it to kill half of everything would be just fucking _retarded._ " He grunted, voice hoarse. "I thought the point of our Vytal plan was to avoid exactly that?"

"Yes - and how well that plan shall hold up now." Ozpin growled, "tell me again you didn't do it, and I will believe you."

Aldric coughed again, leaning against one of the metal poles that would have separated two windows, had there been any there. "I didn't do it, Ozpin." He said, "I'll... I'll admit I wasn't in the hospital, but I had nothing to do with the Relic." He raised a hand, pre-empting Ozpin's response. "I was on Earth." Ozpin paused, "I was telling my mother I was alive." The steam seemed to slowly fade away from Ozpin. "I... I gave her something, such that if she ever needed it, it would protect her."

Ozpin let out a long breath, "what did you give her?"

Aldric shook his head, "that would be telling, Ozpin. I'm not telling _anyone_ what she has - even she doesn't know, and she won't, unless she needs it." Aldric clenched his chest. "Jesus, man... Were we just on the moon?" He looked up to the white crescent disk in the sky, trying to identify which chunk of debris they'd been on. "How the fuck do you _lose_ to her?" And how did Aldric, who, by all accounts, should statistically be more powerful than Ozpin, still feel like he was losing out on raw power?

Ozpin sighed again, loosening his stance and standing up straight. "That was but a parlor trick, Aldric. Transporting us, even such a distance... It is but a mere drop in the bucket." A beat, "the power of the Maidens is constant, Aldric, because it seeks out fresh souls with which to be revitalized. Think of a parched traveler seeking an oasis in a desert. I, however, am an old soul, endlessly being brought back to life _as is._ I do not merely impregnate souls with my power, I cohabitate the body. Such a thing ages me... Weakens me, in a way you cannot understand." He shook his head, and helped Aldric to his feet, the younger Master feeling a soothing heat flowing through his pained body, no doubt some sort of healing trick Ozpin had learned. "Cinder, despite possessing merely twenty percent of my power, is and always will be stronger than I am now, and being taught by our mutual enemy means she will know how to use it in ways I never thought of."

Aldric nodded, "and how am _I_ supposed to kill the _both_ of them?"

To which, Ozpin shrugged. "First, you will need to learn to access your _everything,_ not merely the coldest embers as you have been doing, but that is besides the point." He gave Aldric a pat on the shoulder. "Having lost the Relic... Earth is not happy."

"I would assume." Aldric nodded, as the two looked back out to the distance. "Got any plans?"

Ozpin nodded, "I know of some local Dust mines, as well as a few oil wells out at sea. I can sell those things to your people... Give their scientific sectors a shot in the arm and perhaps stave off their resource shortages for a time."

"That could only produce _more_ rogue Masters, Oz." Aldric warned, "and even if it didn't... I shit you not, we're probably closer than people would like to admit to real-life Captain Americas. Real life Master Chiefs... Space Marines, for chrissakes. Any way you slice it, you give them a decade, they'll take a century, and then the only advantage you have in a conflict is _gone."_ He said, "and conflict _is_ coming. That is _literally_ Salem's plan."

Ozpin nodded, "my... Former contact there, as well as my new one, both say they believe the same." He explained. "They intend to do whatever they can for us. A few platoons get their commanders changed. Some equipment gets erased from the books... But when another war starts, we will not get an entire planet's assistance, as we would hope." He ran his hand through his hair, before resting it atop his cane. "We are approaching the endgame, Mister Aldric. As we tear eachother apart in the highest-stakes performance act in history... The months after Vytal may very well determine the outcome of both our species."

Aldric grunted, "no pressure."

Ozpin shook his head. "I must apologize, Mister Aldric, for my anger. I am..." A sigh, "more stressed, in these months, than I have been in centuries. Not thinking as well as I should be."

"Oh, I get it, dude. Trust me." Aldric nodded. "So... You're going to sell trillions of dollars of resources for Louisiana Purchase money... And just... What, _pray_ they'll take it as fair exchange?"

"Such is all I _can_ do."

Aldric shook his head. "Ain't that the truth." He looked up, frowned, then looked around. "Where's my shield?"

"Here." Ozpin pulled it out of nowhere, handing it to Aldric.

Aldric nodded, holding it in both hands, and looking back to the city. "I like this thing... It's gonna be a shame to give it up."

Ozpin frowned, "oh?"

"Goud's gonna have to die, Ozpin. No better proof of his death than him leaving behind the _one fucking thing_ he never goes without." Aldric couldn't remember if they'd spoken about this before.

Ozpin nodded, "we will need to summon our... Mutual allies, soon enough. Not imminently - as the time is not right - but soon."

Aldric agreed, "looks like our plan's kind of been shot, along with everything else." He indicated the city. "For which I do apologize."

Ozpin shook his head, "don't. It bought us time. Sometimes that is all we can ask for." He said, lowering his gaze to the damaged and bombed grounds of Beacon. "Sometimes that is all we have." He hummed, "I have a request, Aldric."

"Lay it on me."

Ozpin was silent a moment, as he thought his words through. "Due to the events of these last few months, many of my counterparts and allies in other countries fear we have lost control of the situation. I am, subsequently, in a position where I must make a drastic choice in order to appear as though we have not." He explained.

Aldric had been afraid of this; he nodded. "How drastic, exactly?"

"As much as I feel it would assuage many to know we've a man on the inside, Mister Aldric, I know the dangers outweigh the benefits of such a thing." Ozpin assured him. "No, the choice I must make is one of another matter, and is one I feel is best explained through one request."

 _What the fuck is with the point of these theatrics?_ Aldric nodded.

"As I have noticed you 'making the rounds', as it were, and reconnecting and checking on the friends and allies Goud has made during his time here, I must request you refrain from making contact with one of the last upon your list." A beat, "in short, please allow Miss Nikos to approach you, and not the other way around."

Now _that_ caught his attention. "You're telling her _now?"_ He asked, turning to Ozpin. "What for? If it's to calm down Ironwood and the others, to what end? His aura machine won't be done for a while - if it ever _will_ be, with how trashed Atlas is. They got into a grudge match with _America,_ Oz - you don't survive that without a black eye, a few dozen broken bones, your oil being stolen, and your government being replaced by a Democracy." He chuckled, "so to what end?" He asked.

"Beyond the simple - the fact that I've _found_ someone and have made my choice resultantly assuaging many worries - there is another facet to it." He looked down to Aldric, grinning. "You are a smart man, care to take a guess?"

Aldric blew out a breath of air, turning back to the city and letting the night air cool him down. "How many other countries gave up their relics?"

Ozpin's grim remained, "none."

"So you're telling them that you've chosen Pyrrha _now,_ to convince them that the terrans accepted it, and didn't demand your relic, to disguise the fact that Tweedledee and Tweedledum made off with the Relic in the first place." He nodded, "close?"

"Enough." Ozpin nodded. "Shield a lie in the truth of a different lie."

"Then a different question: How do you expect them to believe that when the terrans come in and start pillaging your lands for Vale's Dust?" Aldric asked, "when they set up an oil rig and start bleeding Remnant dry?"

"I believe Goud says it best, Mister Aldric. _Hope."_ He said, "a symbol. If they have something to believe in - the idea that soon we will have a Maiden dedicated not just to our cause but to _fighting_ for it - will buy us the time we need to reach the endgame."

"And what happens when we _reach_ said endgame?" Aldric asked. "Where once we thought we'd have two planets, now it looks like it would require no small amount of divine luck just to get us a few tens of thousands of soldiers." Aldric was firmly convinced that, with Earth and Remnant at eachothers' throats as they seemed to be poised to pretend to be, their primary ground forces for the 'Endgame' would come from the White Fang, supplemented by Huntsmen and terran commandos. "I played a lot of XCOM back home, Ozpin. Circumstances in that game were a lot like here, but if you fuck up and things get as bad as it looks like they're going to unavoidably _have_ to be here, countries started pulling out and refusing to help." Aldric hoped he could use his position as an ally _to_ the terrans to finagle more soldiers out of the deal, but it still wouldn't be anywhere near the numbers he'd initially thought he'd have.

Ozpin nodded, "yes..." He said, "I know... But I've a plan for that."

Aldric turned to Ozpin, "oh?"

"I again want to see your intelligence, Mister Aldric. If I were to say the word 'symbol', could you ascertain my intentions?"

Were Aldric any more cynical, he'd say Ozpin had no fucking clue what he was doing, and was instead pulling off the mother of all Jack Sparrow impressions by making people _think_ he did, by mooching off of the plans of everyone else around him; case in point: He didn't know what to do here, and was hoping Aldric could come up with something good.

Aldric looked down at the shield in his hands, frowning at the moonlight hitting its multicolored surface and diffusing into the dirt, scratches, handprints, and scorchmarks, and realized he might already know what Ozpin was implying. "Ruby... Pyrrha, or both?" He asked, balling up the end of one of his sleeves and rubbing at the star in the center.

"Both, hm?" Ozpin parroted back. "Why not one or the other?"

"I asked you first."

"I've led this war for thousands of years, Mister Aldric. I feel the key may be in the thoughts of someone who hasn't been involved with it for nearly so long." Ozpin remarked, as Aldric brought his hand away, now just able to see his outline reflected in the still dirty shield.

Aldric sighed, spinning the shield on his fingers, enjoying the low, almost arcane humming noise the vibranium made as it span. "It's like you said. _Symbol._ A person can be strong, but symbols are powerful, because as much strength one person can have, symbols have the collective power of _everyone_ who believes in them... Pyrrha is the woman who would be a Maiden. The Invincible Girl. Already legendary in Mistral, famous in Atlas and Vacuo, and rapidly becoming _human_ in Vale. She's basically Wonder Woman - she even has a tiara." He said, "Ruby, on the other hand, is a silver-eyed warrior. They in and of themselves are _legends_ , the greatest fighters in history had silver eyes... And if you take, shall we call it, _'fate_ ' into account, she's the only one who ever left a lasting injury on the Lady In Red. You pair them together..." A pause, as the final piece clicked. "And give them something that connects the two." He swiped his hand over the shield. "And the world will rally with them." Ozpin wanted Aldric to pass the shield onto one of them - logically, the only one of them that _used_ a shield.

Ozpin nodded, "a decent summary." He said, "and yes. It is my belief that a powerful enough rallying cry will serve to buy us just enough time and unity for our first and last stand against Salem."

Aldric hummed, "a fifteen and a seventeen year old girl, with a dead eighteen year old idiot's shield." He jerked his head, "what a fantastic team."

Ozpin nodded his head to the side, "perhaps, when put like that... But also realize that with them will be, at the least, two of the three top teams in their year. Should Goud's team elect to accompany them instead of fighting in the war, that would make three. And united by the shield of their fallen comrade, itself already possessing a mystique about it... It would take but one major event to thrust them into the global eye."

 _Ah._ Aldric nodded, the very last piece of the puzzle falling into place. "I'd almost forgotten about all that, to be honest."

Ozpin nodded, "two thirds of the groundwork has already been done for us. Goud's 'legend', so to speak, was cemented by his..." Ozpin sneered, "ostentatious stunt on the docks." Aldric rolled his eyes. "Miss Nikos' 'legend' needs no further cementation... All that remains is Miss Rose's, and we are uniquely positioned to give her the push she would need to realign herself with fate. We need only contact Torchwick to lay the ground rules of her investigation into him, and her success there will cement her as well."

"Then I martyr myself in their eyes and the world's, they take up my cause and my ideals, and through sheer force of will, keep the worlds united and on the same page _just_ long enough for me to do whatever it is the White Witch wants me to before she'll take me home." Aldric grunted, "I hope you know the way I'm selling, among other things, us not killing them whenever we encounter eachother, to Cinder is predicated on the mental trauma figuring out who I am and who I 'work' for."

To which, Ozpin nodded, with a deep sigh. "I figured." He said, "but I've my own way of dealing with that eventuality. One I hope will service your desire to leave this life of intrigue behind, should victory grace us in the end."

Aldric chuckled, "holy fuck, I almost wish I could be there to see you unfuck that." He said, mounting the shield on his back and turning around. "Wait for Pyrrha."

Ozpin nodded, "wait for Pyrrha. Goodnight, Mister Aldric."

* * *

Leaving Beacon Tower with a head full of thoughts, Aldric almost didn't realize he'd let his radar shrink, and that he wasn't alone, until he was right on top of her.

Head popping up, Aldric blinked, "Weiss." He grunted, deep voice breaking the night silence. "You're usually asleep around this time. Team's back in action, now?" He spared a glance past Weiss and to the dorms, sensing the rest of RWBY, sound asleep, inside.

Weiss was standing, examining one of the missile craters dotting Beacon's grounds, the pale moonlight making her already milky countenance almost ghastly. Clutched in her hand was a sheet of paper, and staining her face were streaks of water.

"You okay?" He asked, approaching.

"Ah..." Weiss breathed, "no." She shook her head. "With sea-travel restored to the other kingdoms, that means news can travel again. Written news. Not very fast, but..." She rested her head in her hand, tightly clenching her jaw, as she brandished the sheet of paper. "Fast enough, if you've money."

Aldric frowned, and planted a hand on Weiss' shoulder. "What happened?" He asked, looking down and seeing an official-looking seal at the bottom of the letter.

"It's a letter of condolences." Weiss took in a deep breath, looking up at the sky. "I found it on my bed when we got back to the dorms. Came out here to read it."

 _Wait, condolences? Who the fuck - Oh._ Aldric felt his heart sink. "Who died?" He whispered, realizing he knew damn well who. _If the tone of this day changes any more, I'm going to break my neck from the fuckin' whiplash._

"My sister."

"Well..." Aldric grunted. "Fuck."

"Quite right." Weiss nodded, "and my father... Instead of asking I return home for the funeral, requested I remain in Vale, to act as ambassador for the SDC, in these 'trying times'."

"What a _dick."_ Aldric scoffed. "I'd offer to kill him - jokingly, of course - but that seems inappropriate."

Weiss cracked a grin, and lowered her gaze to him. "I must admit I like that about you, Ash. One moment you're a paragon of justice... The next you can say it like it is, and neither image can compromise the other."

"Anything I can do?" Aldric asked.

Weiss shook her head, "just be there, Ash." She nodded back in the direction of the dorms. "You would be surprised how different things seem when you're there. Like your shield, things just seem brighter."

Aldric nodded, bading her follow, which she did. "Wise man once said happiness can be found even in the darkest of times... I'm sure your sister died fighting for what she believed in." On complete accident, because he'd called in a bunker buster without consideration for collateral damage! "And... Whether or not you believe in afterlives, at the very least she's not in pain and she doesn't have to struggle anymore." A beat, "you know... I didn't know your sister... But let me tell you a conclusion I've reached about death, I feel it applies more widely than just myself.

"See... I always said that when I up and kicked the bucket, I wanted people not to mourn my death, but celebrate my life. Remember the good times and the bad, but don't get bent out of shape 'cause I'm not here." He explained, "so... Your sister, she's not around anymore. But... I don't think she'd want you to mourn her like it looks like you're doing." A beat, "and your father's an asshole. And like all assholes, he's only good for the shit he spews out." Weiss scoffed, trying not to laugh. "And considering this is some _Grade-A bullshit,_ that asshole ain't quite doing its job properly." A beat, "on account of the different species' feces."

The snow-haired huntress smacked Aldric's metal arm, "how long can you go, I wonder?"

"Uh, apparently - a week." He chuckled, indicating the area on his face where he'd been muzzled.

"That's not funny."

"We lived, didn't we?"

Weiss looked like she had something to say, based on her parted lips and the glazed look in her eyes, but she shook her head. "I suppose we did." She said, as they reached the dorms, and began climbing the stairs. "Just... Do me - do us all a favor, Ash."

"Hm?"

"Stop... Almost dying." She said, looking him in the eyes. "Okay?"

Aldric's response was to roll his head, let out a long, exaggerated sigh, and nod. "I've got no intention to die anytime soon, my lady Schnee. I still gotta beat Pyrrha's ass, at the very least. Then yours, because of the whole 'you are what they grow beyond' thing, then Yang's, because I want to go Two-and-Oh on her and piss her off... And Jaune's, because the sword may be magic, but the main ain't." He shrugged, "too many things to do, people to fight, decks to upper, to die now."

Weiss frowned, face contorted in confusion. "Decks to upper?"

Aldric's own face scrunched up in a desperate attempt to not smile, as that would only lead to him bursting out laughing late at night in the dorms. "Ask Yang when you wake up, tomorrow."

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I wonder if I have cancer._

 _Ozpin tried to intimidate me into letting out that I was responsible for the Relic by teleporting me to the moon.  
You now - where there's no Ozone, atmosphere, or magnetic field to protect me from cosmic goddamn radiation.  
I mean, I was probably only up there for... Like... A minute? Maybe two? But seriously, getting unfiltered sunlight is how people's cancer's cancer gets cancer. _

_I **want** to say that Ozpin used magic to make sure none of the really bad stuff hit me, only the 'let's scare the hell out of you!' stuff, but he was also pretty fucking pissed. It wouldn't surprised me if he let that slip. _

_So...  
Maybe I should start calling myself Heisenberg?  
I'll keep that name on reserve. I've already used Nathan Drake, Ash (Williams), and Andrew Ryan.  
And I honestly don't even fucking remember if I've used any others. _

_Anyways - apparently Ozpin's solution for the 'Holy fuck, Earth may think I pulled a fast one on 'em' is to sell them frankly obscene amounts of resources for pennies on the dollar.  
So... You know. Bright side: Gas will probably be cheaper!  
_

 _Ugh.  
I wonder how things will go, now? The war's over, Salem probably won't want to rock the boat too terribly much... Will things really calm down for a while? I almost don't want to believe it._

 _And Ozpin says he's going to let Pyrrha in on the whole 'make a Ma(ide)n, out of you' plan, because everyone in the Justice League is accusing him of losing control of the whole Salem situation, in the face of the terrans invading on her behalf._

* * *

It took a few days for the Academy to get itself back up and running and, much like Goodwitch had warned him, the schedule was one of study hard, train hard, work _harder._ Because Vale had a gigantic stock of superhuman workers, and a _lot_ of rebuilding to do, they took advantage of Beacon's students and faculty, using them as heavy lifters. The byproduct of this was cutting their class and training time by a few hours to make room for all of it, though Aldric wouldn't complain, he had an ever-growing fondness for the physical side of his new life.

The single most important goal for Vale was initially to repair the CCT tower, to the point where almost anyone with a hammer made the trip up to the tower to help out. Aldric, Goodwitch, Pyrrha, and many of the Beacon staff and students with abilities similar to telekinesis were put to work the most in this regard, doing some of the _literal_ heavy lifting, with Goodwitch even using it as teaching moments, showing Aldric and some of the other TK's how she was able to repair things with an effortless ease. Aldric found some humor in the fact that the method often boiled down to heating up two broken halves of something until they were almost liquid, sticking them together, and then cooling them down again - essentially gluing _everything_ together and hoping it would stick. It made him feel like Bill and Ted, using chewing gum to fix their time machine.

It was after one of these days in the tower, as it was nearing completion, that Aldric found himself sitting on one of the construction beams lining the outside of the tower like vines, enjoying the wind blowing in his hair and itching at his face, idly wondering if he'd ever grow out of the patches and make a full beard, and thinking out ways to approach the whole 'let yourself get caught by Ruby' thing with Torchwick, for a meeting they had coming up that night. Looking out to Vale, legs swinging back and forth, Aldric sensed someone approaching, sliding through the as-yet-unwalled inside and weaving through the support beams, making a bee-line for him.

Aldric grinned, and just as the red headed warrior got close, he shoved off of the support beam. But, instead of free-falling through the air, he made a full revolution and stuck himself to the beam, now standing upside down, in his best batman impression. The fun came when Pyrrha, never having been privy to this particular trick, was, for a moment, completely gobsmacked by how casually Aldric had just jumped off the bridge. Aldric, for a moment, was confused when she didn't freak out, and instead approached the girder to look over the edge, only to realize that while he hadn't ever done the 'jump off a bridge' trick on her, he had _flown_ in front of her.

So instead, he popped back up right in front of her, "ooga-booga!"

Pyrrha's smile was warm, "hello to you too, Ash." She said, reaching a hand out to the inverted spy.

Aldric snorted, "you're no fun."

"I'm used to you."

"My statement stands." Aldric responded, accepting her hand and bringing himself back upright. "What's up?"

Pyrrha nodded, and the two sat down. "I was wondering if you could help me... Or, more specifically, help me to help Jaune."

Aldric blinked, "oh shit, you two finally dating?"

"Ah -" Pyrrha flushed, shaking her head. "That's... I meant with his training."

"You're no fun." Aldric leaned back against the window behind them, "I dunno about you, Pyrrha, but I think of the two of us, you're clearly the better swordfighter."

Pyrrha nodded, not even arguing that, and likely glad to be off that topic. "Perhaps... But of the two of us, one has a far greater mastery over his shield." She explained, "ever since he was discharged, Jaune has been taking to his training a bit more heavily than before... But he still has bad habits he doesn't seem to be able to break."

Aldric nodded, his mind going to how often Jaune cowered behind his shield, even his newer one, allowing his opponents to whittle down his aura through sheer attrition. "You're thinking that it might behoove him to turn his defense into an offense."

"Another skill you uniquely excel in." Pyrrha responded, "I can tell him everything I can about how to use a sword... But the truth is his combat style and mine are almost incompatible." She explained, joining him in leaning against the glass, and looking out to Vale; where all of the reconstruction efforts were, for the moment, focused on Beacon Tower and the CCT, cleanup efforts were well underway in the city, to pave the way for the construction crews' inevitable descent, to the point where the No Man's Land and the docks were already looking less like a war-torn wasteland than they were just run-down ghettos. "I use my abilities to move my enemies out of the way, to dodge them. You, however, do the same, but also excel in finding those attacks that, if taken, would leave your enemy open to a much better counterattack... A skill I think Jaune would much more heavily benefit from."

Aldric hummed, "alright. But I got a condition for you." He said, grinning. "See - it hasn't escaped me, the fact that we just haven't fucking talked since before Yang and I's abduction." He pointed out, noticing how she looked away at this, frowning. "Nor have I forgotten the fact that, before all of that -" He indicated Vale, cast in orange light by the setting sun. "- got _really_ bad, I made you a dumb little promise." Now, was that _hope_ he saw in her eyes, or just reflected sunlight? "And would you look at that - we just spent the whole day fixing the most advanced piece of technology on the planet, and I didn't bring any food." Aldric telekinetically pushed his lunchbox, sitting several feet away and around a corner, off of the girder - letting it plummet to the ground. "So I'm hungry, and I bet you are too - I can see the sweat you worked up. So how about we go get food? Discuss how we'll get Jaune up to snuff, and... I dunno - see why you've been so quiet, last few days?"

"I..." Pyrrha hummed, "I don't think going on a... A date, with me, would be appropriate, considering Yuno -"

"Lady." Aldric cut Pyrrha off, "I don't know what you think's going on between me and Yuno, but a steady 'let's get married at some point' relationship is the furthest thing _from_ it." He explained. "What we got is... Difficult to explain, so to the people who ask I just tell them we're together. To summarize a long and, at times, painful, and working relationship, I'm far more convinced she likes to fuck with me than she likes to _be_ with me." He explained, "she and I, we're..." He shrugged, "you could call us friends, I suppose. Our relationship is _built_ on teasing and messing with eachother... But there's no 'romance' anywhere in there." He explained, remembering what Ozpin had said earlier about Goud, Ruby, and Pyrrha; Aldric's interpretation was to double down on his idea to ingratiate himself in their lives, and ironically his best idea in that vein was to first tell the truth about him and Neo, basing it off of his suspicion that Pyrrha might have something a bit more than 'my first friend' for him.

Pyyrha was silent for a few moments, before, unbidden, her hand fell into Aldric's. "Could we just... Stay up here, instead?"

Aldric arced an eyebrow, grin falling for a moment, as he heard the weakness in her voice. "Now I _know_ something's eating you." He said, letting her hand stay where it was. "What's up?"

Pyrrha remained silent for a long time, the only sounds between them being that of the lightly blowing breeze.

"How do you stay smiling?" She finally asked, "throughout the entire conflict with the terrans... I do not think I ever saw you succumb to the terror they created. They tore through Vale, and you smiled. They killed us by the scores, and you smiled. They maimed you, Jaune, and so many others, and you still smiled. They imprisoned and beat you... And the first thing you did was smile." She turned to him, "how do you do it?"

Aldric's brow furrowed, as he peered deep into Pyrrha's eyes. "I'll be fuckin' honest with you, Pyrrha." He sighed,looking back out to Vale. "Sometimes it's hard. Harder than anything else... But, to borrow a quote, you see me and everyone else getting beaten and bloodied, and think of the agony we must be feeling... But I see the courage it takes to get back up." He said, "if you want to look at it another way... Some people see the fact that every single star in the universe will burn out, and say that darkness is inevitable. But others remind them that it takes only a _single_ ember to hold that darkness at bay. So it may hurt - it _does_ hurt. It _does_ suck. It's just fucking awful... But I smile because it _also_ takes just one ember to light a fire, one that, oftentimes, can't be put out." He nodded, "sometimes, something to believe in as all you need to get you through the day, Pyrrha. But why don't you ask me what's really been biting you?"

Pyrrha looked despondant. "Ash... Have you..." She looked away, then back to him, appearing on the verge of tears. "Have you ever heard of the tale of the Four Maidens?"

Aldric blinked. _Welp... Here we go._ He nodded, "yeah, the uh..." He rotated his finger in a circle, "four women, met a wizard, got him to come back to the world, he made 'em goddesses, or somethin'." One was also dying a mile below them, another was in the city in front of them, and another was a bandit chief, and his goal was to ostensibly kill all of them. "Why?"

She hesitated again, now looking down at the ground below them. "I... Professor... Professor Ozpin pulled me aside today." She said, "I... I can't properly explain everything he said to me. But... He said that the Maidens really existed. That the rumors were true, that the terrans really were from another world, and their being here was because of someone who was hunting them - the Maidens. That the terrans are being manipulated into making the four kingdoms reveal them, so she can find them and steal their abilities."

Aldric frowned, "okay." He said, with a nod. "What does this have to do with you?"

"One of the Maidens is dying... Ozpin showed me her... He said that - that half of her powers had been stolen by someone else. Ozpin, and... Some others, they're worried that if she dies, her power will seek its other half... So they want to transfer it to me." She said, voice weak and wavering.

"They can _do_ that?" Aldric asked, playing the part.

She nodded, "Atlas... They're almost done with something that will let them. Professor Ozpin said that they will be bringing it with them for the Vytal Festival."

"Why _you?"_

A tear fell from Pyrrha's face, and she smiled somberly. "Because he thinks I, more than Ruby, or Weiss, or Ecru... Or _anyone else..._ Can _smile."_

 _Oh. Well... I didn't help at all, now did I?_ Now look at what he'd gone and done. "And what do you think, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha looked back out to the city, nodding to it. "Ozpin says that the person who is doing all of this... That she knows how to defeat this... _Earth,_ the terrans come from, and Remnant as well. I think... If he is right, then what right do _I_ have to refuse him?"

"Pyrrha, you have _every_ right." He insisted, "it's your life, lady. Your right to choose how to live it is _literally_ what we fight for." Aldric closed his hand around hers, "don't let the way _I_ think influence how _you_ do, Pyrrha."

She shook her head, "it isn't that, Ash... I've... _Made_ the decision." She said, turning to look into his eyes, lip quivering. "I'm just afraid of what would happen, if he, if the world - _both_ worlds - put their faith in me and I fail. If I do not live up to what they want, what they need."

 _Oh._ Aldric nodded, realizing where this was coming from: This was the Invincible Girl once again imposing on Pyrrha, but unlike her life in Mistral, there wouldn't be anywhere to run to for a 'fresh start', with this. "No one will blame you if you do this and fail, Pyrrha. You'll have tried your hardest - I know you too well to think you wouldn't." He said, "but what I want you to realize is that..." He paused, and let out a light breath of air, humming. "Think of it like this. Things aren't beautiful because they exist forever, they're beautiful because they _don't."_ He said, "the absolute best we can do, is the absolute best we're capable of. Nothing more, nothing less. So if you make this choice, make it because you want to, not because you feel you need to. And if, somehow, you still manage to fail?" He shrugged, "fuck it! You'll have failed fighting. Have died standing on your feet. If it's mankind's fate to die... Our nature will ensure we won't go down easy. So if you fail, and we fall - we'll fall _swinging..._

"And besides..." He leaned over to her, "you, with magic-ass powers..." He pointed to her, "me, with my magic-ass shield." He pointed to himself, "Johnny-boy with his magic-ass sword... Ruby with her... Uh..." He shrugged. "Ruby. All of us, all of our teams? Not a single ass we can't kick, lady." He patted her hand. "Now, I told you once before - depression doesn't suit you!" He said, taking the conversation back. "And what do you do? You go and get told you're going to get turned into a god - with a little 'G' - and get all depressed again. Lady, you need to learn to roll with the punches... So you know what?" Aldric held his free hand out in front of him, "we're going to do something stupid. Have you ever jumped off of a building before?"

Pyrrha blinked, "uh - no!" Her vivid green eyes went from him, to his hand, then back to his him. "What -" But her attention was again captured when, up from the dorms, Aldric's shield burst out from one of the many holes in the wall.

It flew up through the air and settled in his hand. "I accidentally tested this once before, and in hindsight, it was really fun."

She blinked at him, not believing his implications, but a disbelieving smile slowly growing across her face regardless. "Oh... kay..." She chuckled, airily. "Tested what, exactly?"

"Simple!" Aldric grinned, "tell me - that shit you've got all over you." Aldric indicated the various metal plates he could see on her legs and arms. "I would _assume_ they're some kind of magnetic, yeah?" To which, Pyrrha nodded, thin, confused smile still on her face. "And would I _also_ be correct in thinking that you use that to your advantage in battle? To move yourself just a bit faster than you would be able, otherwise?" Another nod. "Then the conclusion is simple!" And Aldric lunged backwards off of the building, catching himself with his semblance and holding himself aloft. "You're gonna fuckin' fly, lady!" It was what he called the 'Magneto Principal' - she could control magnetism, and she had a bunch of metal on her. Two and two meant that her four was she could fly.

"Ah..." Pyrrha's gaze broke away, shaking her head. "No, I don't think -" She stuttered, "that would be... Dreadfully dangerous."

"Yeah!" Aldric called out, before chucking the shield at her, which she caught, and held almost reverently. "That's what this is for!" Pyrrha examined the shield, running her hand over it, then looking up to the floating Aldric, questioningly. "See, first time I did this, I - _WHOA!"_ He plummeted thirty feet, then lazily floated back up. "Did something like that! But that shield there, it kept me good and three-dimensional when I hit the ground! Took the whole impact for me! And besides lady, I'll be out here with you - so if you _somehow -"_ He drawled, "- can't do what you already damn well know you can! Then I can catch you and we'll try again!

"And you're _gonna_ do this, by the way! Not much else in the world more exciting than _leaving_ it! No, the question is whether or not you'll jump yourself, or..." Aldric placed a telekinetic hand on her back and gave her the lightest of pushes which, when accompanied with his grin, none-too-subtly told her he was fully prepared to push her out of spite.

Pyrrha shook her head, lips pursed and jaw clenched to suppress a frown. She leaned forward and looked down, -

"Don't think! Just do!" Aldric rested his hands behind his head. "C'mon! Your audience is -" She leapt, "holy shit!" Aldric laughed uproariously, as he saw her enveloped in a black aura, focused mostly around the sparse armor plates around her body.

Her arms and legs flailed wildly as she floated through through the air, hopping and bucking up and down almost like a cartoon character trying to maintain its altitude. She called out, laughing in equal parts fear and euphoria, a smile, big and genuine, stretching across her face while the one arm without any metal plating clutched Aldric's shield with a white-knuckled grip, like one would hold onto a flotation device in the ocean.

Still laughing in uproar, Aldric nodded, "alright! Lady's got it!" He called out, holding his hands out as she unsteadily approached, one brief start where she fell a few feet being all that separated the two before contact.

She held onto him with the tightest grip he'd ever felt, to the point where Aldric felt the fingers in both his organic _and_ his mechanical arm groaning under the force of her grip. "Ash!" She gasped, "I - I never knew I could -"

"Of course you didn't!" He smiled, able to tell that she was struggling to keep herself aloft, their grip on eachother feeling like holding someone up in a pool of water. "Pyrrha, first thing you've gotta learn is _creative applications._ Everyone in this damn school - on this _world -_ has powers that, if they only got creative in their use, would take them from little lowly huntsman to a powerhouse stronger than _Yang!"_ He called out, spinning the two around and lightly pushing Pyrrha away. "Literally _everyone_ with a semblance, I gaurantee you, can do things they never dreamed of... But _don't,_ because they fail to look past the immediate utility! You! For instance!" He shouted, as she pirouetted away, trying to regain control of herself. "You have control of magnetism! One of the fundamental forces of nature! You know how _stupid_ strong that makes you, _before_ Ozpin gives you magic powers?"

Pyrrha tilted her head to the side, as she twirled around to face Aldric. "Is that how you-"

"Certainly not!" Aldric grinned, as a ball of ice appeared in one of his hands. "I have no clue what you're talking about!" The ice evaporated. "Now... comes the next part!"

Pyrrha frowned, slowly gaining the confidence to lower her arms to a more natural position. "Oh?" She called out.

"You see - my first flight, I fell, then I up and flew a few dozen miles to _and_ from my destination at the time, and that was with no idea how to even hold myself steady!" He grinned, "you, on the other hand, you already had the theory! So that means you should be ready for a little fun!" He pointed out to the mountains behind Beacon. _"I want to see you there before me!"_ He called out, before zooming past Pyrrha, laughing.

He would admit he felt kind of good, seeing the smile on her face as he shot past her, and she followed.


	53. What's old is new again

_AN:  
You-know-what is fast approaching, and you guys have no idea how tempting it is to just time skip and bring us within one or two chapters, as opposed to... I dunno, ten at the **most**... Five at a more reasonable estimate.  
_

* * *

Chapter 52

* * *

 _For the Record:_

 _You know what? I'll be damned - it's been almost a month and there's been no... 'Real' shit.  
Some minor grievances here and there, once we and the other countries got their CCT's working again. Ozpin let slip that Ironwood **literally** has a bullet with 'Nathan Drake' written on it. Gonna steer clear of him for the time being.  
_

 _And, you know: I realized I'd accidentally killed Weiss' sister.  
And my nonchalant reaction to that should be worrying as it is telling._

 _But aside from that?  
Surprisingly little. _

_I got back into contact with Earth, my new guy - I'm calling him Bubbles. As in, Cobra. - is a lot more no-nonsense than Coulson, thus the name, but he at least understands on some level that their grip on Remnant and information on Salem is partially reliant on me, so he's willing to do the whole 'I ask, you answer' thing._

 _It took me longer than I would have wanted to get a meeting set up with the Watchmen. Torchwick and Ozpin were game, but Qrow and a lot of other Huntsmen have been out keeping Grimm away from the city while we rebuilded, and Taurus has been making grabs for more recruits. Once the TV's started working again, and specials about what the fuck actually happened started airing, they couldn't **not** broadcast the fact that the only ones in Vale to actually counterattack the terrans were supposed terrorists. He's eating that shit up._

 _But, the good news is I've finally managed to get them all on the same page. We've got something set up for tonight.  
_

 _But before then, I never thought I'd say this, but I've got something else scheduled: Extra lessons.  
Yes, perhaps the **only** class in Beacon I actually intend to pay attention and look forward to, and it's not on the curriculum. Go fucking figure.  
_

 _See, a few days after we all woke up and classes started, I went to Goodwitch and we defined terms in regards to her helping me out with my semblance.  
_

 _Don't know what all she's planning, but hopefully it'll give me a much more solid grasp on my 'resting state', such that I can wean myself off of my reliance of my magic._

 _This'll be fun, now won't it?_

* * *

 _From:AdrianBrittReidVeight{a}ScarlettMailCCT_

 _To: xXCFallXx{a}ScaleMessengerCCT_

 _Subject: Paying dividends._

 _Message:  
So.  
I don't know where YouKnowWho is, yet.  
But I get the strangest feeling I'm going to be let in on the secret pretty soon, and my reasoning is pretty sound. _

_After all, why trust me with the identity of the **next** Autumn Lady, and never bother to tell me where the half dead one is?_

 _The long and short of it is that **everyone** , from Mistal to Atlas, to even some of the folks in the know here in Vale, are starting to question Ozpin's hold on the situation. They think he's losing control of it. So, in a bid to make them think he's still in control, and that they still have the power, he told me he's intending to use Atlesian technology to transfer the aura (and, thus, powers) from the last Maiden to the new one. _

_And she is... Drumroll please! (Bu-da-bu-da-bu-da)  
Pyrrha Nikos. _

_Even more notable is that she and Goud Etiolate are becoming remarkably close friends, to the point where I suspect there may be murmurings of some kind of romantic attraction, down in there. (Though, I'm not acting on it. Neo would probably stab me, and unless I make a move, Pyrrha's too shy to do anything on her own.)  
So we may have an opportunity here, once Vytal rolls around. _

_Do we have a plan for that, yet? 'Cause it's... Like... Six or seven months away.  
And did Big Boss ever say anything about Thor? Or have you not mentioned that yet?_

 _-The World's Worst Spy_

* * *

Aldric found himself alone in a classroom, for once waiting on a teacher instead of a teacher waiting on him. It surprised him, that Goodwitch was twenty minutes late, after practically beating him over the head with 'don't be late'. He'd had enough time to pen an email to _Cinder,_ for chrissakes, he was pretty damn sure he shouldn't be able to do that on school grounds.

 _Of course..._ Thought the spy, as he fell into a seat near one of the lower stadium desks, and leaned back. _I'm a spy whose secret is open to literally everyone I don't want it to be. So at this point doing shady shit in the open isn't as scary as it used to be._ Come to think of it, he was pretty sure the only person who didn't know his secret, that he didn't want to know, was Ironwood - and he was still at least aware that there was someone who was a spy, just not who. _Oh how far I've come._ He let out a long breath of air. _Wonder what she's got in store for me..._ He frowned. _I remember Qrow said she damn near died filling **half** a glass. I'm able to do it without much problem..._ Today would probably consist of them defining terms, if that were the case. _Or maybe she'll teach me a few of her tricks. I remember she fixed parts of Vale after the breach, and the entire goddamn cafeteria after the big food fight. I can fuck with atoms all well and good, but I've never had to do anything quite like that._ He swiped a metal hand through shaggy hair.

 _I wonder if I should get this cut..._ He thought. _I mean... I like the Thor-ish barbarian look, but it also gets in the fuckin' way. Pain to wash my own blood out of it._ He yawned. _Eh... Maybe after Goud dies._ He sensed someone entering his radar, soon recognizing it as Goodwitch, approaching the classroom with a small box, inside of which were several beakers and jars filled with random assortments of crushed rocks and minerals, and a few sheets of paper on top of it.

 _Wait..._ Aldric frowned, recognizing what was on the papers. _Is that a periodic table?_ He blinked. _Ohh... Okay._ He nodded. _I see where she's going with this.  
_ He leaned back forward, as Goodwitch made it to the room, her body briefly enshrouded by a purple glow, her semblance opening the door for her.

Aldric had to resist the urge to hold the door closed and watch the poor woman walk into it, instead giving her a nod and a casual salute. "Ma'am."

She nodded, stepping over to her desk and setting down her equipment. She smoothed out her hair and turned to the spy, "I need not remind you that this intrudes upon my free time as well as yours." She said, sternly. "If I feel you aren't working your hardest, I will no longer waste my time."

Aldric nodded, getting to his feet. "I understand." He indicated the box with the jars inside it. "So what've we got?"

Goodwitch opened the box, first handing Aldric a periodic table, and then pulling out a small, sealed can. She placed it on the desk, and nodded to it, as she telekinetically pulled a few chairs out for her and Aldric. "This is hydrogen." She began, "as best as we understand it is the most abundant element in the universe, and with good reason: It is simple. There is only one proton and one electron in its atomic shell, with no neutrons." She indicated the periodic table in Aldric's hand. "I assume you've seen one of these before?"

Aldric nodded, pointing out Hydrogen on the table. "The number there is how many protons and electrons the atom has." He said, indicating Hydrogen's proud '1', then helium's '2', and so on.

Goodwitch nodded. "Anyone with a telekinetic semblance commonly explains the 'feel' of their abilities as though it were merely an extension of their hands, often describing the act of lifting something as though they merely had another hand and used it." She explained, sitting down. "It isn't uncommon knowledge that one could theoretically increase or decrease the size of said 'hand', and as a matter of fact some of history's most powerful huntsmen were those who trained themselves to move that which is _small_ as easily as they could that which is large. Many believe the true strength of a TK is how much they can lift at one time, and the weight of what it is they manipulate, but it is the truly intelligent that realize that it is actually the opposite that is true."

Aldric nodded, "strictly speaking, a powerful enough telekinetic could functionally warp reality." Turn air into gold, water to wine, the works."

"Correct. The issue, however, is that those who can do so are very few and far between." She said, pushing the canister over to him. "The last TK who was capable of atomic manipulation died many hundred years ago. As I understand it, in the world now I am the closest to her, and I am only just able to rearrange the atoms in the air to fill a cup with water." And as she spoke, she produced a cup. "One would think such a trick as easy, but I would ask them to note my verbiage. I do not draw from the ambient water in the air, but rather the atoms themselves. I change their composition, exchanging their particles until they are composed of one hydrogen atom, and two oxygen atoms."

Aldric gave her an impressed grin; he could certainly sense as far down as the atomic scale, but the best he was able to do with them was start fires or freeze things. His water trick had been exactly as she'd cautioned against: Pulling it out of the air. "Can't be easy."

She shook her head, "certainly not. Splitting apart atoms is a dangerous game, Mister Etiolate. A game it appears only the terrans were..." A beat, "zealous... Enough to play."

Aldric bit back a laugh at that, instead nodding. "Their sun bomb."

"Correct." She said, "I will not tell you how it is they did such a thing, as both I do not want you to get the idea, and because our own world's understanding of the subject is rudimentary at best. Very few beyond the strongest telekinetics even know of its existence. We once studied it, but decided against pursuing it any further, as Dust was capable of fulfill our needs well enough without running the risk of rendering entire swaths of our planet uninhabitable."

Aldric blanched, frowning. "Damn, they did that?"

"Language, and yes." Goodwitch nodded. "What little they have told us about themselves thus far would suggest more than a few places have fallen to ruin because they inappropriately split atoms."

"How would we avoid that, then?" Aldric _really_ didn't want to be nuking himself whenever he tried to cheat the universe without magic.

"Very carefully, Mister Etiolate." Goodwitch warned, "and without deviating from this page." She indicated the periodic table. "Adding one wayward particle, even something as harmless as a neutron, could leave you with something you weren't even remotely prepared to deal with."

Aldric let out a quick sigh, before setting the paper on the desk. "Fun." He nodded, "so where do we start?"

Again, Goodwitch indicated the hydrogen canister. "With the simplest element in the universe."

And thus began the rest of Aldric's night. He never got past the hydrogen, with Goodwitch being there to catch him if he made a mistake that might go nuclear. She drilled him endlessly, first beginning just by being able to feel and sense the hydrogen in the canister, get an intrinsic sense for the element with only two particles. It was hours before she felt confident enough to allow him to move on to first breaking a hydrogen atom apart and holding each proton and electron steady, before putting them back together. It was exhausting in a way Aldric had never experienced before; even pulling on all of his magic during the Thor fight hadn't quite left him weak and shivering like he was once they were done for the night.

With the agreement that this would be a weekly occurrence, Aldric found himself leaving Goodwitch's office long after the sun had set, and while he would have loved nothing more than to go to the nearly fixed dorm, he had other plans for the night, and Goodwitch provided an excellent alibi for his leaving for them, if his friends ever realized he was gone.

He had a meeting with the Watchmen.

* * *

How the fuck did Mogar's survive World War Three?

Perhaps even more pressing a question, how did it survive World War Three - when neither of its neighbors did?

Aldric found himself standing outside of Mogar's Grillin' Bar, slackjawed, as he beheld the oddity that was the fact that the bar had survived an invasion by a multination coalition without so much as a scratch, and yet both of its neighbors had been torn to the ground. Was Torchwick's influence _that_ good? Or was Mogar himself _that_ lucky? Aldric wasn't sure which he wanted to believe, but he'd finally found something new that surprised him after a long time of not being phased by anything.

With a shake of his head, Aldric stepped inside, his movements mostly masked by the night sky above him and the dark clothes he habitually wore. The rooftop sojourn with the Watchmen that had preceded World War Three was a one-off, ever since Torchwick had bought the owner's loyalty, they'd had themselves a private room. Aldric, not willing to question how a bar and grill could even _have_ private rooms, or why, instead located said room. It wasn't hard, even without his radar, not with the cutesy psychopath standing guard in front of it, idly spinning her umbrella and grinning at anyone who walked by, most of whom walked faster, unnerved by her slasher smile as Aldric had once been.

 _And... Still am. Let's be fucking honest._ Aldric thought, approaching Neo.

He almost made it to the door, too, but Neo slid in his way and blocked the way inside, giving him an expectant smile. Aldric stared down at her, uncomprehending, and she merely continued to grin up at him. Aldric's brow furrowed, confusion slowly filling his cybernetic eyes, until Neo turned her head, presenting a cheek to him.

 _And now I'm back to not being surprised._ Aldric's shoulders dropped a few inches, his expression best summarized by the word 'Really?'.

Neo, not moving from her spot, merely quivered her shoulders, well aware that of the two of them, Aldric would give in first, if only because she was in between him and something he _had_ to do. So, eyes closed and an exasperated expression on his face, Aldric leaned down and gave Neo a peck on the cheek. When she twisted her head around, snaked an arm up and around his and then pressed their faces together, Aldric again found himself unsurprised, instead just going with it. When she finally pried herself off of him, she stepped back, giving him a look over, arcing an eyebrow, and wiping a thumb across his lips, it coming away with some of her lipstick.

Aldric straightened up as she let go of his head, and himself wiped his lips with the back of his cybernetic hand. "How concerning is it that I have, by all accounts, a _drop dead_ gorgeous woman, wet and willing, and I dread every encounter with her?"

Her response was to roll her eyes, and her head, dramatically, before she slid out of the way and waved him inside.

"Yeah, I figured." Aldric thought, stepping inside the brightly lit, and remarkably sound-proofed room; Aldric couldn't hear hardly any of the din of business outside, once the door shut. "Hey, Torchwick." He nodded to the mob boss, who was working his way through a plate of food that looked far too expensive to have been prepared here.

Torchwick glanced up with all the grace and gravitas that he typically embodied, "well, Mister Aldric!" He grinned, leaning back and setting his utensils down. "I make my first trip to the surface in weeks and no sooner do I do so than do I get a message from my unwilling ally!" He indicated a chair on the other side of the table. "Sit, please!"

Aldric did so, "how was it, staying down in the Garden while things were going down up here?" He wondered, genuinely curious if the Garden's creature comforts had survived more than a month of no contact with the surface.

Torchwick hummed, waving his hand back and forth dismissively, before returning to his steak. "Please, young man. The Grimm could occupy the city, and the Garden would still be there. It has stores to survive _far_ longer than any extraterrestrials have the attention span to invade." He said, "what just ended was barely a drop in the proverbial bucket. No, _I'm_ more curious about -"

Aldric cut the mob boss off with a knife-hand, "don't you _fuckin'_ say it!" Torchwick's grin was all the confirmation Aldric needed. "You know I've heard _nothing_ but _that_ since it happened?" He leaned his head against the wooden wall. " _Jesus..."_ He swore.

Torchwick chuckled, "you cannot deny you left an impression, Mister Aldric." He said, taking a bit out of his steak. "Not just on all of them or the terrans, mind."

"Oh?" Aldric hummed, "what'd she have to say?"

"She's pretty certain all she needs is a little push, and you'll be all hers." Said Torchwick, not even denying it.

Aldric sighed, shaking his head and running his hands though his hair. "Yeah, she's doing a remarkable job of breaking me, and I wish I were kidding."

"Oh, if _she_ is all it takes to break you, I'm afraid you may want to quit while you are ahead, with our mutual enemy." Said Torchwick, as Aldric sensed Adam Taurus and his Chainsword lieutenant approaching the building.

Aldric rolled his eyes, "our mutual enemy isn't trying to sleep with me."

Torchwick nodded, as Taurus slipped inside through the back door, and started towards the room. "A fair point."

"Taurus is here." Said Aldric, prompting the both of them to turn to the door as the Faunus terrorist was allowed in by the diminutive sociopath. "Hey." He nodded to the red-haired warrior.

Taurus nodded once, taking a seat at the head of the table and resting his blade against it. "Our legitimate allies haven't arrived?"

Aldric shook his head, "left beacon a half hour ago, saw Ozpin in his office dealing with something. But I'd be willing to bet he'll be here soon enough. Guy got pissed at me a while back, teleported me to the _moon."_

Taurus and Torchwick both stared at him, the latter with his mouth agape, the former with his wide eyes shielded by his mask. "The... _Moon."_ Taurus grunted.

Aldric nodded, "you guys ever get hit by unfiltered sunlight? It's the hottest thing I've ever felt." Aldric indicated his eyes, "I'm pretty sure if these weren't mechanical, I'd be blind again."

The two exchanged glances, then turned back to Aldric. "What did you _do?"_ Taurus asked.

"Oh, he'll fuckin' tell you when he gets here." Aldric responded, as Qrow came strolling into the building, taking a seat at the bar and harassing the bartender so he could fill his flask. "Qrow's here."

"Getting loaded?"

Aldric nodded.

"Then the great and powerful Oz shouldn't be much further behind, I would imagine." Torchwick resumed eating. "Care to explain to us what that sun bomb was? Obviously I didn't see it, but I've heard a great deal about it. What it did to Vale's power grid has earned me quite a few favors." Taurus nodded alongside him, equally as interested in the topic.

Aldric grunted, straightening up. "We call it a nuclear bomb. It's the strongest weapon in history. Everyone's calling it a sun bomb?" Aldric nodded, "appropriate enough. Its power comes from nuclear fusion, same as what powers the sun. When it explodes, if you look at the flash, you go blind." Taurus had a look of realization enter his eyes, as he nodded. "And when it explodes, it knocks out all the electricity in the area. The terrans used it as a warning shot of sorts, knock out Vale's power, and if they still didn't surrender, they wouldn't warn them, the next time."

Taurus spoke up, "a lot of my men went blind after it exploded. I couldn't understand why." He nodded, "how many do they have?"

Aldric laughed, "enough to wipe out all life on Earth, Taurus." He said, "I'll be honest with you, Salem's plan - to spark another war - if it doesn't involve smuggling a lot of Grimm over to Earth, it will probably involve either stealing nukes from them, or having some Masters help you make a few dirty bombs." A beat, "which is to say, not nearly as strong an explosion, but it still renders the area uninhabitable." And now he noticed Ozpin materializing out of nowhere on the roof. "Everyone's here."

The three continued idle chat as Ozpin made his way down the building and in through the front entrance, acquired Qrow, and the two made their way past Neo and into the room. Greetings were made, and soon, business began. The first orders were the simplest, with Ozpin and Aldric explaining what they'd learned about the terrans' arrival on Remnant. Qrow picked up after them, summarizing his time as killing terrans or killing Grimm, and then he and Ozpin both explained all of what happened with Thor and the two they only knew as 'Master and Terran Maiden'.

Aldric found the urge to resist making an Iron Maiden joke far easier when Taurus' back shot up straight as the fact of what Ozpin was saying dawned on him. "So you _lost_ one of those relics." He affirmed.

To which Ozpin nodded, "unfortunately, yes." He said, "I am taking actions to try to track them down, but it will be difficult beyond measure. The vessel they used to escape from us, and the machine they used to distract us, both ensured there would be little to no evidence or trails from which to track them."

Taurus leaned back into his seat, sighing heavily. "Well that's just fucking great. How do we know those two don't intend to use it? How did they even know about it in the first place?"

"Clean out your ears, kid." Qrow rasped, "they weren't there for it at all. That guy with the hammer was the one who'd been there. We think he's the one who's been stoking the fire between Earth and Remnant, it's the only way he could've known exactly where and when." He explained. "How those two knew about it is anyone's guess, but he and I -" He indicated Ozpin, "- we heard what they said to eachother. We're under the impression they're a neutral party."

"A neutral party with one of the god's relics." Taurus pointed out. "To say nothing of the fact that their _own_ abilities makes their neutrality perhaps more dangerous than they would be if they were in alliance with our enemy." A beat, "or that their own abilities would mean they could literally be anywhere, not just in the worlds, but in the universe. For all we know they _aren't_ on Earth or Remnant, but somewhere else entirely."

Aldric stepped in, "dude. Realize how big the universe is. It would give them an advantage, yes, to hide on a planet none of us knows exist, but finding that planet would be wholly impractical, bordering on excessively useless, when they could just hide out in a Grimm wasteland here, or... Fuck, Chernobyl, or the Sahara desert, over there. It means they'd still be on planets we could access, but they would still be hidden about as well as they would if they were on a different one."

"If I may." Torchwick raised his hand, cheeky grin plastered across his face. "None of you have considered a much different idea." Everyone turned to him. "We've come to learn that in addition to our dear friend here, there are three other Masters serving our mutual enemy... Have we considered the possibility that one of them may indeed be a terran Maiden?" He asked, "that perhaps we ran into all three at once, in that encounter? And that we may indeed be looking at it the wrong way?"

Aldric tilted his head, and Ozpin spoke up. "Are you intimating that the dead Master wasn't trying to steal the relic, but rather protect it?"

Taurus grunted, "a power struggle."

Torchwick nodded from side to side. "Of a sorts." He nodded to Aldric, "how are we so absolutely certain that there is but only one 'moral' Master in our midst? These were four people taken from an otherwise wonderful life and forced essentially to join a doomsday cult. Are we to believe that _only_ one of them realized how asinine destroying all life would be?"

 _This guy fucking knows._ Aldric suppressed a sigh. _But I think I see where he's going._ How the fuck was it that Ruby's starter villain was rapidly turning out to be the biggest thorn in Aldric's side to date? "So what are you suggesting? That we have it backwards?" He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "That Thor was trying to protect the relic, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum were trying to steal it?" If so, technically Torchwick was half right - the latter half, to be specific.

Torchwick nodded, "I wonder if 'Thor' and the Master and the Maiden's roles weren't reversed. That they were there to retrieve the relic, and he chose then and there to use the weapon he'd forged for himself to try and protect it, to play his hand. When he lost and you -" He nodded to Ozpin, "arrived, they had the wherewithall to attempt to convince you otherwise such that we would be chasing phantoms, while our mutual enemy enjoyed her victory in secrecy."

Qrow and Ozpin exchanged glances, as Aldric leaned back, frowning. "Then that would mean she _has_ a relic." He grunted. "Not a fun prospect."

Torchwick hummed in affirmation, "certainly not. Especially as it means continuing to search for them under the last assumption would be a waste of resources that, it appears, we can ill afford _to_ waste."

"Then what would you suggest?" Taurus asked. "If we do _nothing_ we run the risk of you being wrong and there being two wildcards running around."

Ozpin, however, spoke up. "I think he emphasized the incorrect word." He said, meeting Torchwick's eyes. "Your implication being that we bring this suspicion to the terrans and their far superior surveillance technology."

Torchwick's grin grew to a full smile, as he nodded. "We find ourselves in tentative alliance with a species who can and has thrown themselves and their machines into outer space. Placing this trust in them would assist us in more ways than the immediate."

Aldric turned to Ozpin and Qrow, watching the former think things over, before nodding. "I suppose that isn't the worst idea." He said, "but that brings up something else. As much as they promise to give us in terms of support for the battle against Salem, her plans and our requirement to allow them to occur." He nodded to Aldric. "Necessitates for them and for us that they cannot give us everything. To wit, where once we expected two planets, now we may merely have an accumulative army. We may have to provide a great deal of our numbers on our own."

Taurus picked up, knowing this was his time to shine. "I'm working on that." He said, "the media has been helping my image turn around. White Fang, especially my faction, has been growing even in these last few weeks. I don't expect them to stop." He nodded to Ozpin, "from what you're saying, I again think our greatest numbers will come from me. The four kingdoms and Earth will provide some, but if you all are locked in combat, some may only just equal out my soldiers."

Aldric piped in, "may be able to get the best of both worlds." He said, attracting everyone's gaze. "Taurus gets recruits, Ozpin gets enough terran weapons to equip them." He noticed a shine in Taurus' masked eyes at this, no doubt inwardly salivating at the idea of getting his hands on Earth weapons and technology. "Supplanted with Remnant soldiers, a modicum of terran soldiers, and as many huntsmen as we can get... It won't be two whole planets united, but it would probably still be more soldier than D-Day." A beat, "the largest military invasion in my planet's history." Everyone nodded. "You can get a _lot_ done with a lot of people. Even if only a few thousand regular soldiers make it past the Grimm and to Salem's castle, that's a quality of numbers. They could overwhelm a lot on their own."

"Are we just gonna forget that he's _literally_ promised to wage war once this is done, kid?" Qrow asked. "And you want to give him some of the most destructive weapons in shared human history."

"You'd rather risk the alternative?" Aldric asked, as Taurus turned to Qrow, agreeing with the former.

Qrow nodded to the side, "fair point, but that doesn't remove the validity of mine."

Aldric shrugged, "one problem at a time."

Ozpin broke back into the conversation, "and that is months away at the earliest. I believe we need to focus on something a lot closer." He turned to Torchwick. "Mister Torchwick."

"Oh I feel as though I'm about to be given one hell of a favor." Torchwick finished his food and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and smiling widely.

"Considering the state we believe the worlds will be in following Vytal, Mister Aldric and I have formulated a plan we hope will buy Remnant as much unity as possible, until he makes it to Salem's domain." He explained. "He, as Goud, intends to martyr himself to begin with, simply out of necessity. But I was hoping to use his idea and change it. To -"

"Skip to the point, Professor, I'm far too street-level to care about as big ideas as that." Torchwick's grin turned to a sneer.

Ozpin recovered quickly, "fair enough. I hope to add to a certain student of mine's fame, both local and internationally."

Torchwick adopted an expression of faux-shock. "Why Professor, are you suggesting I turn myself in?!"

To which Aldric responded, "don't even give us that. Cinder's been talking to you about setting up false operations to lend some credibility my way."

Torchwick shrugged, "but it's the principle of the thing!" He snorted, brushing a lock of hair out of his face. "Say I go along with this. That I purposefully lay a breadcrumb trail that inevitably leads to my lawful capture and persecution... Could I expect certain affordances, both before and after our conflict ends?" He asked, "not the _least_ of which being full pardons for myself and any number of names I list out afterwards, for our services to Remnant?"

Surprisingly, Ozpin nodded. "Even with the damage to my reputation following the invasion, I can still arrange far more than you would think." He said, "I would simply need a certain level of... Gravitas, shall we say, that I know only you could lend to the situation."

Torchwick chuckled, nodding once. "I've got an Atlesian mech I could allow to be trashed..." Then he sighed dramatically, "oh, I suppose I could assist you and whoever you wished to lend some international credibility to." He said, "it would be far simpler than you would think to simply tell my agents to go to ground for awhile. My only request would be some small warning before you intend to get the ball rolling, as it were, and one favor beforehand... I will tell it to you later."

Ozpin nodded, "I appreciate your understanding." He said, "I must wonder, now... Is there any further business?"

A few moments' silence gave him his answer.

"Then." Aldric grunted, getting to his feet. "I suppose we can call this a -"

"One." Came Taurus, attracting everyone's attention. "I know enough about your abilities, from your describing them and from seeing them in action, to be able to understand that you create things that don't exist." Aldric nodded, as he sat back down. "The metal you make your shield out of." Aldric suppressed a sigh. "I've seen it in action. Heard stories about it. Used it, for a while." Aldric blinked, having completely forgotten Taurus had thrown his shield around once before. "Could you make more?"

Aldric leaned back, crossing a leg over a knee and giving Taurus an appraising look. "I get the strangest feeling this is a gateway question."

Taurus didn't deny it, "you do appear to use your abilities to create entities and weapons independent of your own strength and stamina." He said, "however, I know as well as anyone with enough sense that having a weapon of unlimited power makes one reliant upon that weapon, and invites an escalation the likes of which _no one_ would want to experience." He said. "So I requested that metal. It itself is powerful but it does not _grant_ power." His masked eyes slid down to the lightsaber on Aldric's belt.

 _I've got a magic sword that routinely kills the incarnation of an evil big-G-God held by an idiot that would make this thing look useless in comparison._ Aldric leaned back. "I don't know..." He said, "I've never made chunks of ore, before. Never thought to." This could be something of an excuse for him to make the vibranium nanite suit from the movie; if he found he couldn't just create a hunk of it for Taurus, he could make the necklace the suit was stored in, in the movie, and then melt down the one he was wearing.

But that conclusion didn't tell Aldric one thing, "why ask for my magic metal?" Though he felt he knew: If nothing on Earth or Remnant could cut through his shield, something made of a similar metal could; Taurus was planning further ahead than anyone present, to the point where Aldric wouldn't be surprised if he were searching for a way to nullify Aldric's powers. Was he going to have to worry about this guy finding someone with silver eyes at some point?

Taurus was silent for a moment, "you understand as well as I the importance of a powerful symbol. You choose a shield to protect, I choose a sword to fight."

Aldric nodded to the side, knowing that this probably wasn't the best choice, but nothing bad would come of him at least buying himself some time. "Alright... I'll see what I can do." He nodded, sounding the end of the meeting.

Aldric wasn't sure if the fact that Torchwick didn't hold him back or slip him a message was a good thing or a bad thing.

* * *

In the days following the Watchmen's second meeting, Aldric spent most of his time enjoying the peace and falling back into the routine he'd set before World War Three, modified accordingly. Classes, training, helping Vale rebuild, the days bled together into routine, only broken by his late night sojourns where he temporarily abandoned his Goud persona to set plans and act as the shadowy Aldric, and then, a week after the Watchmen meeting, a break in the monotony that hadn't existed before the war.

 _Okay!_ Pyrrha had texted him, _whenever you're ready! He has no idea!_

Standing outside a training arena in full regalia, Aldric grinned, looking forward to some innocent fun. Of course, 'innocent fun' still equated to sparring on a level that would _kill_ people back on Earth, but he digressed and entered the stadium. He sensed Pyrrha and Jaune going at it, the latter cowering behind his gifted shield whenever the former attacked, and the former noticeably holding back on her assault. To his credit, Jaune did try to attack, but they were hesitant and slow, allowing Pyrrha to dance out of their way with ease.

She noticed Aldric entering, his shield mounted on his back, and allowed the smallest grin to grace her features, as she took control of the battle again, slowly turning Jaune such that his back was to Aldric. She thrusted forward, with Jaune deflecting the attack with his blade, but soon finding himself unable to attack as she chopped at his arm with her shield and then pushed him back a few inches with her shoulder. Jaune stumbled back, nearly losing his balance, only to recover, then lower his guard as he noticed Pyrrha standing up straight.

"What am I doing wrong?" He asked, scratching at the back of his head.

Pyrrha smiled kindly, "nothing overmuch." She said, "I just... Think a different approach might benefit you."

Jaune blinked, "huh?"

Aldric's shield promptly slammed into the back of his head; Jaune stumbled forward several steps, even falling to his hands. He whirled around to his back, sword miraculously still clutched in his hand, as he witnessed Aldric leap onto the stage, catch his shield, and then careen down towards him. Jaune gasped in fear and scrambled away, just barely rolling out of the way of Aldric's downward punch. Aldric let Jaune get to his feet, but the moment he did, he charged again; Jaune's response was a blind swing with his sword, but Aldric ducked behind his shield, letting the holy blade grind across the red white and blue disc and causing Jaune to overextend himself. Aldric's response was a powerful cross to Jaune's ribs, then a spinning backhand with the flat of his shield, and finally, a kick to his rear end, sending him back to the ground.

Aldric, grinning, approached Jaune and offered a hand, "okay, now what did we learn?"

Jaune stared at him, in both fear and apprehension, before he accepted the hand and pulled himself to his feet. "Ash... What are -"

"You're taking training lessons from a chick whose entire combat style is to specifically _not_ get hit. Not very conducive to success, given we don't even know what your semblance _is,_ let alone if its like hers." Aldric said, patting the dust from Jaune's clothes and armor. "So she talked to me and asked if I couldn't help with your shieldwork."

Jaune spared a look over at Pyrrha, who was sitting down at the edge of the arena, she nodded once, and he looked back to Aldric. "But... My shield isn't the problem." He voiced.

Aldric grinned, "oh?" He tilted his head, "are you trying to imply that you think the only way you can fight is with that sword?" He asked, "let me ask you something, Johnny-boy, before 'fear and dead men', did you even _know_ I had a sword?" He didn't let Jaune answer, "the best offense is a good defense, dude, just as the opposite is true. So what _I'm_ going to do -" He held up his hand, and nodded to the Master Sword, which Jaune tentatively placed in it. "- is take this..." He took the -

 _WHOA._ Aldric clamped down on everything so he wouldn't bark out in pain, as he felt the hilt of the blade burning his hand, which was doubly strange as it was his mechanical limb taking it, which, by definition, shouldn't be able to be burned, or feel pain, for that matter. _Okay Fi, fuck you._ Aldric kept up his smile, "and... Do this!" He under-handed it over to Pyrrha, sliding it across the ground and then flexing his fingers, his hand still feeling as though he'd submerged it in lava. "And then I'm going to teach you to use that thing the way I was taught. Because if you can master your shield, you can put _anything -_ or nothing at all! - in the other hand, and be just as fine."

Jaune frowned, "how... Were you taught?"

Aldric grinned, passing his hand through his hair. "Trial by fire!" And he lunged forward, causing Jaune to flinch as his fist stopped barely an inch in front of his face. Aldric let out a dramatic sigh, "you need work, dude. But that's why I'm here!" He poked him on the nose and made a honking noise. "Let's get started... first!" Aldric slid his own shield off of his arm and let it fall to the ground, while he took Jaune's and positioned it properly. "Did you... Wait." Aldric ducked under Jane's arm and checked the shield's straps, realizing they had been changed around, and instead of a traditional, vertical grip, Jaune was holding the shield sideways, its pointed edge facing outwards. "You do this?" Aldric asked, indicating the straps.

"Uh... Yeah." Jaune nodded, "the shield was smaller than what I was used to, the grip was a little awkward, so I thought I'd move them around and try it out... Why? Was I not supposed to?" He asked, words growing in speed with every passing word.

Aldric shook his head, "oh, no." He said, "if anything it might help you out. Stabilize the shield a bit, help you control it, and..." Aldric feigned a jab at Jaune's ribs, "dig that edge in there real good. If anything, your shield is ironically more suited to combat than mine is." He said, "anyways." He shook his head, "tighten the grip, but relax your arm." He said, tapping at Jaune's biceps, "you keep your arm all tense like this, all the shock of impact will go straight to your chest." Not a problem, Aldric realized, he had to deal with often.

"Uh... Okay." Jaune nodded, "now what?" He asked, trying to both keep a tight grip on the shield's straps and relax his arm.

"Now..." Aldric took a step back, "think fast!" Aldric lunged forward like a cannon, throwing his metal fist forward; Jaune wasn't nearly fast enough, resulting in Aldric's fist stopping right in front of his face. "Yup. Number one goal when you fight with a shield is to _always_ keep it up, ready to take a punch or a stab or whatever else comes your way." He said, "'cause when your shield takes the hit, your aura takes _less_ damage, and you last longer in a fight."

Jaune frowned, trying to commit these things to memory. "Okay..." He held up his arm again, bracing his legs behind him. "Okay." He repeated.

Aldric lunged forward again and slammed his fist into Jaune's shield, the impact ringing outwards like that of a hammer striking an anvil. Jaune skidded back several inches and grunted from the impact.

"Alright, now I want you to do that to me." Aldric said, backing up, stomping on the edge of his shield, kicking it into the air, and fastening it to his arm in one fluid motion. "Watch what I do in response."

Jaune's frown became one less of concentration and now of confusion. "But... I don't have my -"

"But you _do_ have a giant hunk of metal with a pointed tip, there! So c'mon!" Aldric readied his shield. "C'mon, I want you do it. C'mon, c'mon, hit me. Hit me. _Hit me!"_ He grinned.

Jaune shook his head and then charged, throwing his shield-arm around in a wide superman punch, the sharp end of his shield hitting the star of Aldric's; Aldric leaned into the attack, causing the shield to begin to slide across it. He then lunged his arm to the side, causing Jaune's arm to go wide, and then to open up his core. Aldric didn't hold back this time, he buried his metal fist into Jaune's stomach. Jaune doubled over, coughing, and soon accepting the help of Aldric after he relaxed and then helped Jaune to his feet.

"What was -"

"By fire, dude." Aldric interrupted. "You see what I did there?"

"You punched me -"

"In the chest, yes, but _how_ did I do that?"

Jaune looked up at Aldric, a look of sheer befuddlement on his face, before he his eyes lowered down Old Glory's star, and then the confusion bled away to understanding. "You... Didn't just take it." He drawled.

Aldric nodded, "as good as a shield is for just intercepting attacks, my experience has been that should be a sort of do-or-die, no-other-choice decision. I've found more success in using the shield to deflect attacks as opposed to just absorbing them." He slid his hand across the surface, "then you avoid the attack, take even _less_ damage from it, and you open up your enemy to a counter attack to boot. Take it." He raised his shield, "deflect it." He thrust to the side, "counter it." He shadow-boxed an uppercut with the shield. "Then as they're recovering..." He threw a few jabs, "you can follow it up. See?"

Jaune nodded, "I... Think so."

Aldric grinned, "and that's why Pyrrha brought me in. Her style is to avoid damn near everything that comes her way -" Aldric proved this point by throwing the shield at Pyrrha without warning, Pyrrha casually leaned out of the way and the shield flew past her. "- which is good, but there are a few reasons she can do and _does_ that, and if she hasn't told you I won't either. But suffice to say not many _can -"_

"Can you?" Jaune asked, earnestly.

To which, Aldric shrugged. "I dunno, what's my semblence?" He was actually curious if people had started to figure out, considering how much flying he'd been doing.

Jaune shrugged, "everyone knows you can fly..."

Aldric nodded to the side. "Okay." He said, not confirming or denying it. "So let's say I _can,_ but I don't as much as she does for various reasons. Back to point though, as not many can do that, there needs to be other ways of defending yourself, and that's what _I_ mostly rely on." The shield bounced off of a distant wall and soon made its way back to Aldric's waiting hand. "Shieldwork."

Jaune nodded, "but I've been using my shield for almost a year now, and now I have to get used to a new one." He trailed off.

Aldric nodded, "sure, but Beacon's pretty hands-off with its combat training. They fight with safeties on and expect you to train on your own. Not bad things, but in your case, it's also not the best thing either." Jaune's frown turned genuine, "and that's nothing against you, it's just pointing it out from experience." Jaune blinked, head recoiling as he realized what Aldric was implying. "Yeah, like I said. I learned the same way I'm about to teach you, and that brings us full circle." Aldric secured his shield to his arm, "tonight, whether or not your aura lasts Johnny-boy, I am not going to fucking stop until you either can't stand any more, or you can reliably deflect and counter me." Which was still better than the myriad ways Aldric nearly died, both before and after Amber.

Jaune's expression turned to one of fear, as what Aldric was saying dawned on him. "Uh -"

 _"So think fast, bitch!"_ Aldric charged.

The rest of the night soon became an exercise in Aldric turning Jaune into his punching bag, seldom if ever making it easy on him by mixing up and varying his attacks. Jaune's growth was slow, almost nonexistent at times. Aldric hammered at his aura constantly, whittling it down to what the computers started yelling at them as being critical after the first hour, and then down to nothing after the second. What gave Aldric a pleasant surprise, as well as a small amount of deja-vu, was when Jaune didn't give up after his aura shattered on Aldric's fist. He kept going, not even asking Aldric to quit, despite Aldric thinking he would.

It took three hours for Aldric to break the first rib, Pyrrha tried to step in then, and Aldric would have let her, had Jaune not shoved her off, resolutely declaring he could go on. Aldric and Pyrrha exchanged glances at this, and after confirming that this was, indeed, what the guy wanted, Aldric shrugged and started going again. In another hour, two more ribs joined the first, and then in the sixth hour of training, with Jaune exhausted, with six ribs broken and some blood leaking out of his mouth, a miracle happened.

Aldric was in front of Jaune, his open palm surging forward for the weak, horrifically swollen portion of Jaune's chest, and Jaune was able to first intercept the attack with his shield, and then push it out of the way, deflecting it. He spun into Aldric's attack and used this to bring his shield around and into the side of his shield into Aldric's face. Aldric stumbled back a step, and the exhausted Arc managed to keep up his momentum, lunging forward and digging the pointed edge of his shield into Aldric's chest. Aldric's vibranium armor took most of the damage and he didn't feel the impact, but that didn't take away from Jaune's accomplishment.

Even if he did collapse to his hands and knees in a sweaty, gasping heap afterwards.

Aldric and, soon after, Pyrrha were both on their feet and rounding on Jaune, the former sliding his arm under both of Jaune's and helping him to his feet, as Pyrrha excitedly clasped both of her hands in front of her chest. "Jaune!" She declared, a smile in her voice as well on her face.

"See, Johnny-boy?" Aldric grinned, "ain't that hard. And I guarantee you you won't be forgetting anything you learned today."

Gasping for air, Jaune nodded, and wiped some of the blood off of his chin. "Yeah... I suppose I won't." He coughed out a laugh.

"And we get to do this again next week!" Aldric gave Jaune an open-mouthed smile.

Jaune was still for a moment, and then he finally succumbed to himself and passed out.


	54. High Stakes Performance Act

Chapter 53

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _I now know how to take atoms apart and turn them into hydrogen!  
According to Goodwitch, that's really the hardest part. Developing the discipline to not **nuke** myself trying to do that. Everything next is just getting used to juggling anywhere from one to a hundred simultaneous electrons, protons, and neutrons.  
Hopefully this will pay dividends in weaning me off of my magic.  
_

 _Anyways after that, the Master Sword tried to set my fucking soul on fire.  
That's the only explanation I have - I grabbed it from Jaune, and despite touching it with my Venom Snake hand, it felt like I'd dumped the whole thing in a tub of lava, and my aura (You know, my goddamn **soul**!) was all out of whack, felt weird for **days.**_

 ** _Man_** _that puts things in perspective, doesn't it?  
But I've gone on about that countless times before now, so I'll spare you all another 'Am I good or evil really?' diatribe.  
_

 _Instead I'll say we're starting down the road to making Jaune a badass. Pyrrha's working on his sword work (and I may or may not be paying attention, get some tricks from her to compliment my tricks from Weiss), I'm showing him how to use the shield, and waddaya know? He's taking to it pretty well. It's been a few weeks and a few training sessions since the first, and the progress is slow, but there. Pyrrha put it best: Her combat style and his just don't mesh at all, whereas his and mine are a lot more compatible.  
Especially since he doesn't fry his aura shields for more combat power, which means he has an even larger margin for error when it comes to taking attacks than I do. _

_In short: Plan B is coming along swimmingly._

 _And speaking of plans,_ _ _Vytal's in eight months, and we've got one final thing to tie up so I can kill off Goud and start working towards the Endgame.  
_ Ozpin brought the Watchmen in on the whole 'Ruby and Pyrrha Against the World' thing, and Torchwick agreed to be a sacrificial lamb of sorts. _

_I do notice how things appear to be lining up, in their own drastically altered way, with the show as was depicted before I showed up, and while I could have something to say on the nature of time, and some Bioshock Infinite 'constants and variables... There's always a man and there's always a lighthouse' thing... God damn I just don't care to. Be it because I've pretty much given up trying to make sense of how the universe treats me and everyone else, or because I am in part responsible **for** those things lining back up, take your pick. _

_Regardless, guess who gets to jumpstart **that** little sequence of events?_

 _Thankfully I know pretty much everything I need to do, I just need to... Do it._

* * *

Ever since Aldric had begun his extracurricular lessons with Goodwitch, he'd made it a small habit of his to give anything he touched a passing glance at the atomic scale. More often than not, things were rough and uneven, feeling almost itchy to the touch, their atoms merely stuck together as they fell. Some things felt smoother than others, glass, for instance, was a head and shoulders less rough than any random bits of debris he'd find while out helping fix up the city, and most metals were smoother than _that._ It was like comparing silk to sand, there was a clear difference between the two in which one was rougher and coarser. Beyond their simple texture was their actual structure; a far cry from the uniform rows and 'bricks', so to speak, he had expected, instead what he was finding was that no two objects were ever atomically the same. Some would have gaps where others wouldn't, some atoms would be higher or lower than others, some would be clumped together, others further apart. Even materials that had a smoothness about them still weren't uniform in their construction, with metals appearing as though they had just been rammed together, and glasses looking like someone had poured out a drop of water and let it dry, all uneven and strange-looking, leading Aldric to be both bewildered that these things could hold themselves together like this, and also feeling a lot more fail as he wondered what _he_ looked like, that small.

But, as time, his lessons, and his skill all grew, another question formed in his head: Considering he was now _wearing_ the stuff, and would likely be melting it down at some point in the future to give to Adam Taurus, what did vibranium look like?

And with that question now gnawing at his very soul, Aldric found himself seated in front of Beacon Tower's fountain, waiting on Ruby and needing a way to pass the time. So, with his eyes shut and his shield in his lap, Aldric slowly lowered his good hand down to it, until his fingers were just skimming its surface. He pushed down further with his semblance, until he felt that increasingly familiar buzz of atoms and particles smacking into eachother on their infinitesimal scale. All he could see, all he could feel, was the magical metal and its atoms. He took great care not to move or touch them, not to compromise the shield's integrity, but rather to study it, to try and commit it to memory, to divine its secrets in a way perhaps only someone with this particular ability could, and what secrets it had.

Once he pushed past its first fresh coat of paint in months, the metal in his hands right now, despite the shield's light weight, it was _incredibly_ dense, practically stuffed with as many atoms as was physically possible, with some atoms appeared to even share space with their neighbors, like two shields overlapping in a shield wall, or scale armor. Despite this, it had a structure unique to everything he'd seen before. It was ordered, all of its atoms and particles arranged perfectly in neat rows, fitting together snugly, like building blocks. The texture was perfectly smooth without a single irregularity, no deformities, no coarseness or bumps anywhere. Damn thing was as close to structurally 'perfect' as Aldric was willing to describe it, like someone had gone in and individually sculpted and placed each and every single particle.

 _I... Wonder if I could -_ But his thoughts were interrupted by a loud voice.

 _"Hey Ash!"_

Concentration shattered, Aldric started at Ruby's loud entrance. He opened his eyes and saw little red riding hood standing in front of him, a smile on her face and her hands held behind her back. Aldric nodded to her, standing to his feet and popping his back with a groan and a yawn. "Well howdy-do, Ruby. What took you?" He asked, mounting his shield on his back. "First day off in weeks. What, did you sleep in?" He grinned.

Ruby frowned, avoiding eye contact. "Maybe..." She mumbled, before shaking her head. "But I'm here now! Are you ready? I heard they got the transports working again, so no more walking down the cliffs!" She grinned widely.

Aldric nodded and followed her, "saying that as though I actually _use_ the stairs." He jabbed, levitating a few inches off the ground before coming back down.

Ruby rolled her eyes, "you're so lucky! I wish I could fly."

Aldric shook his head, "says the chick with super speed. You _seriously_ do not know what you've got."

"But all I can do is go in a straight line! That doesn't help!" Ruby whined.

To which Aldric shook his head, "that's just where you _start,_ lady!" He said, "again, you've got _super... Speed._ Figure out how to _idle_ that fast and at the very least no one alive could touch you again." One of Aldric's fondest comic book memories was when Superman and the Flash were going at it, and when Superman boasted about how he'd won some of their races, the Flash threw down the gauntlet, told him they were all for charity, and promptly outpaced him so bad that Supes, with all of his ridiculous strength and speed, couldn't come within a mile of hitting the Flash; it was one of the reasons _he_ was really looking forward to the day he had time to dedicate to seeing if his kamehameha had been a fluke, or if it was the secret he needed to copying semblances. If he could ape the Speed Force, he'd never lose another fight, period.

Ruby, however, was unconvinced. "Well, _maybe,_ but I've had my semblance for a year now and I still can't figure out how to sit still when I'm that fast!"

 _Right, she's fifteen._ Aldric thought, pulling out his scroll and sending a message he'd had waiting; now it was on Neo and Torchwick. "No better time to learn than the present, Ruby." Aldric grinned, "you can go in straight lines, next step is to go there -" He reached forward, "-then back." He brought his hand back. "Like a yoyo." He stowed his hand back in his pocket, "then it's as simple as figuring out how to stand still and watch stuff coming at you in slow motion."

Still unconvinced, Ruby at least nodded. "I'll try that next, I guess." She said, as they reached the transports, and took a seat, waiting for the time to come for them to take off. "So, you said you were going to go out for a new coat, right?"

"Yup." Said Aldric, "then your sister told me you were heading out too. Figured we might hang out..." He let the suspense build, "maybe finally get around to setting up that RWBY/GEMS fight."

Ruby gasped, hands going to her face as she finally realized his ulterior motive. "I'd forgotten about that!" She shrieked, "oh my gosh, Ash! We need to do that! Like - we need to do that before Vytal!" She proclaimed, practically vibrating in her seat. "We need to do that soon!"

"Nah." Aldric leaned back, rested his head on the airship's bulkhead, and shut his eyes. "I just mentioned it to get your hopes up." A coy grin stretched across his face.

Ruby played along, grabbing Aldric by his shirt and shaking him back and forth. "No! Wake up! Stay up! I'm not letting you forget this, Ash!"

Aldric shivered, and rubbed his arms. "Ooh, this unfamiliar chill, it's hampering my ability to think. Maybe -"

"Of course we'll get you a new coat now come on the pilot's here!" Ruby laughed, falling back into her seat, the both of them buckling up.

The flight was short, just taking off, falling a few hundred meters, and then landing. Aldric would never understand why Vale thought it prudent to _fly_ students up and down from Beacon when they had perfectly functional stairs, and elevators would work just as well. Using resources like that, that kind of excess was how _his_ planet hit peak oil. Regardless, he and Ruby were soon off and leisurely strolling through Vale, their target being first a clothing shop for Aldric, and then a few weapons stores to pick up supply orders from their teams.

"So, since you already fought Yang once, and I see you training with Weiss all the time, that means you'll focus on someone else when our teams go up against eachother, right?!" Ruby chirped, hopefully.

Aldric grinned, "yeah!" He said, "can't _wait_ to see what Blake can do!"

Ruby's mouth dropped, "Ash!"

"'Cause I mean, _technically,_ you swung at me - _and shot me -_ when Yang and I met. That does constitute conflict which fits the definition for a fight, the result being that the only person I have yet to throw hands at on your team being your lady friend with the animated bow."

Ruby pushed Aldric with both hands, scoffing. "C'mon, Ash! You know what I mean!"

Aldric chuckled, "you should know damn well and good by now Ruby, I fight who fights me. So you'll have to race your sister."

"A certain someone said -" She lowered her voice in a false approximation of Aldric's, " _you have super speed!"_ Before giggling.

Aldric's grin didn't budge, as they crossed the street, and he raised his voice to a higher falsetto. _"But I can only go in straight lines!"_ With his semblance he then slid himself over to the bleeding edge of the sidewalk, just as a car rolled by. "Oh how easy it would be to just dodge the literal bullet as long as I see it coming." He raised his gaze, eying the construction cranes off in the distance as they rotated to and fro.

Ruby, meanwhile, was almost beside herself, her head tracking the car as it sped by, honking its horn, then turning back to Aldric. "Ash, that wasn't funny!" Though the smile struggling across her face said otherwise.

Aldric slid back over to her, and then bounced his shield up and down on his back, "long as this thing's still flying? I'll never fuckin' die."

She rolled her eyes, "oh! We're here!" She rushed forward and threw her hands up in a wide, sweeping, 'ta-dah!' motion.

"Who the fuck names their kid 'Umber'?" Aldric asked, staring at the sign hung above the deceptively large shop, 'Umber's Ulster's', and also wondering what the hell an Ulster even was.

Ruby rolled her eyes, head lolling about her shoulders as well. "C'mon, Ash. Where'd you buy your last one?"

"The last _ten,_ Ruby. And every goddamn one of them got destroyed at some point, too." He whined, "and the shop got blown up."

"Exactly!" Ruby spun around on her foot, hand held up and finger pointed skyward, "so this is where we'll get your new one!"

"Why this place specifically?" Aldric had actually been considering going to the Garden and seeing if they had a tailor, see if they couldn't make a coat like one of those Kingsman or John Wick suits, functionally indestructible, that way he could just buy three and never have to worry about them getting trashed. A pipe dream had spawned up in the wake of his trying to work out the logistics of making more vibranium for Taurus, which boiled down to him lining his clothes with the stuff, so he wouldn't always have to be walking around in a body suit - or, if it became necessary, a tribal necklace. "Looks kind of expensive, actually." Not that that was an issue, actually - he and Cinder had settled Mercury's affairs and divided his assets between them, the money splitting up equally between them, and with Aldric giving the Aviator to Cinder in exchange for three quarters of his Garden coins.

Ruby waved Aldric's concerns away, "oh, don't worry about that! Weiss brought me here a couple times. Things aren't really as expensive as they look!" She said, as they strolled inside. "Okay, so..." She paused, as they entered the air-conditioned, brightly lit coat shop. "That way!" She pointed in a random direction and started walking.

Aldric didn't argue, instead just smiling and following Ruby. She soon brought him to a small corner in the shop and already had a coat in hand as Aldric arrived, she twirled around and held it up for him, looking to it, then him, a big smile on her face.

Aldric had to resist laughing, instead covering his smirk with his gauntleted prosthetic hand. "Uh... Ruby. That's not a trench coat." He said, "that's a cassock." He nodded at it, eyes trailing down the buttons trailing down its center.

Ruby frowned, blinking first at him, then at the coat, then at him, "what's the difference?"

 _One looks like a cape but has the function of a coat, and the other..._ He hummed. "That's what priests wear, Ruby." He grunted, still trying to hold it in.

Ruby looked at the cassock again, "but it looks just like your old one!" She insisted.

"Ruby there isn't a single pocket in that thing." He scoffed.

He noticed Ruby getting really still at this. "Oh..." She breathed. "Um..."

Aldric leaned his head back, realizing what was about to happen. "I get the strangest feeling our hanging out today only served into a certain someone's goals..." He walked forward, accepting the coat.

Ruby stowed her hands behind her back, twisting one shoe back and forth. "I..." She drawled. _"Might_ have been planning to buy you a new coat for a few weeks... As thanks for keeping my sister safe when you two were on that boat. Yang talked about this place a few times, about a coat she's looking at getting."

Aldric felt touched, not even trying to suppress the genuine smile twisting up the corners of his mouth. "Aw, thanks Ruby." He said, "you see, you open with _that_ next time, be surprised at the results." He gave her a one-armed hug. "So how'd you get them to leave it up on the racks?" He asked, examining the coats lining the walls next to them.

Ruby perked up again, albeit a little hesitantly. "Oh, that's easy - I ordered a pickup in store! So I just have to show them my receipt and we can walk out with it!" She said, "you're sure it's okay? I think we can swap it out..."

Aldric rolled his eyes, "no, I fuckin' hate it." He sparked a fire in one of his hands, waited a moment, and then let it die. "Of course it's fine, lady." He popped its buttons open and slid it on, testing its fit and finding himself a little surprised at how light it was. Compared to his last one, which felt like a small weight on his shoulders, this one was light, loose, and flexible; it may make him look like he just walked off the set of the Matrix, but it felt remarkably comfortable. "Now we buy guns."

Ruby's smile returned, and she gave a small nod, and led Aldric outside. "So that place you mentioned, what was it called again?"

"Gray's." Aldric said, reciting the name Torchwick had given him. "Gray's Guns. It's a one-stop shop." He took the lead, "swords, shields, guns of all shapes, sizes, makes, and models, bullets, large Dust dispensaries, place has everything." He recited, stowing his hands in the coat's outer pockets, and finding himself pleasantly surprised how deep they were, practically able to stuff his arms in them.

Ruby hummed, "ooh, shop there often?"

"Before my sugar-mama let me inherit the shield or have the plans for my sword, I shopped out of here to get my stuff." The grey goop that constantly covered his hands and was stuffed inside a false tooth was a testament to that. "Or, rather, _she_ shopped out of there."

Ruby giggled, "so - fight!" She held up both of her hands, pumping them up and down, "fight fight fight!"

Aldric rolled his eyes, "one track mind." He murmured, "we'll get it done, let's just make our teams happy first, yeah?" He pulled out a slip of paper from his pants pocket, "can you believe Ecru wants exactly forty eight electricity crystals?"

"Why forty eight?" Ruby tilted her head, craning her neck and looking at the sheet of paper. "And... Why does Srebro want a gravity gem?"

"Because she's able to mess with impact force. Adding _gravity_ dust to that would just make it like she's swinging around an entire fucking building." Aldric responded, as a team of builders drove past them, the sound of laughter riding by in their wake. "Hard to think a war just ended. Look at the place, parts of it look like it never even happened."

Ruby nodded, "well it _has_ been a few months..."

"Well, have you been looking at what the terrans have released to us?" He asked, "about their world? What'd they call it... the, uh... Great World War One?" He shrugged, "there was this huge stretch of land they were fighting over for _years."_

Ruby hopped up and down, "oh yeah! They called it the trenches, right?"

Aldric nodded, "it was either that or No Man's Land." He shrugged, "but they fought there a hundred years ago without pretty much _any_ of the technology they have now." That was the war that _invented_ the tank, for chrissakes. "And from what I read, most of it is still completely uninhabitable. So _this -"_ He nodded up to the cranes in the distance, "- this is a damn miracle, is what it is."

Ruby agreed, "maybe that's a sign?"

Nearing Gray's Guns, Aldric sensed a few vans a single street over, with a direct line of sight on Gray's, filled with a small group of thugs, and a few familiar-looking faces. Cinder, Torchwick, and Neo in the front-most van, the former-most under the belief that this was primarily meant as a means of furthering Aldric's standing with Ozpin, _his_ plan being to explain Ruby's presence as a coincidence.

"Sign of what?" Aldric wondered, looking over to Ruby.

Ruby shrugged, "good fortune?" She voiced, smoothing out a wrinkle in her skirt. "I think... With them here, things may get better." She said, "they said that they managed to repel a Grimm attack." A beat, "like... Completely!"

 _Yeah, by rendering Los-fucking-Angeles inhabitable._ Aldric nodded, "planet of seven billion people... You may be right." He nodded to Gray's, and the two went inside. "Who knows? Maybe our grandkids won't be buying guns before they can walk."

Ruby scoffed, her head rolling exaggeratedly. "No! I don't want to think about me when I'm that old!" She practically shrieked, " _you'll_ get old! You'll get old and crusty and I'll stay young forever!"

Aldric shook his head, "tell you what - we're growing old together." He said, grabbing a shopping basket. "And when we're both stuck in a retirement home, only able to walk because of our aura, I'll point at you and go -" He added an aged tremolo to his voice. "Yew ohld bisch! Fuhkin' toe'd yew!" He dropped the voice, "then the false teeth I'll have gotten from how many times I'd have broken my fucking jaw will fall out, and you'll super-speed them to a place I can't get to, and my alzheimer's mind will forget in two minutes and I'll live the rest of my life with no teeth." Ruby was laughing at this point, wiping a tear out of her eye as she picked up her own basket.

Aldric stopped by the dust bins and started loading up, while Ruby meandered over to a shelving unit with boxes and boxes of ammunition, and started loading up on slugs for her sniper rifle and shells for her sister's gauntlets. They greeted the store owner when he came to the front from the employee's area, and made idle chat with eachother as they picked up all of their promised purchases. Aldric ended up near the hardlight nanites after a few minutes, frowning down at them as what Ozpin had said about them came to mind.

 _And Cinder had no sooner described what was written on these signs..._ Aldric's eyes snapped up to the descriptors above the bins. _Than did I immediately equate them to Green Lantern rings. Did my influence begin right then and there?_ He read:

 _Hardlight Projectors_

 _Cost: 100 (L)/Gram._

 _With physical contact, will sync with wielder's cerebral cortex, and is capable of forming any simple, non-moving, solid object user envisions.  
Capable of self-replication (additional charge!) up to an accumulative limit of 1KG detected per NFC.  
 **Warning:** Lacking outside source or specific target, replication will draw from **user** to achieve requirements._

 _Battery life: 6 hours, constant use. Recharges via solar input._

 _Warning: Exceedingly fragile. Do not expose to heat, cold, magnetism, water, electricity, or pressures in excess of 1 atmosphere._

Aldric nodded. _Yup... That stuff was leaking out of me as early as back **then**._ Would he really be able to wean himself off of it like he wanted? Or was his entire skillset wholly reliant upon this unconscious magic he was rocking? He shook his head. _I need to step that stuff up with Goodwitch... I get good at matter recombination, I'll only need magic for the freaky shit._ And considering what all was in his belt, his 'freaky shit' quota could be far lower than it has been.

 _Yeah..._ He sighed, strolling over to the pistols and examining them, wondering if he should buy a new one or just stick with his bolter. _Yeah, I'm literally **trying** to get rid of power anyone else would kill for... But..._ He gritted his teeth. _Fuck, man. This is the same shit that let one of us make Mjolnir. Let Ozpin teleport me across time and space in an instant. Lets Salem open up four stable wormholes connecting two planets either across one universe, or linking **two.**_ He sighed. _I **joke** about being Saitama strong with this stuff, I **joke** about warping reality like Doctor Strange, but now I really wonder._ He threw a pistol into the basket. _And again going back to Mjolnir..._ He sensed Torchwick and Co. leaving their vans and preparing for their grand entry, while Ruby was looking at the wall with the place's most expensive weapons, eyes wide, jaw agape, practically salivating over them.

 _And return to that Mjolnir thing. A guy made a literal god's weapon. **I** made a weapon made by **big** 'G' Godesses, for fuck's sake! And ignore the fact that I can't get rid of the latter, what's stopping the other two from getting the idea to go home, read up on some Warhammer, or... Fuck, just steal a Cosmic Cube from Marvel? They wouldn't have the same compunction against that that I would._ He frowned, shifting his senses towards Ruby. _If I can't handle them myself, can she? She can cancel out their magic, but there are some things I have that, because I made them beforehand, she couldn't do **shit** about. Some things **they** could make that could kill her before she even realizes it. _ His closed his eyes and let out a long, tired, shaky sigh, preparing himself for the group's arrival. _Both times I fought someone with magic I almost died. Both times were against someone who had little to no use or understanding of their powers. The **one** time I pissed off Ozpin, he - at twenty percent of what his full power used to be - showed me what someone who had a mastery over it could do._ And all of that was pointedly ignoring that his entire plan was revolving around fighting someone who would functionally have a fully loaded infinity gauntlet sitting two feet from her.

He wondered if the flutter he felt in his heart was just pre-combat jitters, or the kind of abject fear that came from a man who knew he was in over his head, knew he was only getting deeper, and was scared of his only way out.

Aldric cracked his neck, as Torchwick's thugs reached the door.

 _So let's go._ He opened his eyes again, Torchwick's thugs streaming inside, and Torchwick and his assassin just reaching the door at their leisurely pace.

Two of them, with pistols tightly clenched in their hands, bee-lined it for the front desk, two others with shotguns lazily hanging from their shoulders and hidden by their coats, began checking the building. Aldric wasn't sure how many of them were in on it, or if any of them were even in on it at all besides their bosses. That one of them fearlessly drew his shotgun and tapped the star on Aldric's shield with it, sealed it for him: They had no clue. Aldric frowned, raised his head, and then slowly turned over to the thug.

The poor guy was doing an admirable job, keeping the gun in his jacket completely hidden from any cameras, but folding his arms across his chest in a way that parted the jacket _just_ enough that the gun was clearly visible to Aldric, directly in front of him. Looking past the thug, Aldric could see another coming in behind him, just as skillfully letting Aldric know he was armed, while hiding that very fact all the same. Aldric looked down at the thug's jacket, then up to the thug, as another pair located and approached Ruby.

"Oh... You _clearly_ need a lesson in manners." Aldric shook his head, as Ruby noticed she was being threatened as well.

Then she noticed Torchwick ostentatiously strolling inside, and her eyes grew wide. _"You!"_

Torchwick blinked, theatrically rotated to face her, and then, "oh shit."

Ruby reached for her scythe, the thug drew his gun, and suddenly Ruby was gone, and the thug in front of Aldric slammed into the wall adjacent them, and was being buried in a shower of pistols falling from the racks they were hanging from, with Ruby stumbling to a halt in front of the spy. Aldric looked down at her, blinking once, as she, swinging her arms, regained her balance and her footing.

"Getting a head start?" Aldric asked, catching one of her arms with his, and then sliding his shield onto his free arm.

Ruby smiled, but it dropped quickly. "These guys are bad news!" She looked over Aldric's shoulder, at the two pistol thugs currently emptying the register and raiding the Dust bins.

 _"No, no, no!"_ He heard Torchwick call out, as he backed out of the store. "We are _not_ playing with this girl, _or_ her friend, you are _going_ to bring out the big guns!"

"Son..." Aldric sensed the store's manager using the distraction Ruby had caused, and Torchwick's subsequent meltdown, to retrieve his own hidden weapon. "You're gonna have a bad time." He racked the slide with a loud clicking noise.

Aldric and Ruby exchanged glances. "Okay, you know this stuff more than I do, you go out and stop the big hoss, I'll make sure the boss here doesn't murder someone." She nodded, as he sensed the two thugs actually doing the robbing now leveling their guns on the boss, "also, duck."

Ruby blinked, but then his words dawned on her and she vanished in a shower of petals, just as the second guy who had been threatening Aldric let out a shot. The pellets slammed into Aldric's shirt and bounced harmlessly off of the armor underneath. Aldric and the thug looked down at Aldric's chest, then up to eachother, then back down to his chest, and then back up again as Ruby reached the front door and drew her scythe. Aldric whipped his shield at the thug who'd shot him, and the man didn't even protest, in such a state of shock at Aldric so brazenly shrugging off a nearly point-blank shotgun blast that he appeared to be reevaluating his entire life.

Aldric couldn't say he disagreed, as whatever life he went to would certainly have far fewer shields slamming into his face, breaking his nose, and knocking him out. The shield came back to Aldric, who made for the front counter at a leisurely pace, just as the store owner started getting loud enough to attract the thugs that _had_ been accosting Ruby. Aldric would give credit to the guy who had four guns on him and was still managing to intimidate his robbers, that took balls, nerves of steel, and a voice so loud that Aldric felt it in his chest.

 _"YOU STAY THE FUCK THERE!"_ The man screamed, _"YOU MOVE AN INCH AND I'LL -"_ His gun snapped over to one of the shotgun thugs. " _HEY!"_ The thug froze, and then fell out when Aldric beat him over the head with the side of his shield.

All three of the remaining thugs turned to Aldric, _one_ had the good sense to fire instead of stare at his unconscious friend like an idiot. The bullet hit the edge of Aldric's shield and ricocheted into the Power Glove bins, causing the nanites to spill onto the ground like sand. The shield again left Aldric's hand and bounced between the three remaining thugs, as Aldric sensed Ruby engaging Torchwick's goons outside. The shield returned to Aldric's hand and he used its flat edge to broadside the final standing one in the nose. The final thug crumpled to the ground in a heap, and Aldric grunted, stretching out his organic arm, his inorganic hand clasping his shoulder.

"Agh..." He groaned, "should've stretched." He turned to the store owner, who had his rifle lowered. "You okay, sir?"

The man nodded once, "but you should check on your lady friend, sonny. There were a lot more out there before that man wised up!"

The sounds of Crescent Rose firing and blades clashing told Aldric as much, so he nodded, bade the man to call the police, and then jogged outside. Here he saw Neo, Torchwick, and Cinder all reaching their van as more thugs poured out to buy them time. Ruby was tearing through them left and right, and Aldric noticed with some interest that Crescent Rose had a new addition. Lining its blade were a series of red metal plates, effectively dulling its edge and turning it from a cutting tool to a blunt instrument, which Ruby was using to beat the hell out of everyone present with decidedly nonlethal force.

She noticed him leaving the store and called out his name, "Ash!" She pointed to Torchwick and Neo, "we need to -" But a thug came up from behindher.

Aldric intercepted said thug with a shield toss, and he dashed forward he ordered her, "go, get him! I'll handle these guys!"

Ruby blinked, "but -"

"You're faster than me and they're getting in a car, _go!"_ A nod was the only further response she gave him before vanishing in a shower of flower petals, just as the tires on Torchwick's van started squealing loudly.

It took off far faster than something as big and bulky-looking as it looked like it could, to the point that Ruby almost wasn't able to slam her scythe through its roof and anchor herself to it. It was out of Aldric's radar range in no time at all, and he was left with a few dozen thugs all out for blood. He chose now to try working some not-quite-magic, and as one reached him he beaned the guy in the face with his shield, causing him to trip and fall, and giving Aldric enough time to thrust his hand forward.

He focused on the ground at the charging thugs' feet, and then clenched his fist tightly - the air instantly snap-freezing, going from its normal ambiance to icy cold in a second. Some of the thugs found their boots frozen to the ground, others found them unable to get traction on the ice, the result being nearly all of them falling over themselves and being rendered incapacitated. Some avoided Aldric's cold fury, but they were afforded no better fate, as Aldric turned the dial around, splaying his fingers open and increasing the temperature of the ground until the asphalt was so hot it began to bubble and boil. These thugs found themselves sinking into the scalding hot ground and screaming as they tried to claw their way out of it, their skin quickly turning red with every contact.

Now alone and with no threats, Aldric wondered how long it would be before -

 _Vrrrt._

 _Speak of the devil._ Aldric pulled out his vibrating scroll and saw it was Torchwick. He answered, "now, I know what you're thinking -"

"Oh Mister Aldric would you like to explain why I'm rampaging down the highway with an annoying little girl hanging off of my roof?" Aldric heard a 'thunk' in the background. "I thought our plan was quite a bit more personal!" Aldric could _hear_ the sneer in this dick's voice, and it made him smile.

"Am I on speaker phone?" Aldric asked, " _hey hot stuff!"_

Another 'thunk'. "You're very lucky she never saw you or I, Aldric." Cinder responded, no doubt for Ruby's benefit, in case she could hear them, to give the impression that this 'Aldric' was some sort of mastermind behind the heist, and not someone who had been right there in the thick of it. "What are you going to do?" Another 'thunk', Aldric realizing it sounded like something hitting glass.

"Well, considering unforeseen variables, the plan's obviously changed, so I think I'm going to need to spread the love a bit." He opined. "I'll handle it."

Another 'thunk'. "Oh I certainly hope so my good sir." He heard Torchwick call out, preceding another, louder 'thunk'.

"What the fuck is that noise?" Aldric asked.

"Oh our little guest is trying to kick her way through bulletproof glass. Nothing major." Torchwick hummed, "I hope to see you soon!" He cooed, as Aldric's other scroll began going off, this one with a loud ringtone.

Aldric ended the call, and then accepted the other one. "Now Ruby -"

 _"Ash!"_ The background noise was far louder, sounding like she was right in the middle of a tornado. _"I need a little help!"_

Aldric frowned, "Ruby where the hell are you?"

 _"Highway Teal!"_ He heard her grunt, _"their windows are too thick! I can't use my scythe or else I'll fall off!"_ She grunted again, and he could barely hear the thunk over the roaring winds.

Aldric grinned, "alright, how long can you hang out? I have to pay for the groceries and drop 'em off. Can you hang for an hour?"

 _"C'mon, Ash!"_

Aldric rolled his eyes, "alright, just hang on, yeah? I'll figure something out. What exit did you just pass?"

 _"Uh..."_ A beat, _"I think that was exit eight!"_

"Alright, hang tight." Aldric hung up, and then dialed another number, as he started jogging out towards main street.

He heard the phone click, and the person on the other end picked up. _"Hey Beebee! What's going -"_

"Yang, saddle up! Your Saturday just got a lot more interesting." He leapt into the air and then blasted off in the direction of the highway, a few ideas running through his head as to how he'd explain him not being able to just end this in a heartbeat.

He could almost hear Yang's frown, _"what do you mean?"_

"Uh -" Aldric called out over the air, "short version? We were out shopping, the place got robbed by a midget and some dick in a bowler cap, I fought off their goons, and now Ruby is _literally_ hanging onto their speeding car for dear life." He called out, not able to hear the sounds of Yang dropping everything she was doing and arming herself over the air rushing in his ears. "She's on Teal highway right now, I'm flying over there, but there's a problem." He could see the van now, roaring its way onto an elevated highway, and _damn_ that thing was moving, managing to outpace most of the sleeker, newer-looking vehicles. "Yup - I won't be able to fly _that_ fast!" How the hell did they get a rickety-looking van to go DeLorean speeds?

 _"Teal highway?"_ Yang repeated, _"I'll be there in five minutes - don't have any more fun without me, Beebee!"_ And she hung up.

"I just fucking told you that I can't keep up with that thing!" And it may not be a lie anymore, either - he'd clocked himself at needing nearly twenty four full hours just to fly from California to Georgia, that didn't equate to the speeds-approaching-one hundred this van was somehow clocking.

 _I blame Dust._ Aldric thought, realizing that his best bet to keep sight of Ruby was to stay in the sky; he pulled out his phone and, after trying to figure out who would be driving, decided to text Cinder.

 _Jesus Christ, Hot Stuff! How fast are you three **going**!?_

To which she responded: - _90MPH. Why is she still on our roof_?

 _Well, last I checked, my maximum air speed was SIXTY FUCKING FIVE. I can't just swoop in and grab her, can I? I had to call in the big guns in order to catch up with you assholes. I sincerely hope he's got backup coming, else this little performance we're putting on will end_ **today**. _Also, as to the 'why', do you see the giant fucking scythe sticking through your roof?_

 _-How fast can you run? And yes. As much as she wasn't the plan, this chase was a part of it._ She sent back, as their vehicle jerked back and forth, trying to throw Ruby from the roof.

 _Uh, I guess we'll find out, won't we? And with **my** reputation? Jesus, Hot Stuff - the carnage I caused would piss off Ozpin just as much as catching Torchwick would make him_ happy! He stowed his Legion of Doom scroll, and then pulled out his Goud scroll, and dialed Ruby.

He could just barely make out the rookie huntress struggle on top of the van, and then he heard her pick up. _"Hello?!"_

Aldric snorted, " _hello?"_ He parroted back, "are you about to tell me if... I dunno, Weiss, or maybe Pyrrha, had called just now, instead of screaming _'OH MY GOD PLEASE SAVE ME!'_ you'd just say _hello?!"_ Maybe he was having a little too much fun. "Your sister's on her way, and look up - I've got my eye on you." Through squinted eyes, he could see Ruby look over her shoulder and up into the sky; it took her a few seconds to catch sight of him.

 _"I see you!"_ She called out. _"And you called **Yang?** Ash, she'll kill me!"_

"Just bring up the bar! She won't do shit! How you holding up?"

 _"Would you stop that?"_

"Question still stands!" Aldric cast a glance over his own shoulder, towards the otherwise peaceful Beacon seeing a few bullheads take off, and wondering exactly how Yang would cross almost the entirety of Vale in five minutes.

 _"My arms hurt and it's cold!"_

"Good to hear!" Aldric grinned, "you having fun?"

Ruby laughed at this, _"yes, Ash! I'm having a lot of fun!"_ She said, as Neo tried throwing her from the roof again.

"Good!" Aldric noticed several cars speeding into position around Torchwick's, "Oh hell, you've got -" He was interrupted by something sounding distinctly like 'Oh no!', and then the sound of Ruby's scroll hitting the asphalt. "Well, there goes that one." He killed the call and stowed the scroll back in his pants. "So how -" He stopped speaking when he beheld Yang's method for crossing a country in no time at all.

His jaw was hanging loosely as he saw one of Beacon's bullheads, engines at full blast, roaring over the elevated highway, and barely a second later, Yang and her motorcycle flew out of it. Aldric could only thusly assume that she'd threatened the pilot with bodily harm, and had, by definition, hijacked a jet so she could perform an urban air drop. The fiery brawler landed on the road and her motorcycle's tires kicked up a lot of smoke as they worked overtime to get up to speed, but soon she kicked off and was tearing across the road, weaving through cars and traffic as she hurtled towards her sister, a fire no doubt in her eyes.

With an impressed snort and a shake of his head, Aldric cut his semblance and started sinking through the air, his new coat billowing like a cape in the wind as he straightened out his body and sped towards Yang and the road like a missile. The ground started coming up to meet him faster and faster, until Aldric finally caught himself, arms and legs pinwheeling, just a few feet over the highway. With the road a gray blur underneath him, and the one ant-sized cars now full-sized and blaring their horns at him, Aldric spread out his radar, and saw Yang in front of him; but, hearing the horns, she looked over her shoulder and saw Aldric slowly gaining altitude until the ground was several feet below him. Seeing that she was outpacing him, she hit the brakes and slowed down until they were neck-and-neck, and Aldric took the chance to mount up.

Of course, once Yang hit the accelerator and started catching up to Torchwick's van, the backup in the cars noticed him and Yang speeding over to them like a black and yellow missile, and began breaking off. Aldric saw thugs in expensive suits rolling down windows and leaning out of their cars, brandishing assault rifles - and convincing the civilian drivers to get the _fuck_ out of the way. Aldric grunted out a curse and quickly slid his shield off of his arm, and secured it to the front of Yang's bike, just as the bullets started flying. Like he'd hoped, they hit the shield and then bounced off harmlessly.

Aldric knocked on the back of Yang's helmet, _"get me close to one of them!"_

A nod and a rev of her engine was her response, _"will you be fine without this?"_ She indicated the shield.

Aldric laughed, over the sound of more gunfire bouncing off of the shield, _"I've got other options!"_ Oh this was going to be _fun._

As Yang picked up speed, the backup cars decelerated and formed a line between them and Torchwick, forcing Yang to slow her pursuit or get into a crash, and allowing Torchwick's van to keep speeding ahead. Some of the gunners tried targeting Ruby, but their shots were sparse - likely not wanting to run the risk of their bullets hitting the van's occupants. Ruby, to her credit, wasn't just laying there - after any significant delay in Neo's attempts to throw her from the van, she would try to get up to her knees and begin prying Crescent Rose out of the roof of the car, but the occupants seeing the blade moving would quickly see that as her attention being elsewhere, and thusly would try to buck her off again.

Yang, meanwhile, gunned the accelerator, trying to get as close to the enemy cars as she could, but they were learning too fast for her comfort, and were quickly realizing the futility of shooting the shield, and were instead starting to go for her tires. Aldric took this as his cue to literally spring into action - leaping off of the back of Yang's bike, towards the closest car he could see. He barely made it, skimming its rear bumper with the edges of his fingers, and only able to keep his grip by pushing himself closer with his semblance. His hand locked onto the car's bumper and held it so hard that it bent under the force of his grip. Aldric soon felt a shower of bullets pelting him and he had to use his free arm to cover his head, as several gunmen started unloading on him.

Their mistake, however, was in diverting their attention from Yang - who pumped her good arm once, activating her gauntlet, which she immediately jabbed at the air with, and sent a shell blasting towards one of the gunners. It hit him with a fiery explosion, and it was only through intervention of one of the other passengers that he didn't fall out of the car entirely, though the same couldn't have been said for his rifle. Aldric took this distraction and used it to claw his way towards one of the car's rear tires, but as he grew closer, he sensed a few vehicles slamming on their breaks, resulting in Aldric and Yang being surrounded and with gunfire quickly mounting.

Acting fast, Aldric took his vibranium-covered, mechanical hand, and shoved it into the rear tire as hard as he could. The sound of wind roaring in his ears was now replaced completely by the sound of bending and ripping metal, rubber being shredded, pressurized air escaping in a loud bang, and the thunking, grinding noise as the rim was now spinning unprotected on the ground. Aldric grinned, but his victory was short lived when he sensed and felt the driver losing control of his vehicle, and in the time it took him to blink, Aldric found the car spinning out of control and, soon, going airborne.

"Oh... Fuck." Aldric hummed, wishing he'd had the good sense to ask Yang if she had a spare helmet.

As the car began spinning through the air, Aldric kicked off of it and, lacking any other option, hit the ground running, the car smashing itself to pieces and tumbling across the ground behind him. Aldric's heart rate skyrocketed in an instant and he had to use his semblance to keep himself from stumbling, his feet were a blur and he could barely hear the sound of them hitting the ground, he was too focused on not getting pancaked by the car behind him, and desperately keeping pace with the van ahead of him, itself having created such a good distance that it was almost on the horizon.

Arms swinging, legs beating at the ground, Aldric sensed the car he'd trashed finally come to a halt, as he sprinted past a few civilian drivers who were desperately trying to avoid the carnage. Aldric felt a few bullets hit his armor and do their best to ruin his new jacket, prompting him to stretch his radar backwards, just in time to see Yang take a cue from his book, first blasting one of the vehicles behind her with her gauntlet, and then, under cover of his shield, advancing on the last one ahead of her. The gunner desperately tried to halt her advance, but she'd learned from their previous attempts at taking out her tires and was now driving in a serpentine pattern, throwing his accuracy off by miles.

As Aldric passed by another car, off in the distance he could see police vehicles getting on the on-ramp and hurtling onto the highway. He paid them no mind, though - his lungs were starting to feel as though they'd been set on fire. This speed was unsustainable and he knew it, but so too, it seemed, did Torchwick - who sent him a message over his Legion scroll, asking if the show had gone on long enough. Aldric hastily typed a response by mashing keys on the scroll with his semblance, his intended 'Yes, now slow down!', ending up looking closer to 'wed1 nuslrdo'. Torchwick seemed to get the idea, as when Yang blasted apart the tires of the last car and it ended up totaling one of their pursuers, Aldric found himself gaining on Torchwick.

So this, of course, would be when Ruby would end up throwing a monkey wrench in the works, and would finally be able to tear her scythe out of the roof. As Yang caught up with the still sprinting Aldric, the both of them beheld Ruby bringing down the blade onto the van's windshield. Neo's response was to rip the wheel hard in one direction, and the van did the only thing it could in this situation, and at these speeds: It slammed into the side-barrier, and careened right over the edge of the overpass. Ruby, no longer holding on for dear life, went flying, her scythe still stuck in the windshield.

Aldric sensed Yang gasp, her eyes going wide behind her sunglasses, and the engine on her bike quieting as she limply let go of the accelerator. Aldric, however, grunted and forced himself to keep running, tearing his shield off of Yang's bike and catching it as he came upon the gap in the barrier and _jumped._ Ruby and the van both were already almost halfway back down to the road below them, and Aldric could sense Cinder inside the latter, rolling down her window and leaning out, one of her hands aglow with energy. With her dealing with her own situation, Aldric instead focused on Ruby - rearing his shield and then throwing it at her with all of his might.

The shield spun through the air and caught Ruby in the back, the impact spinning her around so her back was to the ground. She barely had time to curl up behind the shield before the ground rushed up to meet her, the van, and Aldric. She hit the ground with a gasp and a grunt of pain, but the shield absorbed much of it, and as she grinded across the roar, car horns blaring and tires squealing as they swerved to avoid her, the van came in for a landing as well. Cinder let out a blast of fire from her open palm, slowing their descent such that, when it smashed into the ground, though the air was filled with the sound of splintering glass and bending metal, the van survived in a far better state than it would have.

What she likely hadn't planned on, however, was the fact that slowing the van down Gave Aldric the chance he needed to land on top of it. He hit the already damaged roof so hard that it bent underneath him. He rolled forward, just barely avoiding cutting his ear off on Ruby's scythe, and as Neo deftly avoided oncoming traffic, Aldric rolled over the windshield, locked his hands to the hood of the car, and soon found his feet hanging just over the car's front bumper.

Aldric _would_ have had a one-liner for them, but both Ruby and Yang made their re-entrances now, the latter by sailing off of the overpass on her bike and hurtling through the air, the former by zooming forward in a shower of rose petals, Aldric's shield secured to her left arm. Now with Yang gaining on them, Ruby ahead of them and bracing for her chance to leap back onto the car, Aldric hanging onto their hood, and with all of them driving _right_ into oncoming traffic, it appeared Cinder chose now to call an audible. The only warning she gave Aldric was a single nod when he and her made eye contact through the splintered glass, and soon after she ordered Neo to hit the brakes.

Before Aldric knew what was going on, Neo _slammed_ on the brakes hard enough that the tires started smoking, and Aldric's feet hit the ground. Aldric adapted quickly, digging his feet into the asphault and pushing as hard as he could to halt the van, digging twin grooves in the highway and shredding the soles of his boots as he did so. They neared Ruby as this occurred, and started backpedaling, shield braced in front of her. The van took several meters before it finally stopped, but that didn't herald a lull in the action, rather it signaled the next phase, as Cinder then thrust both hands forward and detonated the windshield. Aldric was sent flying back in a shower of fire, glass, and Ruby's scythe. As he flew through the air, he made sure to rip a certain something from his belt and have it land in front of the van. He hit Ruby and bowled her over as the doors to the van opened; Cinder stepped outside, wrapping her head in a scarf, and Torchwick and Neo did as well, though without the identity concealment.

As Aldric and Ruby recovered, Aldric groaned, pointing at Cinder. "Holy shit!" He chuckled, "Ruby, look! She's got a fuckin' mask, and we just caused about as much property damage as the terrans." He helped Ruby to her feet and called her scythe over with his semblance, "doesn't that make us superheroes?" He laughed.

Breathing heavily, Ruby giggled. "I... You know, I guess it does!" She said, as Yang swerved around the van and screeched to a halt next to Aldric and Ruby.

"I let you two go out on your little playdate and geek out over guns, and this is what you do." She said, with an expression of faux disappointment, completely ruined by the fire in her eyes. "You two think we can keep them here until help gets here?"

Aldric frowned, as Ruby handed him his shield. "Uh..." He gave Yang a look, seeing out of the corner of his eye traffic beginning to stop and pile up a good distance away from them. "What, implying that you got everyone else's asses in gear... And... Didn't..." He drawled, "I dunno... Bring them with you on the giant airship?"

Yang waved him away, "it was a time for action, not for thought." She nodded to Cinder, "what's with Masky?"

"Well, typically people who wear masks have something to hide, young madame!" Torchwick called out, giving them all a large bow, after spinning his cudgel in one hand. "I'm so _thrilled_ to make your acquaintance today. Had just _one_ last store to clean out, but _nooooo,_ you just _had_ to be there today like you _had_ to be there a few months ago."

Ruby, finally getting control of her breathing, gasped, "that _was_ you!" She said, pulling her scythe off of the ground and chambering a round with a loud 'clack'. "What are you _doing?"_ She asked.

Torchwick laughed, "quite the same as you, I would think!" He paused, "stalling for time!" He clapped his cane on the ground.

Silence, save for the sound of cars passing them on the other side of the median.

Everyone who wasn't Neo or Torchwick gave a look around, as whatever he was referring to never came, with Cinder's eyes skimming across the ground as she did so, and briefly flashing with recognition.

Then it hit Aldric, "oh, I get it." He chuckled, "nice." He snorted, "I'll take big and tall." He nodded to Ruby, "you take scarf and fire." He nodded to Yang, "you take short and crazy." He got nods in response. "Ready?" His trio and the Legion all stooped down into combat positions, but Cinder kept going.

She snatched Aldric's backup plan off of the ground and snapped back up to a standing position, Aldric's group flinched as she displayed the tiny throwing star, its center a deep red. Aldric, Yang, and Ruby exchanged glances, before turning back to the Legion, just as Cinder used her powers to detonate the air behind the van and send it thundering forward - right before she pitched the throwing star at it. It slammed into the van and shattered, and in the blink of an eye the van tripled in size and immediately started picking up speed. Yang stepped up, throwing her fists forward in multiple rapid-fire air-jabs, each punch sending out a bright red missile that chipped away at the van. Aldric, however, had the good sense to just grab Ruby and walk six feet to the left, before using his semblance to pull Yang over to him, allowing the car to harmlessly roll right by.

Yang frowned, "that wasn't fun."

"The smart option usually isn't." Aldric looked back to the Legion, and found that there were eight copies of them, all running in different directions. "Oh, now ain't that fun?" He sighed.

Ruby jogged forward a few feet, before reality hit her. "Did... Did we lose?" She realized.

Aldric draped his arm over Yang's shoulders, "see, maybe they actually would have _stayed_ if a certain someone hadn't let slip that backup was coming." He grinned.

Yang rolled her eyes, "shut up, Beebee!" She growled, wrapping an arm around his neck and digging her knuckles into his head. "You got my sister thrown from a car! A _car!"_ She shouted, a smile on her face, as a forlorn Ruby turned around to face them.

"Did you guys hear what he said?" She asked, over the sound of approaching police sirens. "He said that Gray's was the last place with Dust... What do you think he meant?"

Yang ceased her attempts at grinding Aldric's head to a pulp, and Aldric pried himself out of the crook in her arm. "I dunno..." The blonde admitted, "guess -"

"Now before you say 'we'll have to find out'..." Aldric grunted, hanging his shield from his back, and nodding to the approaching blue lights. "We may want to explain what exactly we were doing smashing the shit out of the highway they just fixed." Several heavily armed police officers sprinting towards them, having abandoned their vehicles to slip between the traffic. Aldric raised his hands, and soon after, Ruby and Yang noticed the approaching uniforms and joined him, deactivating their weapons and raising their hands.


	55. The Final Curtain

Chapter 54

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _So, by coincidence **and** by design, I got stuck in this Torchwick shit._

 _The funny thing?_

 _Neo texts me before I make it to the police station, gives me a picture of some random dude.  
I get to the station, get thrown in an interrogation room, five minutes later the guy she sent me a picture of walks in and starts interviewing me._

 _See, a part of me wants to be paranoid, believe she let this guy in on who I am, but let's be fucking honest. The more likely option is that she sent me that picture almost entirely to fuck with me. I one hundred percent believe that she did it because she thought it would be funny._

 _Aaaand... Okay, fine, it kind of is.  
_

 _But what's really funny is the whirlwind of bullshit that has us... Not accountable for anything. For fuck's sake, we trashed a goddamn highway. and were only in an interrogation room for a few hours.  
Like, am I supposed to take from this that Neo's picture suggested nothing will happen because the cops are all corrupt? Or that Huntsmen in this world have carte blanche when it comes to performing their duties?_

 _I mean, considering that they've been dealing with super people for as long as they've been writing down history, I suppose their laissez faire attitude even when it comes to students would be somewhat understandable, but the whole thing just blasts so far past ridiculous it circles around to being funny._

 _Anyways, all that to say: We kicked the closest we could get to the show's Torchwick plot into high gear, and I gotta admit, it was kind of fun. That there was a fight with no stakes, I just got to beat the snot out of a bunch of guys with no aura, not have to kill them, got into a car chase, a car wreck, and then a standoff, and then I got arrested._

 _Oh, I also figured out I can run at about ninety miles per hour.  
I was sore as **fuck** afterwards, though. Pretty sure I tore and pulled more than a few muscles in my everywhere. Once the adrenaline faded away I could barely move, took me two damn days before I had recovered enough to start training again, and a week before I was somewhat close to being healthy.  
Granted, my baseline these days is 'half dead', but I digress:  
_

 _For the first time in almost a year... God damn, I knew what I was doing at any given moment.  
Obviously there were some variables (one of which being I didn't expect Yang to attempt a krogan airdrop with her motor bike), but on the whole? I **knew** what I was doing pretty much the whole way through._

 _That's not a luxury I get very often, and damn it felt good._

 _Anyways, Ozpin played his role after we got out of the precinct. I'm glad you're safe, be more careful next time, the reconstruction crews have enough work already, blah blah blah._

 _Cinder, on the other hand, wasn't fully happy with how Ruby was a part of it. She's under the assumption that the whole thing was for **my** benefit so as to get in closer with Ozpin, and that Ruby just showed up on accident. But I managed to quiet her down and told her this would only help in the long run, that Ruby is Ozpin's little pet project and getting in close with her would give me leverage over him, that kind of stuff._

 _Now all we've got to do is just go through the motions and play the game.  
And, as the saying goes: Game on._

* * *

Down at the landing pads for departing Beacon students, Aldric was waiting for his partner in crime for the day's Torchwick investigation, dangling a wire necklace ringed by sterling teeth from his fingers, examining it with a neutral frown on his face. Owing to what was stored in the teeth, it weighed deceptively more than it looked like it would, but Aldric's attention was more focused on the atoms making it all up. Even as minuscule as the nanites in it were, the vibranium that made up the necklace was just as neat, orderly, and _dense_ as those making up his shield.

 _Really wonder if I shouldn't just keep this for myself._ Aldric hummed, spinning the necklace by one of his fingers. _I mean my biggest hangup would be the fact that it's made out of nanites. Destabilize them in any way and the whole suit's integrity is sacrificed. Sounds like an intentional design flaw, but w_ _ouldn't the utility of being able to store the whole suit in the necklace outweigh that?_ He wondered, _not to mention the whole storing kinetic energy thing... Which I can't even **begin** to understand._ He sensed an airship coming in for a landing. _Really, I think the one I'm wearing is probably the better of the two. No bells and whistles, no nanite storage, no none of that... But it gets the job done and some lucky schmuck with a sonic weapon wouldn't accidentally nullify the whole thing. Boring, but practical, as it were._ He stuffed the necklace in his jacket pocket, alongside a sheet of paper, and looked up, grinning, as he fired off the one-liner he'd had prepared.

"Oh I i tawt i taw a puddy tat!" Aldric called out, as Blake Belladonna stepped out of the ship.

Blake gave him a warning glance, not appearing as surprised he knew as she was just annoyed he'd practically broadcasted it. Aldric rolled his eyes, she shook her head, and approached him. "So." He began, "how did _we_ get paired up?" Aldric asked, frowning comically at Blake, who nodded sympathetically.

"I mentioned offhandedly that I knew you the least of our team when Ruby conspired to pair us all off." She said, with a stiff nod. "I apologize."

Aldric laughed, standing outside in the hot summer sun, a creative application of his semblance guaranteeing he barely even felt the heat despite wearing a metal suit and an overcoat, something which he knew Blake was noticing, but wasn't mentioning. "Oh fuck, Blake - you're going to apologize for that?" He shook his head, "mm-mm. That's not good, we're going to get along you need to figure out how to throw insults at people."

Blake arced a thin eyebrow, as she crossed her arms behind her back. "Are you about to tell me you have taught _Weiss_ the allure of a vitriolic friendship?"

Aldric paused a moment, "uh... Yeah!" He said, bluntly. "Even before she met me she was throwing shade at people! I just added some color to her language." He grinned.

To which, Blake responded, "no. No you haven't."

Aldric frowned, "oh you're no fun." He said, with a roll of his eyes. "So how long do you think it'll take Ruby to figure out this won't be over in a week?"

"Probably that week." Blake responded, as they came to a halt at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn red. "Have you any idea where we should even begin in the first place?" She asked.

"Well..." Aldric frowned, wondering how he should approach this. "Ruby and Ecru are checking out all of the stores he trashed, so that's out. Yang and Srebro are going to harass Junior for information, so _that's_ out... And Weiss and Myrtle are trying to use Weiss' contacts to see if they can't drudge anything up, so we can't really do that..." He pulled a small platinum coin out of his coat. "I was thinking about using this, see where it could get us." Aldric swore he could _hear_ Blake's heart skip a beat, so he gave her an incredulous look. "What?"

No doubt remembering Yang having had one before, Blake gave Aldric a cautious look. "Where did you get that?"

"Yang told you about that woman I work for?" Aldric asked, stowing the coin back in his coat. "She probably called her -"

"Yes." Blake cut him off.

"She's got a bunch of 'em. Gave me an address and a fistful and told me to go there if I ever needed help. So, I figured..." He shrugged. "Why not? See where this takes me."

"Ash... _Assassins_ use those coins." Blake whispered, casting a quick glance at their surroundings. "They're marks. Receipts for having done _very bad things."_ She looked back at him.

Aldric blinked, "no..." He shook his head. "The guy I got my shield from..." He indicated it. "He had a few, and he was practically a superhero. Saved my life when my village got trashed by Grimm. And Miss Ember's not that bad." He insisted, before blinking again. "Oh... You know what? Maybe she'll know someone..." He murmured, pulling out his scroll. "She still even in the country?"

"Ash -" Blake pushed the scroll away, "no!"

Aldric frowned, "Blake, why are you freaking out? We need information on Torchwick, and this might get it for us." Of course he knew she was both worried about the coin and realizing that Aldric's stash may have been where Yang had gotten her hands on one those months back, but he was looking for one thing in particular.

Blake sighed, a conflicted look on her face as she broke eye contact, looking off to the distance, before turning back to him. "Please don't make me explain it, Ash. My _team_ barely knows."

 _Oh yeah, I guess that did get kind of swept away in the face of inter-global war._ Aldric pursed his lips, "okay." He said, having to admit defeat or risk compromising Goud's character. "But unless you've got a better option going to this 'Garden' place she told me about is my only idea." He had Neo all set up as Ember, and everything.

Blake seemed to realize he was right, and again she looked away, weighing her apparent fear of the Garden against the fact.

Then she gave him what he wanted: "I might have one option."

Aldric blinked, "oh?"

"I just..." She forced out a reluctant sigh. "Please don't tell my team, when we meet him."

"Why? Who are we meeting?"

* * *

Hours later, and now well outside of Vale's protective walls, Aldric and Blake were sitting in the middle of the emerald forest, waiting for their 'informant' to arrive.

"So..." Aldric began, after a prolonged silence. "Coming out in the middle of the woods to meet a reformed terrorist is better than walking into a supposed hotel for assassins?" Aldric asked, genuinely curious as to Blake's thought process for this; and if he'd known they would be leaving Vale, he'd have dragged Jaune along with him, to test out the Master Sword against a Grimm.

"It is... Ash." Blake began, voice low and filled with the tremolo of trepidation. "It is."

 _Why the fuck is she so afraid of the Garden?_ Aldric wondered, _what did she -_ He blinked. _Holy fuck did she break the rules? No, wait, no, that can't be it. She'd be ten different kinds of dead if that were the case._ But the thought did prompt him to use his semblance on his Legion of Doom scroll, and send a message to Neo.

 _Random question: What exactly happens if you break the Garden's rules? Asking for a friend._

"Blake, you've kind of got me in a bad spot, here. First you teach me that the Garden Hotel isn't what I thought it was, that my old boss lady might be involved in some shady shit... And now we're out here meeting a guy who up until a few months ago was actively bombing places and robbing trains." He didn't miss her wince at that. "You don't want me to ask _why,_ and I'll respect that, but I do at least ask you to understand where I'm coming from."

"I do, Ash... Believe me, I do."

He got his response from Neo:

 _-Please tell me I'm not going to walk out and find a few bodies, Aldric, this isn't something to joke about._

 _Damn, didn't even try to tease me._ And that only served to further cement Aldric's suspicion that Blake couldn't have tried pulling a John Wick and murdering someone in the Garden itself.

 _Well, I can't guarantee that, but I can guarantee that if you **do,** it wasn't my fault, as it's pretty much certain our little song and dance won't be sung today. Belladonna is fucking **terrified** of the Garden, she begged me not to make her tell me why, and since Ash is the whole Captain America/Superman type, he has to respect that. But since I'm a curious bastard, I don't. I thought that maybe she'd been there before and had broken the rules, but you're giving me the indication that she'd be mega-dead if she had._ He responded.

Aldric decided to double down, "Blake, I don't know what you did before Beacon, and to be frank it isn't really my business to know... But I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with why you wear that bow." She didn't respond, "and if it does... All I'll say is that trusting your friends is never a bad thing. They care about you, and if you've got problems, they'll want to help with them." He stretched his arms and yawned, before propping his shield up against the tree and leaning back against it, enjoying the shade the canopy of leaves above him provided. "They're your team, they're _literally_ there to help you if you need it."

"I was never really the type to ask for help, Ash." She gave him.

"You're talking to the dude who pulled the 'fear and dead men' thing, I know what it's like to want to shoulder everything yourself." Aldric deadpanned, getting a half-hearted roll of the eyes from the cat faunus. "As the cliche goes, you can't run forever, Blake. Eventually you need someone or somewhere to run _to._

 _-Wait, you mean **Blake** Belladonna? Oh no, she's been here once or twice with her ex, but she never started anything. Taurus on the other hand, oh bo~y. Have you ever wondered why he's never hidden out here, despite it being perhaps the **best** place to do so? He killed the last Master Gardener in the Mistral Garden two or three years ago. She might have been there? But they only stopped sending people to kill him last year, after he and his Fang managed to win out against a group of Glass Gardeners. If memory serves, that was the battle that made Marcus Black retire. After that, the price on his head stuck, but most people here generally agree that everything it would take to take him down wouldn't be worth it. You didn't know?_

Aldric couldn't help but have John Wick flashbacks with this, but he supposed this would explain Blake's fear. If _he'd_ had a front seat to the kind of terrifying feat that would have been a constant and steady onslaught of increasingly skilled and powerful assassins for more than a year, he'd definitely have a healthy fear of whatever organization could pull it off.

 _What's the bounty at?_

- _Sixty Gold. Plus twenty million lien._

Aldric wondered if that hadn't been some kind of ploy on Taurus' part. Had he killed the Master Gardner on purpose, so he could spin the subsequent attempts on his life as a human plot? If so, Aldric couldn't help but give the man some respect for that. It was a _suicidal_ move, but if he could pull it off, he could all but be a living martyr, and add the legitimacy he was giving himself in the public eye as of late, Aldric wondered if Taurus' next move wouldn't be to replace Sienna Khan in a less bloody fashion, and control the _entire_ faction. Spin those attempts on his life and his meteoric rise to power as a call to arms. Taurus was either very confident in his fighting prowess, or very arrogant. Aldric rubbed his face and suppressed a groan, knowing full and well he was _witnessing_ the creation of his next enemy, and was actively arming him with among the most powerful materials in all of fiction.

 _Wouldn't happen to have the skinny on **why** he did it?_

 _-Noooope! One moment he was talking to the Master Gardener, next her head was on the ground and he and several of his Fang were fighting their way out of the Mistral Garden._

Of course she wouldn't know, because if she did, and he could have the whole story, that would make it too easy. Regardless, he had what he wanted, and didn't even need to be told that some pieces to this puzzle probably wouldn't ever be given to him. So he relaxed, leaning back against the shield, and keeping an eye on the worried Blake and the forest around them, waiting for Taurus to come around. This wait took an hour before bearing fruit, and Aldric found Taurus approaching them, alongside two familiar faces: Chainsword, and the chameleon chick he'd seen months ago, watching both he and Blake.

Aldric stretched and got to his feet, groaning, as Blake did the same, though she did so stiffly, slowly. When Aldric got a look at Taurus, he tilted his head, "oh!" He said, a grin playing his features as he stored his hands in his pockets. "Oh I remember you!" He brazenly approached the Fang leader; Chainsword and Chameleon drew their weapons, and Blake practically pounced on him to try and get him to stop, but Taurus' grin and a gesture from his hands stopped them all. "How's it goin', man?" He grinned, removing his hand from his coat and presenting to Taurus, the necklace and the folded sheet of paper hidden in his palm.

Taurus gave him a long look, before he shook his head and accepted Aldric's handshake, simultaneously taking the offered items. "It goes." Said he. "You have recovered well."

Aldric laughed and swept his hand through his shaggy hair. "Dude, had I known her 'friend' was you I might've pretended to be decent person when I put my shoes on this morning." He said, as Blake approached, having sufficiently steeled herself. "Been hearing about you on the news, amazing what can get done when you do what an entire country can't, eh?" He chuckled.

Taurus pocketed the necklace and the note, nodding, as his smile faded away. "Quite." He looked to Blake as she arrived, "I'm glad you called." He said, Aldric detecting a reserved quality to his voice, as though he were carefully and intentionally choosing his words, and weighing every syllable for their potential impact.

She frowned, "it wasn't my first option, but the only other one we had was even less attractive." She said, "else we would have been wandering the city for hours, searching for little and finding less."

Taurus nodded, "if it is something I can find, I will."

 _Damn, dude. Put a docile Blake in front of him and it's like I'm dealing with a different person._ Seeing this almost made him forget that he was dealing with an terrorist bent on world domination. _Is he just dedicated to the whole 'I'm a new man now!' act? Or am I seeing a genuine weakness in him?_ Considering what he knew about the man, he wanted to say _both._

"We're looking for Roman Torchwick. Anything about him. Places he operates out of, where he does business, who he trades with..." Blake listed off. "Anything that can put us on the right path."

Taurus nodded, pulling a scroll out of his pocket. "I haven't done much work with him..." He said, "but I remember where it was we met." He handed it to her. "Have you considered -"

"No." Blake snapped, frowning at the screen, memorizing every detail, before handing it back. "This is a start but I still don't believe you and I may never."

Taurus sighed, a frown twitching at his lips, before he took his scroll back. "I'll change your mind, Blake."

"Good luck trying." She said, turning around. "Come on, Ash."

Aldric scooped his shield off the ground, giving Taurus a nod before rushing off to join Blake. "So... Why couldn't we do that with a scroll-call again?"

That night found the two teams grouping together to report their findings. Little progress was made except by Aldric and Blake, and after discussing their findings and creating a plan, they chose to attack the next day they all were free, resulting in a week's delay. Aldric used this time to warn Torchwick of which base was going to get trashed and allow him the time to prepare everything. Aldric spent this time continuing to play as Goud, training with Pyrrha and Jaune, and fine-tuning his semblance with Goodwitch.

When the time came, the two teams assembled and converged on the warehouse, finding it filled with Torchwick's thugs. The battles with the poor men being paid to be beaten up were over inside of an hour, and while Aldric tied them all up, Batman-style, the rest searched the warehouse for clues. Torchwick didn't make it easy on them, hiding the next location in the finer details of several letters, reports, and partially shredded tax records, the piecing together of this information taking several days to complete, and setting the precedent for the next three months. Whenever the two teams weren't in class, training, or assisting with Vale's rebuilding, they were hunting down Torchwick, leaving his various warehouses and bases for the police to discover, and then moving on to decipher the next location.

As a means to prompt Ruby and Co. into believing they really were on the right trail, Torchwick would often leave behind circumstantial evidence of his presence in these places, once even outright _being present_ but fleeing under cover of his thugs. Neo let Aldric in on the fact that Torchwick was actually finding the whole thing entertaining, like playing a game of hide and seek with a toddler who couldn't stop laughing from under his bed. Regardless, for three months this went on, until finally, at the second to last base, Torchwick set it up such that most of the documents there would be far more direct, less of them destroyed or tampered with, or even halfway through the process, to make Ruby believe she was gaining on him.

What Aldric began to realize, though, was about halfway through their guided little journey, was that he was becoming _bored._ Beating up hundreds of goons had been fun the first two times, but knowing that there was only one outcome meant that, as time dragged on the act became monotonous. They would show up, kick ass, find some clues, call the police, go back to Beacon, and put the clues together. The only part that had thoroughly entertained him had been when he'd walked into RWBY's dorm and had actually found a bulletin board posted to their wall, with red strings connecting pictures, the whole nine yards, but aside from that? He found himself increasingly apathetic to the whole ordeal, wishing at times that he'd instead found a way to set it up such that RWBY and RWBY alone had to go through the song and dance, so he could focus on more important things.

Even the end of the whole act didn't really do much for him. When they found his last base, and Aldric confirmed he was inside, RWBY and GEMS charged inside and immediately charged right back out when they were confronted by Torchwick in a _gigantic_ Atlesian Mech. Aldric had never realized how _huge_ those things were until he found one baring down in him, even if he knew damn well and good Torchwick wasn't trying to kill any of them. As a result of that, the fight, while explosive, was short lived, and not nearly as entertaining as Aldric would have hoped.

And while the two teams were waiting for the police to arrive and take Torchwick in, Aldric realized that he'd just spent the last month and a half _begging_ the universe for some kind of threat to his life, solely because he was bored of it _not_ being threatened. That was the kind of stuff that made him get frustrated with _Goku_ back home, he'd never actually thought, even after coming to Remnant, that _he'd_ be looking for the next life-threatening fight as a cure to his boredom.

Fortunately - or unfortunately, or _both,_ really - he knew that such a thing would be coming soon, because with Torchwick captured, that meant his part in the game was over, and there was only one part left.

* * *

 _For the Record_

 _Torchwick thing took about three months._ _ _Even the end wasn't nearly as exciting as it was before I showed up and mucked up the show, we just, showed up, again... The thugs freaked out, again... We kicked ass, again..._ Then we had this whole big boxing session with Torchwick's robot mech suit and some of his better thugs, Neo played hooky, Torchwick didn't, now he's behind bars._

 _That sounds worse than it is, though. His contacts, Ozpin's, and a little terran influence (once I let Bubbles in on the whole act), mean he's... Really not. He's in a prison, yes, but we got him in one he chose specifically - because he'd spent the entire three months systematically putting every one of the guards and prisoners on his payroll - so he still has below-board access to his contacts, and is still basically puppeteering his entire criminal network from inside the slammer._

 _The guy's a less fat Wilson Fisk, have I said that yet?_

 _To the point where I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he used this as a chance to legitimize himself, like some kind of ex-con 'I was once evil and look at where I am now!' success story._

So basically doing what Adam Taurus is already in the middle of, come to think of it.

 _So, in summation:  
Pyrrha's already got her name out there. She's the invincible girl. She's ready for the world to be led by her.  
Goud cemented his with all of the Nathan Drake, Master Chief, Jedi-esque shit he pulled during the Worlds War. He's ready to be martyred to unite everyone, Phil Coulson style.  
And now Ruby's name is picking up steam, because she spearheaded the whole damn operation that 'shattered' Roman Torchwick's criminal empire._

 _The god damn stage is **set...** On **both** sides.  
_

 _Yeah, **both** sides.  
The Legion hasn't been idle during this._

 _Taurus and Torchwick have been used by Cinder as a means of smuggling things across the interstellar border. Most of the wormholes ended up within the aquatic borders of some country or another, and they got locked down tight, but **one** managed to get dropped in international waters. So, while it was absolutely legal for the various countries to park a warship and a sub or two nearby, they couldn't demilitarize the **shit** out of them like the other ones were, what with mines and bombs and all that. This one's locked down tight, but its nature and its location mean there are holes in its defenses._

 _Holes one of Salem's masters was able to point out to them (through messages, because of course I'd miss a chance to identify one of them), and they were able to use to smuggle... Well, let's be fucking honest. There's only one thing Salem wants on Earth right now. Though I did find it entertaining that their initial idea was to hide the Grimm in Chernobyl (yes, **that** Chernobyl), but they axed that one when they started dropping like flies. Now they've just got small populations hidden in out of the way places in various major countries, breeding like crazy and just waiting for the proverbial gun to go off. Add that to the aura-users she's decking out in military threads that she hopes to use to either assassinate or terrify world leaders, **and** the tension that never really bled away between the two worlds (because did any of us **really** expect Earth or Remnant to forget that we'd been killing each other barely even a year ago? The Japanese are still pissed at the Americans for the atom bombs, for fuck's sake.), and she's got her powder keg, which is only getting worse what with the arms race that is/isn't going on, what with Remnant trying to fix their naval forces and rebuild their military infrastructure, albeit under the excuse that it's for Grimm control, and Earth laughing their asses off and building ten aircraft carriers in the time it takes Remnant to field half that number of airships._

 _So, when shit goes down, Earth will be just occupied enough dealing with the Grimm that will show up after the leaders are killed, but not so occupied that they can't turn their war machine to Remnant, which itself is now ready for most of the tricks that got their asses kicked last time. The fight will be much more equal this go-round, to the point where I'm willing to bet that they won't even name it a separate war, when it comes time to put it down in the history books. They'll just say the ceasefire was violated and the war started back up. I think there's precedent for that, considering the fact that the Korean War technically still hasn't **ended** per se. I don't know the proper terminology. The fighting stopped but the war technically wasn't over.  
_

 _Anyways, it's actually kind of startling. I always wondered what it must be like to be the villain in a movie, setting up the supposed end of the heroes and their world and watching all the pieces get set, and now I know. It feels weird. Like, on one hand I know that I'm setting up some fucked up shit. But on the other, I know for a fact that I've done worse on the small and large scale. So as bad as it feels... I've felt worse.  
_

 _And admitting that is bizarre... But it's also something I've done before, which is more or less why I'm happy that students from other countries, as well as terran athletes and camera crews, are starting to show up for Vytal._

 _And realizing that - realizing that I'm repeating myself so often now - that's when it hit me: Soon, I'll have brand new shit to worry about, wholly alien to this Salem/Cinder/Ozpin/Justice League/Legion of Doom stuff. Because in a month... Maybe two? Three at the most. I'll be done with this. All of it.  
_

 _So, what does all that mean?_

 _That means Sandy Blue, Yuno Magenta, John Grease, and Redd Foley (See: Cinder, Neo, Chainsword, and the Chameleon chick from forever ago, all disguised), are arriving at Beacon **today**. Vytal, both the games and the tournaments, starts in earnest **tomorrow,** and Goud Etiolate **dies** in two...Ish weeks. Maybe sooner. Maybe later. But imminently regardless.  
_

 _And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain. Whoever you all are, I'll say it clear. I'll state my case, of which I'm certain:_

 _In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed.  
It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul._

 _ **The** **Record** shows I took the blows, and did it my way._

 _BMFG is touching down, soon._

 _Let's fuckin' do this._

* * *

No doubt both because Ozpin had let everyone know he suspected Salem to make a move, and because he could at least tell Ironwood he had a contact that said Salem absolutely would, _and_ because both Earth and Remnant were using this as a chance to compare genital sizes, it wasn't just bullheads and floating yachts that filled the sky, but also thousands of airships from all across Remnant, and helicopters and drones from Earth, the former all hundreds of miles apart, the latter all scanning the ground from the skies, all practically flooding the air, and making it such that it didn't matter _where_ one looked, they could see some sort of aerial stamp of presence from one planet or another's military, _especially_ as one got further out to sea, from which Cinder's bullhead came.

Out there, the distance shrank from hundreds of miles to the tens, and for good reason: Earth was pulling a Fleet Week out on Vale's docks, for the first time letting the general public see _exactly_ what it was and who it was that kicked their asses so few and yet so many months ago. Just from his perch near the landing pads at Beacon, Aldric could see two different aircraft carriers of wildly different sizes, several destroyers and frigates, and even a surfaced Submarine. Most had tours running through them, those groups filled to the brim with morbidly and genuinely curious civilians, as well as Vale reporters desperately hoping to get their name on the map by trying to glean some kind of hint of Earth through its war machines.

Aldric, however, was paying more attention to Cinder's bullhead, as he had one very specific, and very important goal during this: To keep Cinder out of the way of any Terran cameras as much as he could. Aldric wasn't stupid, he knew that the show had to be as common knowledge on Earth as who won World War 2, he didn't need Bubbles to tell him as much - and he also knew that, with the borders temporarily opened as they were for what many were beginning to call the 'Vytal Olympics', that meant a titanic number of terrans were being allowed to cross over and get a look at the world they once knew only as fiction. That meant there was a much higher chance that someone could finagle themselves a press pass, get a ticket to Beacon, and then just fucking _wait_ for Cinder Fall's airship to land, so they could try to get pictures of her to blast on the internet, back home, or worse - play hero and put a gun to her head.

So, by first establishing the story with Cinder ahead of time, and after learning from her the identities of the two White Fangs she had pulled in to round out her team, he explained to his team that Yuno and some old friends from Mistral were coming to Vytal and should be landing today. He knew them well enough to know that he wouldn't even have to suggest waiting for them - Ecru had taken that honor with aplomb, had woken everyone up before the sun, and had practically parked them on the landing pads to wait up for the group.

Aldric had considered leaving his shield in his locker as, without even using his Radar or turning his head, he could see no fewer than twelve terran reporters scattered about. If the name of the game was subtlety, walking around with Old Glory - with _Captain America's_ goddamn shield - would be tantamount to walking up to Salem and explaining to her, in detail, every single aspect of his plan to work against her. But then he remembered that, technically, he'd done _exactly that_ by telling Cinder he had revealed himself to Ozpin, and that Earth was probably already aware on some level of the shield thanks to his 'fear and dead men' stunt. So, deciding that whoever said that discretion was the better part of valor was a fucking idiot, Aldric joined his fellow Beacon and international Academy students in walking around in full regalia, and he got the reactions he'd expected. Several reporters noticed his shield over the course of the morning, and would individually drag off all the members of GEMS to interview them, and when they got to him and 'just happened' to notice his shield, most of them accepted his prepared 'I saw your movies when you gave them to us, and loved The Avengers' explanation. A few pressed harder, but this was one of the few situations in his spy career where Aldric found the playing dumb card not only worked, it worked _flawlessly._

"But aren't things like those movies pretty much your every day here?" One asked.

"Well, sure, but you got stuff like X-Ray and Vav and we still love _that._ It was kind of cool seeing what your world cooked up." He replied.

"Aren't you even the least bit still angry over what our world did to yours during the war?"

"I mean, maybe? The city's fixed and the past happened, no worth holding a grudge over it. If something's cool, it's cool, and your weird-ass names, like... John... Fletcher? Your weird-ass superheroes, like that Superman guy? They're cool."

And on and on it went until enough had had their fill of him, and GEMS was able to sit down and focus their attention solely on trying to identify which ones were the bullheads flying Mistrali flags, and when the last one for the day came in for a landing, "Wait, is that -" Ecru gasped, snapping shut her scroll and excitedly elbowing Aldric awake. "Ash! Ash, that one's theirs!" He, soon followed by GEMS, were on their feet as yet another bullhead descended from the sky, filled as it was with other airships, large and small, military and civilian, from all countries.

Aldric pretended to stay asleep, shielded from the sun by his precariously perched shield. Ecru frowned at him, and Myrtle slinked over to flick its edge with her finger, destabilizing it and causing it to fall on Aldric's nose. Aldric shot up, barking in pain, as Ecru and Myrtle laughed, and Srebro gasped.

"Lady, c'mon!" Aldric sniffled, wiping his nose and making sure he wasn't bleeding. "What the hell?" He asked, giving Myrtle a faux frown.

Myrtle nodded over to the bullheads, and Aldric followed her cue, and saw Cinder departing hers, draped in a Mistrali uniform, her face set in a neutral frown, a few bags under her eyes. Aldric would give her credit, she managed to make herself look like she'd just been on a long flight. Aldric rounded up his team, secured his shield to his back, and waved them down - as much as he'd personally learned how subtlety was clearly for the weak, he knew better than to give into his first instinct and throw his shield at BMFG as a form of greeting. That would attract a lot of attention and a lot of eyes.

Cinder, alongside Neo, Chainsword, and Chameleon, saw Aldric, and approached, the latter two doing just as remarkable a job as the former at discarding the normal air they walked with and appearing, for all intents and purposes, as eager students. Cinder had her cold sneer etched across her face as she made it to Aldric, she opened her arms for a hug, but Neo slid in and leapt up, wrapping her arms around Aldric's neck and planting a huge kiss on his cheek. Aldric smiled and resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and once Neo was satisfied, he obliged 'Sandy' and gave her one as well.

"Jeez, lady!" Aldric groaned, patting Cinder on the back. "Haven't been seen in public with you in... Fuck, feels like years!" He leaned back, brushing some of Cinder's hair out of her face, before turning to Chainsword and Chameleon. "And you -" He leaned back, staring up at Chainsword. "Holy _fuck_ Grease, how the hell did you get so _big?!"_ He frowned, turning to Neo, "Yuno, why didn't you say anything?" Neo took in a breath, appearing to ready herself to speak, before Aldric waved her off. "Shut up -" He stowed his hands in the pockets of his cassock, nodding to Chameleon. "And you. Spoken to your girlfriend lately?" He asked, a big grin on his face.

To which Chainsword interrupted, after adjusting the fit of the giant weapon hanging from his back. "We have..." He said, in a voice that was only _slightly_ less deep without his mask. "Been preparing."

"Holy hell that's more words in ten seconds than I remember hearing in our first week of school." Maybe he was having a little too much fun, so he turned back to Cinder, "so! Introductions -" He indicated Ecru, "happy bitch -" Then Myrtle, "sneaky bitch -" Then Srebro, "one so timid I honestly feel bad whenever I give her shit."

Ecru leapt on top of Aldric, pressing down on his shoulders and leaning overtop of him. "I'm Ecru! Did Ash really set your combat school on fire?!" She yelled.

Cinder arced an eyebrow, Neo didn't hesitate to nod, and Chainsword said, "yes."

Ecru dropped down, now hanging from Aldric's neck, legs wrapped around his waist. "Oh this is going to be _good!"_ She giggled, before sliding off of him.

Myrtle stepped up, shaking everyone's hands in turn, before landing on Cinder. "Myrtle. Who was the one who taught our illustrious leader his well-refined art of near suicide?" She asked, bluntly.

Cinder grinned, "that would be his caretaker, Miss Ember -"

 _"Yeah!"_ Ecru called out, "yeah where is she?!" She looked around, as though this would summon the phantom woman into existence.

"She'll be there for the fighting, I assure you." Cinder nodded, "I was told we would be in the Blue dorms?"

Srebro chose now to speak up, "actually... The Blue dorms are for the Atlesian students. Mistral was reserved the Red dorms." A beat, "we could show you? Your names would be on its notice board."

Cinder nodded, "please." And she followed GEMS. "So, 'Ash'."

"Yes I was Fear and Dead Men yes I regret it yes I'd do it again in a heartbeat." Aldric shot out, rapid-fire.

Cinder rolled her eyes, "any tips for us in the upcoming battles?"

Translation: Have you figured out where the Fall Maiden is? "Don't die." Of course he had.

"Wonderful advice, Goud." Said Chameleon. "Perhaps to win we should defeat the enemy?"

Aldric pursed his lips in a frown, then nodded to the side. "Sounds better than my plan, I was going to knock out Ecru and take the glory for myself."

"Hey!"

Aldric made sure GEMS and BMFG kept up a good pace until they were past the landing zones and all the reporters. The two teams made idle chit-chat as they walked, initially swapping stories about Ash, then graduating to what they had done during the war, and then capping it off with stories of training battles as they arrived at the Red dorms.

"So then Ash was all like, 'Shield!', and Srebro jumped off of it, launching herself at Dove and keeping him distracted so he could finish off Cardin!" Ecru took in a long, deep breath, "but Dove was all like -" She slid to the left, "boom! And was just _gone!_ Srebro didn't recover fast enough to avoid a ring-out, and then Ash was fighting both of them at the same time!"

"Have you ever been double teamed by a giant pointy shaft and a big spiked bead on a stick?" Aldric chimed in, "let me tell you: Didn't feel good." He said, looking at the notice board and searching for BMFG. "Not... At... All - there you are." He pointed at the third floor listings. "Wing-B, room three twelve."

"Well did you win?" Chameleon asked, a smirk on her face.

"Hm?" Aldric turned to the charcoal-skinned faunus, "oh, yeah. Took advantage of Bronzewing while he was stunned, hauled him over my shoulder, and then threw him to the ground like a sack of meat. Ringout. Then I just pounded Cardin's ass into the ground until he gave me what I wanted."

The smirk vanished, and Aldric counted that as a win.

"Ecru." Cinder spoke up, before the conversation could continue. "Could we borrow Ash for the day?"

Ecru blinked, "but - aww!" She frowned, before perking right back up, going from eleven, to zero, back to eleven in a heartbeat. "Okay! We'll just see what you're made of during the exhibitions tomorrow!"

Myrtle's eyes were on Neo as she said, "Ash if you come back tonight and your clothes are all weird I'm stealing all of their underwear."

Aldric's eyes widened as Neo's smile turned feral. "Lady! Don't tempt her, she'll _give_ them to you out of spite!" He cautioned, as Srebro's hands shot to her mouth, face turning red underneath them. "Go! Go - get, she's reaching!" And he wasn't wrong, Neo was pantomiming reaching for her belt, teeth now bared as she kept eye contact with Myrtle.

Myrtle rolled her eyes, and alongside Ecru pushed the frozen Srebro until she regained control of her legs and vacated alongside the laughing rookies. Aldric let out a long sigh with a big grin on his face, before he rounded up BMFG and brought them to B-312. It was a small, spartan room, clearly meant to be imprinted upon by whomever would be renting it out for their brief stay, possessing only the bare necessities: Four beds and dressers, a shelf, and some coat racks for them to hang whatever they needed to.

Upon entering and locking the door behind them, Aldric collapsed, falling to the ground. with a 'thunk' and a groan.

"Women getting to you, 'Ash'?" Cinder grinned.

 _"Up... The shut... Fuck."_ Aldric groaned into the carpet. "Next time _you_ get to play school with a bunch of neurotic teenagers." He rolled onto his back and watched with his radar as everyone found a place to sit and began depositing their belongings. "So who're you two?" Aldric turned towards Chainsword and Chameleon. "I think I remember Tiny, but he wore a mask last time I saw him." He nodded to Chainsword, "Large and In Charge, though..." He frowned at Chameleon.

She frowned at him, skin slowly fading to a spotted, chocolate brown. "Illia."

"Ooh, that's new." He turned to Neo, "you have competition now in the shape shifting department." A knife landed so close to his groin that it dragged against the fabric of his pants. "You just ruined my jacket." Neo rolled her eyes and dragged a finger down from her tear duct to her chin; Aldric turned to Chainsword. "And you?"

"No."

"Jokes on you, I'll be calling you that from now on." Aldric grunted, plucking the knife out of the floor and sitting up. "So who wants to start?" He asked, lowering his voice to a dull rumble.

"You do." Said No.

"No, I like you. Straight to the point, No's no-nonsense. I get it." Aldric nodded, "Fall Maiden's in Ozpin's secret underground lair beneath Beacon Tower."

Cinder blinked, before letting out an exasperated sigh. "I expected you to do as you are wont to, and tell me a story. Am I to understand the joke being that you didn't do so because you knew that was what I thought you would?"

"That kind of circular self-repeating logic makes my spy-addled brain hurt, lady. I spent the last ten-odd months mentally sparring with a million year old man, making sure he thought I was who I wasn't so I could be who I am for those who I'm not... I don't have the patience for the grandiose bullshit anymore..." He nodded to Neo and the two faunus, "and I get the strangest feeling they don't have the need to know all the nitty gritty. We know where she is and we know who the front-runner for her replacement will be."

"Nikos?" Cinder asked.

"Nikos." Aldric nodded, "top of the class, strong sense of morality... Ozpin let her in on it after the war ended. Apparently the other folks in the Justice League - those being everyone on his side who has the need to know - were getting ready to pull the plug, they'd thought he'd lost control of the situation." He explained. "So he picked her to show off to everyone and shut them up. Been grooming her ever since, preparing her. When Atlas got here they brought the tech that will let them do it."

"So why wait?" Illia asked. "Why not just go there and kill her now?"

Aldric rolled his eyes, "where's your sense of showmanship lady?" He asked. "There's, like, twenty things that we want to do during Vytal, in order, in order to do what we want the way we want it. That's number... Twelve. After evacuating the academy and before killing Ozpin."

Cinder nodded, "to continue the metaphor... You three are here for the initial few steps."

"Those are?" Asked No.

"Well, the short version is Earth couldn't get all of their Olympic athletes ready in time to do a full-fledged Game here on Remnant, so they changed shit up and you two are going to _fuck_ shit up." He explained, "long version is, it turns out it takes a lot longer than nine months for thousands of the best athletes in history to get ready. So instead what they did was get the ones that _were_ ready, supplant them with representatives from across various sports and whatnots from all over the place. But since both Earth and Remnant were pretty sure not everyone from both sides would watch the events hosted by the other side - Humans watching the impromptu Olympics and Terrans watching the Tournament - what they chose to do was to take the most popular events on each side and instruct select teams of individuals on them, in the aims of getting as much exposure and cooperation on both sides as possible." He explained. "So, some rookie huntsmen here on Remnant were taught how to play Basketball, how to box, play tennis, things like that, and some of the best martial artists on Earth were instructed on the rules of the Vytal Tournament."

Illia blinked, eyes going from deep blue to a hazy green. "Wait, the Terrans are... Fragile. How the hell can they be expected to fight aura users, hand to hand?"

Aldric scooted back to the wall, leaning up against it, his head just underneath the windowsill. "You ever wonder how they keep fallen huntsmen in prison?"

Illia sighed. "Oh."

Aldric nodded, "the rules were decided upon by both planets. No weapons, no aura, obviously no killing, but full-contact, fight until you tap or drop." The highest-stakes UFC fights in history. "Idea being: We all 'unfortunately' saw how we kill eachother, but now let's see how we fight for sport."

"And that's where we come in." No picked up.

The spy nodded. "I got into the coordinators' computers and put you into them." He'd asked Ozpin real nicely. "You three are in the inter-species tournament. Pick who amongst yourselves, but one of you is going to brutalize their opponent, one's going to cripple them, and the last one will make it to the finals... Or... At least, make it to the last fight with a terran in it." Because no one really expected them to go the distance, not when, even without aura, most students here still were the Captain America to the pre-serum Steve Rogers. "And then you'll stop just short of killing 'em."

Neo clapped her hands excitedly, and then raised one alongside a vicious smile, clearly volunteering for the final option.

"This blatant disregard of the rules will anger Earth, who will in turn accuse Remnant of having sanctioned the violence." Cinder supplied, ignoring the Gardener.

"But how will we engender Remnant's anger to Earth?" Illia asked.

"Oh that's even easier, we're going to sabotage the Earth sports. Stack the odds in Earth's favor, get worse and worse until we literally shoot one of the Remnant players during the Basketball game." Aldric had been the one to supply the coin to the assassin who would do it, too. "Be a rubber bullet, but it'll still get the point across. Then Remnant will be at Earth's throat, and the stage will be set for the big finish." He played his fingers out. "Boom."

"And in that chaos, we will recover the Fall Maiden's powers, destroy the CCT -"

 _"Again!"_ Aldric chuckled.

"- and leave." Said Cinder, with a nod.

"Just like that." No grunted.

"Well, No - dude, the entire country will be on fire. Grimm on one side, Terrans on the other, White Fang and Torchwick's gang on a third, Humans in the middle, it won't be hard." Aldric responded. "Especially since the _really_ relevant parties will be looking for two bodies."

No gave him a long look. "Is fourteen killing Goud Etiolate?"

"No, I like you." Aldric waved his finger at Chainsword. "It is indeed." He nodded, "the idea..." He frowned, "never mind. Need to know." The frown turned to a grin, as he turned to Cinder. "You're clear on the plan, right?"

She nodded, "yes, 'Ash'." They had to make it as convincing as humanly possible, vis a vis: Nothing held back, period. They had to actively try to kill each other, stopping just short of actually doing so. This was Aldric's greatest test: He had to know if he could actually open up a moment where he could land a killing blow on her. If he could do so without nearly dying himself, then the chance existed he'd be able to power through her before he made it to Salem, if he had to; and if, as was most likely going to be case, _not,_ then he'd have to get creative, and find a way to avoid fighting her altogether to keep himself ready for Salem. "And what of the tower?"

Aldric nodded, "they've gotten a lot of tips from Earth about how to beef up their cyber security. Not enough to keep Earth out, but enough to give them the edge if... Oh... A certain asshole and his rescuer spontaneously invented the concept of large-scale computer hacking." He explained, "but..." He grinned, "wouldn't you know it, they trust Goud so much that he has administrative access. We don't even need to do any B-and-E to upload the virus, you just shoot it my way and I can plug it into the CCT Network, and you'll get your backdoor."

Cinder nodded, impressed. "Good." She said, pulling her scroll out of her bag. "And he doesn't suspect anything?"

"Oh he _certainly_ won't when I tell him you're here, tonight." Aldric responded, resting an arm behind his head.

Cinder gave him a dull glare from over the holographic screen of her scroll. "Oh?" She asked, the assassin and the two faunus in the room looking back and forth between them as each spoke.

"He needs to think he's a step ahead of you." Aldric needed an excuse to go visit him. "At the moment your anonymity is your biggest advantage. So what I'm going to do is partially strip that from you - I'm going to tell him that identifying you wholesale would be too much of a risk for me, but merely saying that you're among the arrivals from Mistral? That would be enough."

"It wouldn't be difficult for him to roll back the cameras and watch you interact with us." Illia spoke up, attracting Aldric's raised eyebrow.

"Uh... Yeah it would." Aldric lied, "I coined someone underground to get me something that scrambles cameras within a certain range." He indicated his scroll. "And I flipped it on when I woke up this morning. He can't see _shit."_

"Still." Cinder took the conversation back, "I do not like that kind of risk."

"That's why this all ends in... Like... A week. Two tops." Said a nonplussed Aldric. "He may have an idea by then, but by then, it will be too late." He said, as his scroll pinged, a chess piece and a progress bar appearing on its home screen, Aldric only spared it a glance. "Oh... I'm looking forward to this." He groaned, sliding off to the side until he was laying on the ground. "Gonna sleep off all this mental torture and anguish for... Like... A _year,_ before I do any-fucking-thing else."

"Just another few days, 'Ash'." Cinder hummed, "you can make it."

* * *

That night, Aldric got a call from Goodwitch summoning him to Ozpin's office, to act as his excuse to be out late to the rest of GEMS. He walked the familiar, reconstructed grounds of Beacon, idly looking up in the sky and observing the distant airships that filled it, their lights both inside and out giving them the appearance of stars man made, brilliant, and up close, to compliment those natural, twinkling, and far away. Aldric would _never_ understand how those things, or anything in this world for that matter, was just able to run twenty-four-seven using only dust as fuel. _That,_ more than anything, was magic, but he digressed, and entered the giant, looming tower.

Aldric realized, as he strolled through its quiet reception area, that it wouldn't be long until this place would be on fire and have a dragon hanging off of it.

 _I wonder if I can ape the thu'um..._ He frowned, waving his scroll over the elevator panel, and waiting. _I mean, that would be situational at **best,** but it would still be kind of cool. Would Dragonrend even **work** on the Grimm Dragon? _ He hummed. _Granted, it may be an issue of compatibility._ He hadn't forgotten that he'd given himself a heart attack trying to use his abilities to skip the middleman and shoot Thor with the kamehameha, after all. _If it's stronger than me, and I fuel it with my powers, I'll damn well get it done, but oh boy, once it's done._ He stepped inside the elevator and hit the button for the vault below.

When the elevator reached the vault, Aldric found Ozpin standing in front of the new, advanced machinery hooked into Amber's life support pod, a firm frown on his face and a distant look in his eyes. He acknowledged Aldric with a nod when the spy approached, and Aldric could only bring himself to look at Amber's gored, still-living body for a few moments, before turning away and killing his Radar, not wanting to constantly be staring at the gored Maiden. Soon, their scrolls vibrated, and they each answered them, with Aldric's showing the video visage of Adam Taurus, and Ozpin's showing Roman Torchwick.

"Everything's set on my end." Aldric began. "I gave her access to the CCT and she has what she needs to rig the tournament. Piss everyone off. She knows where the Maiden is and knows what little waltz we'll dance at the end."

 _"As is on mine."_ Said Taurus. _"My forces know who they **really** fight. All they'll need is the signal."_

 _"Oh yes indeed and I've done as much as I can to mitigate the damage done to the worlds."_ Torchwick picked up, adjusting his prison jumpsuit and leaning against the wall of his cell. _"The moment mister Taurus' forces reverse their charge, my own should be ready to reveal the location of the terran-Grimm. Damage will be done but I do believe they will be able to do whatever they need without irreparable damage."_

Ozpin nodded, "our candidate is as prepared as she can be. She is operating under the belief that the transference will take place following the conclusion of Vytal." He gave Amber a forlorn look before adding, "and my 'allies' on Earth have assured me they've dedicated as much as they can to our cause, and are trickling more men and supplies to us every day. It is merely waiting on our word." He pulled a satellite phone from his coat, "if everyone has received these, they shall be what we use to communicate with eachother following the fall of the CCT Network." He said, handing it to Aldric, who shrunk it down and stowed it in his belt.

"It could be anywhere from days to weeks before you hear from me again." Aldric explained, "it may play out that Salem will have us rampage across the world and obtain the final Maidens and their relics, or we may merely return to her base of operations immediately. I don't know, and I can't ask, so until then..."

 _"Be ready."_ Taurus surmised.

 _"I would beg of you to at least work fast, no matter what it is that will occur. Every day following the resumption of this war will deplete more and more forces that could otherwise be used for this final battle we are building towards."_ Torchwick cooed. _"Too much time and we may find ourselves with too few ready or willing to fight."_

Aldric nodded, "just be ready."

Torchwick rolled his eyes and hung up the phone, soon followed by Taurus, leaving Aldric and Ozpin alone with the comatose Maiden. Aldric stowed his scroll in his pocket, distracted by Amber's appearance and his desire to turn away from her, this resulting in him missing the brief moment in which his scroll lit up before sliding into his pocket, a chess piece glowing on its screen. Instead, Aldric turned his back to the machinery she was hooked into, and looked down the long halls of Beacon's vault. Ozpin, however, had his eyes locked to Amber's still red, raw injuries, taking in their visage and the blue glow of the pod she was suspended in.

"What do you put our odds at?" Aldric asked, shifting his eyes over to the area he knew the plane wreckage had been stored in, still preserved in its multiple rooms.

"What we are attempting to do is end a war that has kept this planet deadlocked for longer than the length of our shared species' history, both recorded and not so." Ozpin responded. "And to do so I am allowing two planets to engage in a war perhaps just as deadly, if not moreso, as then both planets will be aware of the others' tricks and will have developed countermeasures and defenses for them. Whether or not you retrieve the Maidens' powers and their relics... With the position of the pieces as they will be when the time finally does come... One way or another the war _will_ end. So the odds of that happening are certain. The odds of the war ending in our favor..." He sighed. "I do not know. Among the many things I am capable of, foresight was never one of them."

Aldric nodded at that, "any tips, then?"

"For your incoming battle with the 'Lady In Red', or my old enemy?"

Aldric chuckled, "no, man. Avoiding Neo for the next two weeks." He grinned, silently laughing at the sound of Ozpin's simultaneously exasperated and thankful sigh. "'Cause listen, man. She's _here,_ without her _boss,_ and damn well _knows_ how little I sleep." And could probably tell how much he regretted never figuring out how to supplant said lack of sleep with his aura; the bags under his eyes would probably never go away. "One day I'm going to be walking around and... _Boom!"_ He snapped his fingers. "All of a sudden I'm going to be on the _ground_ and my pants will be _gone,_ and there won't be any room for the word 'no'." He turned to Ozpin, extending his hand.

Ozpin shook it. "Just remember, Aldric -"

"Always have a place here." He nodded. "I know." He let out a long sigh. "I know." He began to walk away, he chess piece on his scroll fading away.


	56. Ladies and Gents -

Chapter 55

* * *

 _The video opened up with a look over a long cliff. The sky was a deep, darkening blue, as though taken from a painting. The clouds bathed in the fading golden light of a setting sun, and with every second that passed, the light retreated further and further away from the thick forests below.  
_

"Yeah, it's... Been awhile since I've done this, huh?" _Spoke a voice, before the camera turned around and displayed a tired and haggard face. Two gunmetal gray, cybernetic eyes, framed by the lines of lost sleep and beset upon by the stress of trauma, were situated above a smile that wholly failed to reach them. A hand cloaked in an onyx metal suit, with a long, baggy sleeve hanging off of it, came up and swept through the shaggy hair that grew out of the recorder's face, before rubbing at his eyes.  
_

 _He let out a long sigh, before sniffing in through his nose and nodding to the camera._ "I guess I say... 'For the record'...?" _He chuckled, and the camera jostled about as he sat down on the edge of the cliff, looking out to the setting sun, its final rays casting his skin in a golden glow._ "Haven't done a video recording - on _my_ phone no less! - since you-know-who picked me up." _A beat, before he gave the camera a wink and a grin._ "I am of course talking about Lord Voldemort." _He chuckled._

"Been wondering how I'd do this one for the last two weeks, really. Would I go down to the vault and record among the recovered wreckage? Sit on my Magic Chair? Drink some of the terran alcohol? Maybe pop an Oxycodone and go on a high _rant_ for thirty minutes?" _He listed off, before sighing, the wistful smile still on his face._ "But then I realized... I've been here for a year and a half, and I've never once watched the sun set. Which is doubly awful because these new eyes -" _He indicated the metal spheres in his head._ "They're _good,_ folks. Not like those fleshy pieces of shit I used to have, these ones can stare at the sun for _hours_ and I won't go blind." _A beat._ "Don't ask how I know that - moving on!" _He held up a finger._

"To get to the point... This may be my last record." _He nodded, lowering his hand to his lap with a light clap._ "Something may go wrong tomorrow night and I'll die... Something may go _right,_ and I'll _still_ die when I get to you-know-where and fight the White Witch... Or everything will simultaneously go right, _and_ wrong, and I'll have no time to keep up with it while I'm trying to un-fuck everything." _He explained,_ "so... No matter what happens, even if this isn't my last entry, I decided to record this one, so I could _say_ it...

"Simply put... If you haven't learned it yet, my name is Nebo Aldric, and I don't regret anything I've done in the last eighteen months." _He said, with a tone of finality._ "I regret that it all had to be done... But I don't regret that I did it... _Buuuuuut..._ " _He forced out, each word appearing as though it were resisting being spoken._ "With that said... I... _Am..._ Sorry... That I did it. I know what all I did was bad. Evil. _Wrong."_ _He grunted, face contorting into an expression of pain._ "I am... _Truly_ sorry I did all of these things... That I'll have to keep doing them until this is all finished. You all may not believe me... Fuck, _I_ don't believe me." _He breathed._ "But... I am. I _am." He stressed, voice shaking._ "I wish I didn't have to play this role. I wish I could've just been found by Ozpin and just pretended everything was alright. Be Superman instead of Ozzymandias... But the universe didn't quite match up with what I wanted, and now I'm here.

"The Vytal finals are tomorrow. Everything has..." _He shook his head, rubbing at his face with his free hand._ "Gone exactly how we wanted it. Earth and Remnant are pissed at eachother again, people are scared, Grimm are antsy..." _He snorted._ "Fuck - Pyrrha thinks this is all on _her_ to fix, bless her. And Yang's been trying to get her Dad and her uncle to come to Vale in case something happens. Of course Goud and Ruby are trying to convince everyone that everything will be fine, but..." _He nodded out to the woods._ "Everything stopped being fine when an alien aircraft got shot through time and space and crash-landed in demon-infested woods... For better or worse, after tomorrow I'm in completely uncharted territory. _Anything_ can happen.

"So... As the good Doctor - uh, Strange, not Who - said...

"We're in the endgame now."

 _The video ended._

* * *

It began with Terran sports.

They utilized the Tournament Arena's variable stage to set up most of what they needed, the rest coming from hastily erected structures. The first sport of the day consisted of a full game of soccer; never having been one for sports even back home, Aldric went to the game because the legion of women he'd become acquainted with dragged him there, and the combined efforts of Pyrrha, Yang, and Ecru kept him from sleeping through it. That ended up benefiting him, because he got to see the work of the assassin he'd coined. At first it was subtle, with him not quite noticing it. A weak kick here, an overshot goal there, a Terran player making a shot they had no right to, a Remnant player missing something they shouldn't have, and higher it would escalate until Aldric would notice these people - fueled by lifetimes of battle and aura and still superhuman even without it - were running out of stamina while their Terran counterparts hardly even looked winded. A lot of the spectators began noticing it around this time too, with many realizing the fact that Earth was dominating the scoreboard in a mostly physical sport. They acknowledged that the Terran players had more experience in the sport, but all of that didn't mean anything when one of the Remnant players collapsed after the game's conclusion, and it was discovered that their water had been spiked.

Outrage obviously followed, with Aldric getting front row seats to the CCT Network and his fellow students' reactions. It was practically _all_ unbridled rage and frustration, with some accusing the Terrans of unnecessarily flaunting their self-proclaimed superiority over Remnant. Fortunately, they would get their chance to work out some of those frustrations when, after the games, came the first rounds of the 'Interdisciplinary Tournament'. Ten Terrans, ten Humans with their auras locked up tight, in a tournament spread over three days. Cinder used her scroll to bump off a few of the intended fighters and replace them with the members of BFGM, but to Aldric's amazement, No wasn't the only one to leave a Terran bloodied afterwards, he was just the only one who took it as far as he did, and his was the only one who had to be rushed out by ambulance.

No was arrested both by huntsmen and terran soldiers following this, and while Torchwick's connections helped keep him taken care of, they didn't stop the day from ending with the tensions slowly rising. Humans and Terrans alike, were beginning to worry that these games may be indicative of something dark to come. Regardless, the next day came traditional Terran sports, and as Aldric had predicted, there weren't many Humans watching them, at least not in person. He was still dragged along by the usual suspects, with Yang taking particular interest when, at the end of the day, an octagon was set up for an Ultimate Fighting match. The day after that found themselves embroiled in the Vytal tournament, which, due to its nature, absorbed multiple days before the next joint Terran-Human games.

Aldric got some exercise on one of those days, and had considered using his pull with Cinder to try and force a fight between his team and Ruby's, before realizing that half of the point of the tournament was people of _other_ countries fighting eachother, not fellow students of their home academies, leading him to just decide that if it did happen, it probably wouldn't for a while. That behind him, GEMS won their first fight against a Mistrali team, leading Aldric and Ecru to move forward. He'd tried to skip out on it, his excuse being that someone else should have the limelight, but his real reason him wanting to rest and relax as much as possible in preparation for his big night, coming soon. Ecru, however, put the kibosh on that _real_ fast, throwing his own musing about symbols and hope right back at him and declaring that there weren't many Beacon students right now that everyone looked up to, but he and his shield were among them.

After the initial rounds of the tournament came the next T-H day, a return of the massive audiences of the first day, and a game of basketball. Aldric actually found himself interested in this one, and much like the first, this one was sabotaged to the full favor of the Terrans, though this time in a less savory way: The Remnant players were accruing injuries during the course of the game, only a few of which Aldric realized were actually coming from the man bought by his coin, the rest coming from the pissed off Terran players going at it a bit more roughly than they should have been. Then add that, yes, Remnant had found their fair share of tall players to go through the game with, that didn't mean any of them had played it or with eachother before, leading to cries of favoritism and cheating from the Humans when the Terrans inevitably won.

And, much like the first day, outrage came and was quelled when it was time for the fighting, but this time there was calls of foul play from the Terrans before the fighting even began, when it was brought up that, due to them lacking aura, their fighters couldn't heal nearly as well or as fast as their Human opponents, resulting in many of the Terrans walking into the proverbial ring still sporting their injuries from the days previous. This had the side effect, Ozpin later told him, of igniting the Terrans' demands for Dust refining techniques in _earnest,_ as they could mine it all they wanted, but they still didn't know how to refine it into a much more safe, less volatile, state. Obviously, Remnant's refusal to capitulate, and Illia completely crippling her fighter, alongside several others going to the hospital, only made Earth all the angrier.

Following this the rumors and whispers only got worse, as armed presence of both Terran and Humans alike steadily began increasing. The tournament _and_ the games were even shut down for a day. Soon competitors on both sides were getting armed escorts and members of the press were being denied their pursuits, and the talks of potential conflict began leaking into the dorms. Ever the idealist, Goud Etiolate worked his damnedest to convince those in his circle of friends that another war was impossible, maintaining his public faith in both species. Pyrrha ended up confronting him on this later, confiding in him her fear that the transfer of Amber's remaining powers to her may be a ploy by Ozpin to obtain a weapon comparable to the Terrans' sun bomb, but in Remnant's hands, and her worry that this meant Ozpin feared, if not suspected outright, that another war was inevitable. Aldric again played his part, cheering Pyrrha up as he always did and doing his best to give her whatever faith in humanity that he pretended to have.

Once the festival resumed, it was a lot quieter, as many were choosing to remain in their homes and watch the chaos, as opposed to being there in the middle of it. The terran games were practically empty, save only reporters of both worlds and those spectators brave, interested, or determined enough to attend. Then the Vytal Tournament continued, with Cinder and Aldric rigging it to put the most violent teams against eachother, both because they could and because the sudden change in atmosphere would only help the Grimm assault that was fast approaching. The only breaks in the carnage came when the teams that still seemed to be somewhat aware that this was all supposed to be fun and games went up against eachother, with Aldric and Ecru winning their match against an Atlesian team and moving onto the finals.

Then came the inevitable.

When the final T-H fights arrived, Neo danced her way through the roster until she found herself fighting the last remaining Terran in the semi-finals. Aldric would give the man, a boxer from Russia, credit - the man was slam-dancing with supermen and women and had managed to last to the final three fighters, with little to no time to recover fully. Unfortunately, he had been doing so against men and women who were following the rules, and Neo, aware that he was the last Terran in the fight, now had only one rule to play by: To damn near kill her opponent. She played with her food long enough that the man was gasping for air, and when he made his fatal mistake, throwing a punch so wide that he overextended himself, Neo planted her foot in his stomach, and he collapsed to the ground.

Aldric had to block out the screams of disgust, fear, and anger that welled up after this, instead steeling himself for the grand finale the next day.

Or, perhaps not the _next_ day, as everything got shut down again when a terran soldier picked a fight with a Remnant one, and it almost ended with them and their friends exchanging fire.

When the tournament did resume some days later, it appeared that even the tension between the two worlds couldn't fully drown out the excitement everyone was feeling to see the best students prove themselves against each other in the finals. The stands were packed, and the cheers seemed less forced than they did desperate, as though they were trying to convince themselves that everything would be fine. Unfortunately for them, everything would be as far from fine as was physically possible, because when the time came for Aldric's final battle against some guy from Vacuo, the finale, the end he had been working towards for eighteen months, was signaled by a very specific clarion.

On another planet in another solar system, more than a dozen men and women charged the heads of state of more than a dozen sovereign countries.

While simultaneously, on this planet, in this solar system, a sniper round exploded out from the assassin hidden amongst the gathered Terran soldiers, and in the blink of an eye it crossed the distance between the shooter and its target: Aldric's chest.

Now of course Aldric's suit took the shot, but he still played the part and stumbled back from the impact, coughed, and fell to his rear, allowing his aura to visibly break. There was no time at all for a stunned silence to sprout up - because when the computer monitoring his and his opponents' aura sounded off with its loud klaxon, people began to scream, shout, and gasp. Aldric sensed, of all people, _Pyrrha_ bodily haul herself over the stands, using her powers to slow her descent and rush towards the ring.

Aldric coughed again, barely able to hear his name being shouted by the red-headed knight over the sounds of the audience's outrage. His opponent had backed up several steps, raising his hands and making it clear he knew the fight had just been called off, but all of that took a backseat when the lights cut out, and left only the giant monitor hovering above them as the sole source of light.

Then, a video began playing on the television screens. It showed footage from all fronts of the war, footage from violence having occurred during the festival, and then, finally, Aldric being shot.

 _"What a wonderful web you've woven."_ Cinder's voice spoke out. _"This - this is what you call 'peace'."_ The video then cut to a feed from far outside Vale's walls, depicting Grimm of all kinds turning towards the kingdom, sensing the fear welling up in the populace, _"this is what you call 'honest competition'._ " All the examples of Earth 'cheating' began playing in rapid-fire. _"This is what you call a 'fair_ _fight'..."_ Neo, No, and Illia's violence, alongside the unintentional displays, showed.

 _"What you've seen here today..."_ Came Cinder. _"What you've seen these last weeks... They were not an accident. They were not a tragedy. They are examples of what occurs when you give the power to shape entire worlds to men too arrogant to wield it with any humility. On Earth, your people live on a knife's edge, a mere button's press away from destroying yourselves quickly, and decades - at **best** \- away from an environmental collapse that will kill you all slowly. On Remnant, the Academies' Headmasters wield more power on their own than entire armies."_

"Ash!" He sensed Pyrrha reach him, the prospective Maiden falling to her knees and helping Ash up to a seated position. "Are you okay?" She checked over his chest for wounds.

 _"We trust those people to use that power responsibly. With honor and mercy... But I have failed to see any of those things. First in Earth, cheating in the name of good sport. Then in Remnant, crippling and murdering men whose only wish was for a fair contest of strength."_ She spat. _"Perhaps Earth thought that to establish their superiority they would win in sport **and** in war... Perhaps Remnant felt that in defeating Earth they could make their people forget their colossal mistake in protecting them those months ago."_

Aldric looked up to the TV screen, briefly exchanging glances with Pyrrha, who wore a fearful expression, not at all aware of what was happening.

 _"I honestly cannot tell you who is right and who is wrong... But I know that our leaders know we are on the brink of war... And do **nothing** to stop it, content to let their people live in the dark." _ Then Ozpin's voice played over a live feed of the Vytal arena.

 _"_ _I am allowing two planets to engage in a war perhaps just as deadly, if not moreso, as then both planets will be aware of the others' tricks and will have developed countermeasures and defenses for them."_ Came Ozpin's voice, causing the rookies around Aldric to gasp, with Pyrrha's hand shooting to her mouth, as the sky around the arena began to light up, with Remnant airships and Terran jets engaging the airborne Grimm.

 _"So..."_ Cinder came back. _"I ask you... When the first shots are inevitably fired... Who will you be able to trust?"_ The screen cut to static, and the lights returned.

"Ash..." Aldric heard Pyrrha whisper. "What -"

 _" **Alert."** _ Suddenly shrieked an alarm. _"Grimm attack incoming. Threat level Nine. Please seek shelter in a calm and orderly manner."_ It broadcast, causing the spectators to begin screaming in fear, rushing for the exits.

Another voice, one Aldric hadn't heard in too long, one gruff and weathered by a lifetime's military career, came in over the arena's loudspeakers. _"Ladies and gentlemen_ \- please!" Shouted Ironwood, trying to cut through the rising din. _"Stay calm, there is no reason to panic!"_

Having successfully tempted fate, a gigantic Nevermore landed on the barrier surrounding the floating arena and began angrily smashing away at it, immediately causing soldiers, both Terran and Human, to begin screaming out orders for their respective peoples to begin evacuating - their words followed by a terran jet spiraling out of the air and crashing into the barrier in a massive explosion.

 _"Ash! Pyrrha!"_ Aldric heard Jaune's voice, barely over the sounds of chaos. _"Get out of there!"_ He pointed up to the barrier, his next words drowned out by another round of attacks from the Nevermore.

But moments later, said Nevermore finally broke through the barrier. Aldric thought he heard Jaune and Ruby scream out in fear for their friends, but his priority immediately shifted, as he shook his head 'clear' of the 'pain', 'forced' himself to his feet, pushed Pyrrha behind him and then hauled his star-spangled shield above his head. The gigantic bird's beak slammed into the shield's center with a loud bang, and it struggled for a moment, but soon it found itself thrown aside by Aldric's opponent, the barrel of his weapon smoking.

"Dude, I don't think that's going to do anything but piss it off." Aldric called out to the dark-haired student, as Pyrrha whipped out her scroll and began typing away furiously.

"Do you have a better idea?!" He heard the guy shout, as the Nevermore picked itself up and began ascending.

"Actually!" Aldric grinned, seeing the rocket-lockers already arcing towards the arena. "Yes!" And they all smashed into the demon bird, tearing into it and forcing it onto the ground.

Soon the arena was flooded with Beacon's students, and as the Atlesian finished off the Nevermore, the students armed themselves. Pyrrha turned to Aldric as she secured her shield to her arm, her expression one of fear and worry. "Ash, what's happening?"

Aldric shook his head, "I don't know... But we need to get off this stadium before it goes down."

"I couldn't agree more, Mister Etiolate!" Aldric heard the dulcet tones of Professor Oobleck call out, as he and Port arrived in the arena, brandishing their weapons, the latter's eyes locked to the sky, noticing the Griffon Grimm beginning to descend en-masse. "It appears as though the arena's rather abrupt landing will be but a matter of time, so please!" He indicated the exit, "we shall buy you time!"

The students didn't argue, instead retreating from the arena en-masse. They made it all of twenty feet past the stadium and towards the landing pads before being accosted by dozens of smaller Grimm, many of which were ignoring them entirely and rushing towards the shuttles themselves, intending on attacking the helpless civilians inside. Aldric, knowing this was one of the few times he'd _ever_ get to pretend he was anything approaching 'good', cried out in defiance and leapt into the air, bolting past the small horde of Grimm and landing in between them and the shuttles, his shield secured tightly to his hand and raised defiantly.

The Grimm charged him, and while Aldric threw himself into the fray, defending the front, the other Beacon students began tearing into them from the rear. Large beowolves, small boarbatusks, the occasional Ursa and Griffon, Aldric's shield was soon pounding and bouncing off of Grimm of all shapes and sizes, proving to be the line the Grimm had to cross in order to make it to the civilians. The sounds of bones crunching, flesh tearing, teeth and claw scraping across metal, guns firing, and -

Aldric found himself momentarily blinded when, out of nowhere, a huge flash of pure golden-white light, accompanied by a sound almost akin to that of a cymbal being struck, heralded an Ursa exploding into turquoise flames and dropping to the ground, thrashing about in pain as it slowly faded away into dark smoke, leaving an utterly bewildered Jaune Arc standing there, staring wide-eyed at the display. He saw Aldric staring from his distance away, and managed out a confused 'Uh' before being attacked by another Grimm. This prompted Aldric to reengage his own, and soon the gigantic brawl began again in earnest, periodically interrupted by flashes of light and the death throes of the Grimm struck by it.

The students bought the shuttles valuable time, but they were few, and the Grimm were many - and were only growing in number. For every one whose neck Aldric shattered with his shield, or whose stomach he ruptured with his fist, two more came around to attack, and he found himself growing increasingly preoccupied less with killing them than using his semblance to catch the ones that made it past him and drag them back towards him. The Beacon students were hardly fairing any better, as they found themselves surrounded by the Grimm and soon fighting back-to-back, with even Jaune's unexpected boon proving to be too little to make a difference. As Aldric considered further options though, the one and only good piece of news throughout the entire night made itself aware.

Perhaps ironically, it came in the form of hundreds of terrorists.

The first bullhead was soon joined by a second, were joined by two more, by four, and soon the air was filled with huge transport VTOLs filled with White Fang soldiers, and the decaying corpses of the Grimm they had just betrayed and slaughtered. Untethered from Cinder's influence and now perhaps the _only_ variable openly working against her, Taurus made as full use of it as he could, his ships blasting over the arena and hurtling towards Beacon, while some came to a hover over the landing pads, spilling out troops who all charged into the fray, screaming wildly as they fired at the Grimm. Taurus himself even joined this battle, likely for one very specific reason, though Aldric wouldn't complain. With the sheer amount of firepower he brought to the table, in minutes, a situation which had Aldric considering augmenting Jaune's unexpected boon with his lightsaber, or something similarly more lethal than his shield, turned into a cleanup operation.

Which, when finished, had Aldric charging up to Jaune and giving the Arc a huge bear hug. "Oh Johnny- _boy!"_ He called out, spinning the swordsman in a circle and hugging so hard he felt his back crack and pop. "When were you going to tell me you could kill Grimm _dead?!_ " He dropped Jaune to the ground, "how long have you been holding out on us, eh?!" He gave him a playful shove.

Jaune, however, looked just as bewildered as Aldric was surprised. "I... I don't know, Ash!" He said, over the sound of the White Fang's ships coming in for a landing, and Taurus rallying his men; Aldric didn't fail to notice with his radar an amazed, albeit suspicious glare at the bull from Blake. "I just... Hit the Grimm and..." He shook his head.

"Holy shit that sword _is_ magic!" Aldric shook his head, "well you know what? I'll fuckin' take it Jaune! _"_ Perhaps his sudden hysteria was stemming from how spectacularly the Master Sword gambit had paid off, perhaps it was from the sudden realization that Plan B may be far less of a Hail Mary than he'd initially thought, or perhaps he was laying it on thick because he knew these were Goud's final hours, all he knew was that Jaune had just _smited_ these things.

And now, with everyone having turned to him following the battle, he needed to finish Goud on the highest note possible, so he cleared his throat, banging his metal arm on his shield to get the attention of both the students and the Fang. Taurus realized what he was doing almost as soon as he started, and nodded once.

"Alright, this is the situation as it stands." Aldric called out, eyes briefly snapping towards an Atlesian bullhead taking off to the skies, "There's a fuckton of Grimm, and a terrified kingdom down there. Earth is pissed, and the lack of any Terran airships makes it pretty obvious they aren't going to help. Remnant is pissed at Earth for trying to assassinate my red white and blue ass, so they may very well be getting ready to start shooting the terrans just as soon as they'll start shooting Grimm." To confirm his words, Aldric saw the legions of airships in the sky slowly about-facing, some scant few alongside fighter screens began descending to provide fire support on the ground, but the rest were clearly taking aim at the assembled Terran warships. "So for now the only way we can kick Grimm ass and keep our people safe is if _we're_ the ones that do it, yeah?" He got some cheers and some weapons pumped up and down in the air at this. "Good news is -" He looked to Taurus and waved him over; the Fang leader approached alongside a few guards, "- we won't be alone.

"Now, Mister Taurus, I'm a firm believer in redemption stories, so if you want to trade in your terrorist card for a freedom fighter's flag, I'll fuckin' take it." He pulled out his lightsaber, winked at Taurus, ignited the blade, and rested the blade centimeters above each of Taurus' shoulders, knighting the man. "So as far as I'm concerned you're square with the state. So we need you to take however many guys and guns you have and help out wherever and however you can, yeah?"

Taurus nodded, "I have men and bullheads already deploying around the weakened sections of the wall. We won't stop anything but we'll mitigate the damage."

Aldric nodded, "damn good." He turned back to the others, "the rest of you, spread the message: Take the fight to the Grimm, don't let them take it to us! Try to contain their attacks to as small an area as you can, but prioritize civilians over everything!" He said, starting to jog towards the airships, "we start at Beacon and move our way out, c'mon!" And they all followed him, the Huntsmen and women cheering out their battle cries and Taurus snapping orders to the Fang.

GEMS and JNPR gathered up in their bullhead and it lurched off the landing pad, Jaune took the chance to corner Aldric, "Ash, do you know something about the sword?" He asked, a look of equal parts terror, curiosity, and concern in his eyes.

Aldric shook his head, "I'm pretty sure I told you this, dude. Legends said it could smite Grimm, only the worthy could wield it, all that jazz. That's pretty much the length and width of what I know, dude." _Ooh..._ He thought. _Let's make a running tally of how many lies I'm going to have to tell by the end of tonight. I'm pretty sure I've already hit ninety five._ "They were just old village legends."

"But..." Jaune looked down to his sword. " _Magic?"_

Aldric shrugged, "dude, you're living in a world where we're not alone in the universe, where demons are constantly trying to kill us, and you're a holding a sword that just _smited_ a bunch of Grimm. Nothing's impossible." He said, noticing a knowing glance from Pyrrha.

"Wait!" Ecru called out, shoving her way past Aldric, "does that mean _Jaune_ is an instrument of the _Gods?!"_

"His sword is!" Nora giggled, "I always knew he had it in him!"

"You -" Ren began in his customary deadpan, as the bullhead came down for a landing. "- were worried he may be what keeps us from winning the tournament."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Nora sang, as she kicked open the door and rushed outside.

GEMS and JNPR found themselves outside, but before they could make a decision as to where, specifically, to go, the decision was made for them - with the oudest thunderclap Aldric had heard in his life. The two teams turned in the direction of the sound of the sky splitting in two and saw, off in the distance, that it wasn't the sky splitting, but a _mountain,_ and in a display Aldric never quite thought he'd see anywhere but a movie screen, he watched with wide eyes and a gaping mouth as the mountain exploded, with gigantic, city-sized chunks of earth sliding off of it, flattening trees and tearing up the earth as they slid down to ground level, and from within the mountain, with dirt and debris streaming off of its tarry body and its bleach-white exoskeleton, was a _dragon,_ stretching its wings and craning its neck.

Despite being hundreds of kilometers away, they heard its roar, loud and deep, from where they were, even feeling that roar in their chest. Aldric could _see_ the trees on the mountain shake, some even being torn out of the ground, with the first beat of its wings, and with the second, its titanic body lifted off the ground, and it soon turned towards Vale and, with another roar, took off in earnest, hurtling towards Vale - specifically, towards _Beacon._ GEMS and JNPR stood there, staring at it in shock; even Aldric, who had literally known it would happen for almost two years now, found himself in awe at seeing it in person.

"Well!" Aldric scoffed, "this escalated quickly!"

Then Pyrrha turned tail and sprinted for Beacon Tower.

Jaune snapped out of his reverie, turning to Pyrrha and calling out to her. "Pyrrha - wait!" He held his hand out futilely.

"What?" Ecru revolved on her foot, seeing Jaune standing there and Pyrrha running off to the distance. "What is she doing?!" She gasped.

"I..." Jaune hesitated, head dropping to his sword. "I... Ash!" He turned to Aldric.

Aldric blinked. "Huh?"

"Ash, go find her! Bring her back!" Aldric heard more determination in Jaune's voice now than he'd ever before, this accompanying a fire in his eyes that wouldn't have looked out of place in Yang's in the middle of a good fight.

"Ex _scuse_ me?" And here he'd had this whole plan to notice Pyrrha and Cinder's fight tear the top off Beacon Tower, take off, and show up before the latter would kill the former. " _Me?!"_

Jaune frowned, nodding once. "I... I don't know what's going on, but whatever it _is_..." He looked up, fear briefly pervading the fire in his eyes as they beheld the approaching mythic creature. "I won't be able to keep her safe. You're stronger than me." Aldric heard his voice shaking, noticed a tightness in his chest, as though he were forcing out every word he spoke, and he wasn't the only one - Nora exchanged a look with Ren, who nodded once, a grim frown on his face. "So I'm asking you - whatever she's doing, bring her back, okay?"

Aldric looked down, breaking eye contact with Jaune, before nodding. "Okay." He about-faced, "you three - that down there -" He indicated Vale, and the multiple fires and gunfights that had already sprouted up. "- that's the priority. You listen to Jaune, you keep eachother safe."

Ecru blinked, "but - Ash!"

Aldric shook his head, "don't. It won't take all of us to pull Pyrrha out of there, but it will take all of us to keep Vale from falling apart." He gave each of them a nod, "I'll be back." He lied, before turning to, and approaching, Jaune. "I'll make sure she gets back to you, Jaune. Whatever it takes." He clasped Jaune on the shoulder, "you stay safe yourself. ight your way to the docks, they'll be evacuating folks there. Keep the fire alive, yeah?"

Jaune nodded, a pained expression hiding under his determined frown.

Then Aldric grinned, "and for gods' sake boy - keep your shield up!" He and Jaune shared a laugh as he started jogging away, leaving the two groups with a wave, before he turned and sprinted towards Pyrrha.

She was already halfway to Beacon tower by the time Aldric had started running after her, and by the time he caught up with her, she was passing the fountain in front of it - and they both saw Ozpin standing at the building's threshold, a dark expression on his face.

"Pyrrha!" Aldric called out, "Pyrrha, wait!"

Pyrrha closed her eyes, shook her head, "I can't, Ash! This has to happen!" She said, as the two of them reached Ozpin.

Aldric, however, grabbed Pyrrha's arm with his free hand, pulled her behind him, and raised his shield to Ozpin. "Like hell it does!" He shouted, gaze shifting between her and him. "Lady, I get it - we might need that Maiden stuff in the time coming! But you heard what I did on the TV, how do we know he's even on our _side?!"_

"Mister Etiolate..." Quietly protested Ozpin, whose hands were resting atop his cane. "I assure you my words were taken -"

 _"You're_ -" Aldric glared at Ozpin, "not involved in this!"

Ozpin frowned, "I'm feeling pretty involved, Mister Etiolate." He said, with a sidewards nod. "About as involved as the millions who will die if we do not do this _now."_

"Or how about the millions who will die _anyway_ because your ass could have prevented an entire war! Or are you really trying to make me forget about that?!" Translation: He had no idea how Cinder had heard that in the first place, and he wasn't brushing it off.

"Ash... _Please."_ Pyrrha begged, pressing her hand to Aldric's, gently prying his fingers off of her arm.

"I am not certain of how the woman heard what I said, Mister Etiolate, but what I _am_ certain of is that if this does not happen, the millions that will die _period_ will pale to the countless that will die in the coming months." Was he supposed to take from that that Ozpin was just as confused, but wasn't necessarily pissed at Aldric? Or that he'd just accepted it as a part of the whole plan?

"Ash!" Pyrrha turned Aldric towards her, and over her shoulder he could see the dragon coming closer, now passing over Vale itself and dropping more Grimm from its body with every passing second. "I..." She hesitated, briefly looking up to Ozpin. "I don't know what it is we heard..." Her voice shook, "but all I know is that my taking this power is far less bad than what would happen if the speaker were to take it." She tried again to pry Aldric's hand free of her arm, " _please,_ don't stop me. This has to happen!" Aldric saw a tear welling up in her eye, as her voice shook and an airship briefly lit up the sky with an orange fireball. "Every second we lose..." She cast a look over her bare shoulder, at the dragon as it passed under the pale white moon. "We can't afford to do so."

Aldric hesitated for a moment, letting an internal debate flash over his face, before he made one final push. "Pyrrha what if this is all some kind of... Sinister plot? How can we trust anything he's said?" He slowly lowered his shield, "I'm not advocating what that woman said - _gods_ no - but we can't deny that it was his voice saying those words!"

She nodded, wiping a tear from her eye. "I'm scared too, Ash... But _please._ If I have the chance to save lives... I have to take it." She tilted her head, a sorrowful smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Right?"

Aldric's shield dropped to his side, as he let his expression fall to one of defeat, joined by a sigh, before the fire was reignited in his eyes and he turned to Ozpin. "Fine, but I'm not leaving her side."

Ozpin nodded and quickly beckoned the two inside, "I wouldn't have it any other way, Mister Etiolate. With the time we lost we may need someone to protect us until the process is finished."

The three sprinted through the brightly lit, but thoroughly abandoned lobby of Beacon Tower, " _what_ process?!" Ash called out, "she gave me the basics a few months ago, he Maidens and all that, but -"

"The woman in control of the Grimm - _all of them -_ is making her move tonight and someone is coming to reclaim the final half of the Fall Maiden's powers." Ozpin said hurriedly, as the three of them piled into the elevator and, with a tap of his cane, it began a sudden and meteoric descent to Beacon's vault. "We intend to prevent that, to give those powers to her and have her reclaim them from the usurper."

"Then I can use them to help protect Remnant during the war that has just started." Pyrrha picked up, as Aldric's stomach jumped up to his throat, and he even felt lighter on his feet, the elevator was dropping so fast. "Perhaps even rally the other Maidens... Make a push like never before in history."

Aldric leaned against the wall, bringing a hand to his head and shaking it, pretending to be overwhelmed. "Wow..." He said, swiping his hand through his dark hair. "And -" He shoved off the wall as the elevator slowed, "and what's the side effects of this? You're shoving someone else's soul into her body, there has to be some kind of takeback!"

To which, Ozpin played his part and shook his head. "We honestly do not know, Mister Etiolate. Nothing may happen, or the Pyrrha that exits the device may be wholly opposite the one that went in. We simply -"

"And you're _okay with this?!"_ Aldric shook his head, "Pyrrha, I get it - great power, great responsibility, symbols, and all that - I _do!_ But there has to be a limit! A line you can't cross!" He beseeched her, "if you can't predict what you'll be afterwards... How do you know your morals, ideals, memories, or _anything_ will survive the transition?" He asked, "you could walk out and then just decide to _help_ them!"

Pyrrha looked tortured at this, closing her eyes and nodding. "I know." She whispered, clearly having thought this through, perhaps every night since she'd been brought in on it. "I know, Ash... But if the reward is lives saved... I have to take that chance." She peered up at him, "are you... Saying you wouldn't?"

He let out a long breath of air as the elevator came to a halt, not able to come up with an answer. Ozpin rushed out into the familiar, high walled environment of the vault, Pyrrha gave him a somber smile and laid her hand upon his shoulder, before following the Headmaster. Aldric waited a moment, leaning back against the elevator wall, before he followed them. He made a show of looking in awe at the new environment, but decided against asking about it, instead following the two to Amber and the machines keeping her alive.

Aldric slowed down and put on an awed look as they reached the machines, forcing himself to look at Amber one last time, as he nodded at her. "That's... Her?" He asked, uncertainly.

Pyrrha bit her lip, "yes, she's -"

"Pyrrha!" Ozpin called out, "you must get inside now, we've no time to waste!" He said, as some dust fell from the ceilings above, no doubt due to the dragon passing by and shaking the entire tower with the beats of its wings.

Pyrrha gave Aldric a pained look, before turning and rushing towards the empty pod.

Ozpin gave Aldric a glare from over his shoulder, "Mister Etiolate, your shield!"

Aldric frowned, and nodded at the man, turning around with a determined expression and taking up a defensive stance, shield held up in front of him. Pyrrha gave Aldric one last look, before she stepped into the pod. He heard Ozpin confirm twice that she was ready for what was about to happen, forcing her to say the words, before thanking her, closing the pod, and activating the process. Aldric's radar made absolutely sure he saw what happened next - as Amber began convulsing in her pod, glowing orange with her otherworldly energy. That energy lit up the piped connecting the two pods and traveled from Amber's to Pyrrha's, and she, now imbued with Amber's magic, began glowing the same shade of orange - and began _screaming_ in an agony Aldric had grown all too used to hearing.

Aldric sensed Cinder plummeting down the elevator shaft, and played his role of the noble friend, beside himself with worry - glancing over his shoulder at the sound of Pyrrha's screams, then calling out himself in fear as it 'dawned' on 'Goud' the exact nature of what was being done to her. This moment of hesitation was all Cinder needed as she crossed the distance between her and Aldric, a glass bow forming in her hands.

"What -" Aldric called out, as Cinder ground to a halt.

 _"The hell -"_ Cinder pulled the bowstring, an arrow forming.

 _"Are you -"_ Aldric turned around fully, an outraged look on his face.

 _"DOING TO HER?!"_ Cinder let the arrow fly.

It shot through the air like a bullet, reaching Aldric and splitting apart into embers, flowing around him like water and then reassembling in front of his chest, before zipping right on by again, not delayed in the slightest. Aldric's head shot down, then back up as he noticed what had happened, and he was just able to see the arrow slam into the glass of Amber's pod, dig through it, and then penetrate Amber's weakly beating heart. Her gored face contorted with pain and shock, before she limply slid forward.

 _"No!"_ Ozpin gasped, as the process that had begun, now ceased.

Aldric spun around and watched Cinder lower the bow, a victorious smirk on her face as the lights in the vault all died out, and the energy shot out from Amber and Pyrrha and hurtled towards her. 'Goud' did the only thing he could think of, and threw his shield as hard as he could. The energy passed through the air faster than his shield spun, and it reunited with its other half just as the shield reached Cinder, who merely threw her hand up and caught it, stopping it cold. Aldric's shoulders slumped and his back straightened, he adopted an expression of fear as Cinder's smirk grew, and her eyes glowed with bright orange fire.

He sensed Pyrrha desperately beating on the glass of her pod as Cinder reared her hand, and as she began to levitate, she threw 'Goud's' shield right back at him. Aldric caught it with his hands and brought it to his chest, the force so great that he slid halfway back to Ozpin and Pyrrha before he overcame the momentum her throw had created.

 _"Goud - no!"_ Ozpin called out as Ozpin let out a loud bellow and charged Cinder, whose expression didn't change.

She blasted him twice with basketball sized fireballs, both exploded off of his shield and left him unharmed, but it was when he leapt into the air and tried to throw a haymaker at her that she shot him with a golden bolt of lightning and sent him flying back with a thunderclap. He hit the ground so hard that the concrete underneath him fractured, and he bounced twice before rolling to a halt before Ozpin and Pyrrha.

 _"ASH!"_ He heard Pyrrha scream from within her pod, before she glowed with a dark energy and tore the door from its hinges, hurtling it at Cinder, who merely raised her hand again and melted it into slag before it could reach her.

Cinder descended to the ground as Pyrrha knelt down before Aldric. "You know..." Aldric groaned, a delirious smile on his face. "Magnesis and all that... _You_ could do that." He chuckled.

"Ash -" Pyrrha's voice shook, "Ash -"

But she was silenced by Ozpin stepping before the two of them, cane held out to his side like a sword. "Go." He ordered. "Get help. Find Glynda... Find Ironwood... Find _Qrow._ This tower mustn't fall." He rumbled.

"Ah..." Aldric groaned from the ground. "Don't count us out yet, Professor. We've still got an ass kicking left in us."

Pyrrha nodded, steeling herself and summoning her weapons, "we can help!"

To which, Ozpin shook his head. "No. You would only get in the way. Now _go!"_ He yelled, accompanying a brief quake of the earth beneath their feet.

Pyrrha looked uncertain, but she could sense just as Aldric could the power radiating off of the two here, and knew as much as she didn't want to that the Headmaster was right. So she grabbed Aldric's arm and hauled him to his feet; he grabbed his shield and together the two sprinted out of the vault. Cinder, her smirk still etched firmly upon her face, watched as the two left, the fiery energy still radiating out of her eyes now beginning to swirl away, vanishing.

The two reached the elevator, and Aldric elbowed the button to send them up before dropping to the ground. "Ugh... Shit!" He coughed. "You okay?"

Pyrrha shook her head, an astonished expression overriding everything else. "Ash, you just got shot by lightning!"

Aldric flexed the fingers of his mechanical hand, "yeah... Easily the _second_ worst hit I've ever taken." He chuckled. "Gonna take, like... A thousand Mommy kisses to make it better." He leaned his head back against the wall, watching Cinder and Ozpin speak to eachother as they slowly left his radar range.

"How..." Pyrrha looked on, "how can you still make jokes at a time like this?"

"Because panicking won't do anyone any good, Pyrrha." Aldric said, looking down to his shield and adopting a pensive expression. "Now, I don't know who this 'Qrow' is, and I certainly don't have Atlas' headmaster's number in my scroll, but I got Goodwitch's ever since I started taking her lessons... So once we get above ground we'll call her and tell her that a goddess with a little 'g' is fighting the headmaster of a superhuman boarding school in an vault underneath the tower with a dragon flying around it."

Pyrrha snorted airily, shaking her head, before she stowed her weapons on her back and held out a hand. Aldric took it and let her pull him to his feet, she wrapped her arm around his chest and helped him stay standing as the elevator reached ground level and let them out. The two of them rushed through the now ruined, scorched front lobby, and when they got outside, they found that said sky was filled with damaged and flaming airships, tens of thousands of flying Grimm, and that Beacon's own grounds were flooded with them.

"I mean..." Aldric grunted, "this _really_ got out of hand fast." He stood up, letting go of Pyrrha and digging for his scroll. "Goodwitch, Goodwitch, Good-" The ground shook, _violently_ this time; Pyrrha and Aldric whipped around to see a plume of fire make it halfway up Beacon tower before fizzling out, and of the two sources of unyielding power beneath them, only one remained.

"Ozpin..." Pyrrha whispered.

Aldric lowered his eyes from the tower, turning around to look past the abandoned grounds, the random rushing Grimm, the abandoned rocket lockets, and instead out to Vale, eyes going wide as 'Goud' realized there was no way they'd get help in time.

 _Welp... Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for._ Aldric frowned, then turned to Pyrrha. "Pyrrha." He said, attracting her frightened, green eyes. "Take this." Aldric handed her his shield.

Pyrrha blinked, not comprehending what was happening, as she looked down at the shield being thrust into her arms, then back up at Aldric. "Ash -"

"I am not lying when I say you deserve it a lot more than I do." He rumbled, voice low and barely carrying between the two. "She's treated me well. You do the same, and it'll reciprocate."

It dawned on Pyrrha what her friend was doing. "Ash - no!" She gasped, trying to push the shield back, as the ground shook again, and the dragon swooped by overhead.

But Aldric shook his head, "Pyrrha... As much as my faith in Ozpin has been shaken, the fact of the matter is he still chose you. Not me, not Ruby, or Yang, or Ecru, or Nora, or anyone else - he chose _you."_ He forced the shield back to her, its bright star facing him, but cast in the shadows the two made together under the pale moon. "Because you embody what this shield represents, and..." He looked up at the dragon. "And the world - both of them - are going to _need_ that, real soon." He quietly used his semblance to open up the rocket locker behind her, "they're going to need _you."_

Pyrrha was beside herself, tears now openly leaking out of the corners of her eyes. "No, Ash we can -"

But 'Ash' grinned, "no, Pyrrha. This is the only way." He let go of the shield, and Pyrrha limply kept it in her hands, Aldric took a few steps towards the tower, and she tried to follow, but his semblance kept her feet anchored to the ground. He paused, then turned back to her, a somber frown on his face as he let go of her feet and waved her to him with a twitch of his hands. She dashed forward, thinking he'd changed his mind, but was stopped when Aldric reached out and poked her in the head with two of his fingers.

"I'm sorry, Pyrrha." He said, the frown turning to a regretful smile. He winked, "maybe next time." He then pushed.

With a telekinetic heave to help it out, she flew into into the locker and it was forced shut. _Immediately_ she cried out in despair, and he felt her trying to force it open with her own semblance, which brought a morose smile to his face, as he merely increased the strength of his telekinetic hold on the door. "Go." He called out, "find Ruby. Hell, find _Jaune._ You three together, your teams... Ain't a damn thing you _can't_ do. You're going to unite this world, Pyrrha, you're going to end this war... And I'm going to buy you the time to do it." And he gave the air a light under-handed jab, telekinetically punching the buttons that would launch the locker high into the air.

The last thing he heard from Pyrrha were her cries of protest, begging to let her take his place.

Now was time to face the music, and above so many other thoughts in his head was one single, overriding fear: How much of his meeting last night had Cinder listened to? Was their little performance still on? Or had the game changed?

 _I suppose... All I can do is hope for the best, at this point. Try my best to kill her if I've been made. Now, let's take stock._ He thought, running his hands over his utility belt. _Bag of tricks..._ He dug out the Power Glove vial he'd gone far too long without wearing, and slathered it on his hands, giving them a silvery, viscous sheen. _Check._ He felt inside of him, eyes briefly melting into an onyx shade before going back to their gunmetal gray. _Powers I hardly understand after a year... Check._ He sighed. _Conclusion?... Fuck._ There was only one thing he truly had to rely on, right now, that Cinder couldn't counter with her own powers: His semblance, telekinesis. _What can I do with that, though?_

A beat.

 _Well... What_ can't _I do?_ Uranium, steel, the vibranium hugging his body, oxygen, fire, lightning, even if he couldn't use his magic, even if the belt was locked off to Goud, he had options. All matter had the same building blocks, and since day _one,_ he'd been working to get to where he is now - able to take ahold of those building blocks and change them to his whim, even if he wasn't nearly as good as he'd wanted to be.

After all, telekinesis was defined as the manipulation of objects with the mind. Pyrokinesis was the ability to create and manipulate fire. Illusions, the ability to bend light and warp sound to suit one's desires. Once, this was considered the stuff of fiction, and as such, no one believed it was possible, or even believed in the nigh illimitable possibilities such skills would allow. Aldric, however, had learned much, much differently during his time in this new world. Awakening his abilities and being exposed to many others had been trials in and of themselves, to say nothing of the training it took to hone his own to the degree he did, and in the time he'd had to do it, too, but the result was nothing short of fantastic. Everything he lacked in strength, he made up for in skill. Creativity. Lateral thinking.

Unfortunately for Aldric, as he watched a small flying metal deathtrap of a locker blast through the air under its own power, he wasn't entirely certain if his skill would measure up. Certainly, he thought, he was powerful, but there was a definite hierarchy in this world, and no matter what anyone said, experience ensured that even now he wasn't entirely certain of his position in the pecking order, at the moment. Perhaps if he'd had more time, time for his body to adapt, for his powers to age, for him to develop a complete understanding and a far lesser fear of them, things would have been different, but he'd hardly had two years to go from Clark Kent to Superman. He'd had to learn fast, and sacrifices thusly had to be made.

The dark-haired man watched silently as the locker hurtled through the sky, containing within it a person who, very soon, would gain the ability to change the world through sheer convenience of existing. Sure, he'd done a lot of things these last eighteen months, some overt and some not quite as, some stupid, some and intelligent, but this had been the first change he'd gone out of his way to make.

 _Well..._ Thought Aldric, as he wiped through his shaggy hair, a hand that reflected the moon above with a metallic sheen. _That's you taken care of._

He turned up to Beacon Tower, the enormous building that loomed above him and likely was the man-made roof of the world.

 _But how do I take care of you?_ He thought, as he watched a bright flare of red-orange light begin to raise through the building, hurtling upwards, towards the office of the academy's likely deceased headmaster. Placing his hands in the pockets of his cassock, Aldric casually strolled towards the base of the tower, humming whatever it was that struck his fancy as he made his way inside, very well aware that he was likely, and literally, marching to his death.

 _I guess I'll just have to wing it._ He thought, as he entered the abandoned, trashed tower.

The tower's lobby looked like a tornado had gone through it, with large scorch marks blackening the area around the elevator behind the main receptionist's desk. To his left and right were the waiting areas, the televisions blank and the couches overturned. He thought he heard running water, but he couldn't see any broken fountains, or anything the like. Ignoring most of the devastation, Aldric entered the trashed elevator. In the center of the floor was a large, boulder-sized hole, warped and bent as if it had been melted. Looking up in the cramped space showed a similar hole in the lift's ceiling.

 _Oh yeah... Lady in red came through here._ Thought the teen, as he removed his right hand from his coat and held it out in front of him, his gray palm facing the ground.

He snorted. "Going _up..."_ And with a brief frown, the elevator began the long ascent. A loud, horrendous grinding noise accompanied the trip, sparks flying in all directions.

It took him two minutes to make it to the top, and after forcing the door to the headmaster's office open, he found his goal simply standing there, waiting for him, a smug smirk pasted across her face, her deep orange eyes glowing with energy, and her raven hair falling in thick curls over her shoulders. Replacing his hand in his coat, the dark-haired fighter strolled inside.

"Hey, Hot Stuff." Said Aldric, "am I too late?"

She regarded him with a curious glance, "I must admit, I expected to see the other one." The young woman said, as she smoothed out a wrinkle in her tight, form-fitting red dress.

"I gave her the night off." Said Aldric, as, outside, a massive, demonic dragon with a black visage and a pale white exoskeleton detached from the building and took off, its enormous wings creating loud gale-force gusts of wind with every beat, as it circled the tower. "Like your pet. Always wanted a dragon."

"What do you, of all people, expect to accomplish by coming here?" The woman taunted, "it is pointless. We've won. I have the Fall Maiden's abilities... Her power. Even you cannot stand to me." She smirked.

Aldric frowned, and shrugged his shoulders, leaning up against the wall as he did so. "You know... That's one thing I've noticed time and time again, during my brief tenure here. You all operate on the idea that power is everything. The strong survive, the weak die out. You are correct in thinking that you have more power than me - hell, right now you probably have more power than I _ever_ will..." A pause, "unless I survive, then I'll have _time_ to see how big that bonfire is, but I digress.

"There's one thing you guys don't quite understand... One thing that would have gotten the red-head killed, had I let her come up here. The best counter for raw power, is skill." He said, as his blue eyes slowly darkened to a deep, dark onyx. "You treat science and aura as two different subjects. Mutually exclusive. Despite having all of the tools necessary to prove that wrong six ways from Sunday." He lifted his metallic fist, inspecting it with a blank expression.

"I was blessed, when I figured out what my semblance was. I was blessed even more when the good witch of the south came out of the woodwork and taught me some tricks. Very powerful, indeed." He lowered his hand to the zipper on his overcoat, and began dragging it upwards, unfastening his coat and letting it fall around his ankles. "And yes, I am stalling." He added, as he shoved off from the wall and took a few steps towards the raven-haired woman. "From what I understand, I'm about to fight someone who got her powers right from God." He said, stretching his arms out.

The woman's smirk didn't falter, but he did notice, just faintly, how it drew away from her eyes. "You could leave, you know. Few would know. Fewer still would fault you."

"You kidding?" He chuckled, "I would. She would... Probably." Aldric countered, running a gray, metallic hand through his shoulder-length hair. "I never leave a job half done. Method acting, Shalashaska, and all that. Besides, you may be more powerful than me... May have _always_ been... May always will be. We both know the biggest thing working against me was always _time..._ But what you have, in overwhelming power, you lack in skill. Your body is only used to _half_ of the power you currently possess, and even then, it's a stretch.

"Me, however, I've bled, sweat, and worked for everything I can do, and I'll let you in on a secret... As I said before..." He said, as the dust on the ground, and the bits of metal from the destroyed elevator, all began to levitate around him, soon swirling around him as if orbiting his body. "The greatest counter for strength, is skill." Some of the items began to disintegrate, flaking away like embers from a fire. "All the power in the universe cannot help you if you cannot hit the man you want to kill.

"So tell me... You who fashion yourself a goddess." Said Aldric, as he cracked his gray, sheening knuckles, and crouched down low into a fighting stance, as a wide grin began to grow across his face.

"Do you bleed?"

The woman's eyes narrowed, and she began to levitate, as the very air around her distorted from the sheer heat she was generating. Her eyes were covered in massive auras of fire, their shape reminiscent of the wings of a butterfly. The ground underneath them, and the air around them, shimmered and shook as the two combatants pulled out all of the stops, and drew all of their strength, one to be rid of a pest as fast as possible, and one in the hopes that he may, just may, be able to survive this whole ordeal. All across the academy, and even down in the kingdom, many paused a moment and turned their heads to Beacon Tower, as the Fall Maiden, and Beacon's Master, drew out everything they had. A flaming bonfire versus a napalm campfire, their combined energies were enough such that even civilians, with little aura to speak of, could feel something was off. Aldric felt the weight of the raven-haired Fall Maiden's power crushing him, but he didn't let his grin falter, as he rang the bell.

"You will." And the two launched at each other.


	57. - This is the Moment You've Waited For

_A/N:_

 _You'd all be surprised how **nervous** I was passing so much time (nine whole months!) these last few chapters, and going so far as to more or less skip over the Vytal Tournaments, but someone basically hit the nail on the goddamn head: It would've just been pointless filler. Fun initially, but after a while... There's a plot to get back to, and passing a bunch of time **just** to not skip over it so quickly would make things drag on too much.  
There's also something to be said for an in-context reason, that being Aldric neither wrote in his journal during this time or even thought any of the events noteworthy in the first place, but I digress, I've also vowed to never again set a story in medias res/set a concrete amount time in the future its beginning is to avoid that specific problem.  
_

 _With that said, let me tell you guys something.  
When I have a chapter stockpile for this story, I tend to try and wait five days minimum before putting up the next one, and It was a **fight** to not release this chapter early.  
_

 _..._

 _I fight I lost after finally getting around to actually watching V5, and subsequently learning V6 was starting in, like, two months.  
So, let's get to it, shall we?_

* * *

Chapter 56

* * *

Stuffed inside of a rocket-propelled locker, hurtling through the air, with a shield bequeathed to her that she absolutely didn't deserve and didn't _want,_ Pyrrha Nikos, with tears streaming down her face, was desperately trying to rip the door to the locker off of its hinges with her semblance. Her friend, however, had ensured she couldn't, not in time to stop him from marching to his death in her stead. Ever the lateral thinker, he'd used his semblance to practically weld the door in place, meaning the time and effort required for her to break it off was just long enough that, by the time it happened, she was practically over Vale.

The door sheared off of the locker with the sound of metal tearing apart, and Pyrrha immediately began obeying gravity. She had to scramble to catch Ash's shield before it could fall too far away from her, and with her semblance cloaking her in an onyx glow, she dragged at the metal on her body and fastened to her back to slow her fall from that of one that would paint her across the ground, to that which would let her daintily touch down without any injuries. She turned her head to Beacon Tower, just able to see the Grimm dragon leap off of its side and begin orbiting it, literally raining Grimm. Pyrrha knew that she would need help if she were going to save Ash, she couldn't go through all of those Grimm and still expect to be of any help to him when it came time to fight the new Maiden.

Especially when she began to feel the woman's power climb, so high that it felt as though it were crushing her. Ash was out of his league, _terribly_ out of his league, and he had to know. So, the red-headed warrior guided herself back to Beacon's grounds, landing on the dormrooms. She fished her scroll out of her pocket and hesitated, wondering who would still be close enough to help her.

Looking outwards, she could see that a vast swath of Vale was on fire, but it appeared as though dozens of naval Airships from all countries were clustered around one area in particular, hammering the surrounding areas with precise air-to-ground fire. This clear safe zone reminded her of the sheer number of people that had actually come to attend the Vytal finals, and how all of them would be evacuated to Beacon, but with the dragon now here, no doubt they'd be taking everyone further down to the city to get them away.

That meant that her team, Ash's, and the others, wouldn't have gone nearly as far as she'd thought.

She dialed Jaune.

He picked up almost instantly, he sounded out of breath, huffing and puffing every few syllables. _"Pyrrha!"_ He called out, _"Pyrrha, where are you - are you okay?!"_ He pleaded.

"Jaune -" Pyrrha started pacing, "I'm fine, but I need your help, Ash -"

 _"What happened? Where are you?!"_

"Jaune, I'm _fine!"_ Pyrrha stressed, "but there's something happening, the -" How would she put this quickly? "- the woman in control of the dragon, she's killed Ozpin and -"

 _"Ozpin's DEAD?!"_ She heard him scream, soon accompanied by astonished gasps from elsewhere in the background. _"WHERE. ARE. YOU?!"_

"I'm at the dorms, Jaune, but Ash - listen! Ash went to fight her!"

There was a moment's silence, and then she barely heard him speaking, as though he'd lowered the phone. _"Hey! Are any of you guys still okay? We need to go now!"_ She couldn't hear the responses, _"man..."_ His voice grew closer. _"Pyrrha, half of us are exhausted and wounded. Ruby, Ecru, Yang, and I are the only ones good enough to keep fighting. We'll meet you at the dorms -"_

Pyrrha shook her head and cut him off. "No, Jaune there's no time. Go to the tower and we'll all meet up there. _"_ She looked up to said tower - _  
_

Just in time to see each and every single glass surface on its exterior _shatter_ with the sound of a distant clap of thunder. A few moments later she felt the edges of the shockwave that had done it, and gasped when, a moment later, a gout of fire shot out of the side of Ozpin's office, slowly shifting around in a circle, before fading away.

 _"Gods!"_ She heard Jaune curse, _"Pyrrha, we're on our way!"_ He hung up, and Pyrrha leapt from the side of the building, using her semblance to float down, arms at her sides.

She was immediately accosted by a few Grimm, no doubt having been attracted by her rampant worry for Ash. Fortunately, after drawing her weapons and securing Ash's shield to her back, dealing with them didn't require much effort, so when they were dissipating into smoke after a few stabs to their necks, she was sprinting back to the tower at full speed. The occasional Grimm sprouted up but was put down just as fast in Pyrrha's desperate rampage back to Beacon Tower, it now echoing with more frequent thunderclaps.

She wished she could say she couldn't believe he would do this. She wished she could say she couldn't believe he'd just _throw_ himself at the fire like this, and even give up his main weapon before he did it! But she knew better. Ash was a man who would give up everything for those in need, and what was more he was a person who wholly believed in the power both a person and a symbol had. She didn't agree that she was more important than him, but she knew that others would find out that Ozpin had chosen her over everyone else, which would _make_ her important in _their_ eyes, validating Ash, and that crushed her.

She prayed - she actually prayed - that she, Jaune, Ruby, Ecru, and Yang would make it to him before the new Maiden did something terrible. But as she sneaked another peak up at the tower, her heart stopped and she knew her prayers wouldn't be answered - because from the light of the fires that has sprung up, she could see the Maiden hoisting Ash up by his throat, and then throwing him out of the tower fast enough to leave contrails in the air behind him - and he was hurtling straight towards the dragon.

Pyrrha _screamed_ out of fear, seeing Ash struggle to overtake the momentum the Maiden had created before the dragon would literally eat him. The best he could do, however, was move himself out of the way and leap off of the dragon's giant maw. This slowed himself down enough to a halt, and the next Pyrrha could see, Ash straightened up and thrust his hand out.

Second later, his hand recoiled back, having caught something, which then identified itself - lighting up with a distant, bright blue glow.

Pyrrha felt elation, realizing and remembering that Ash was armed with a weapon of attack, and not an instrument of defense. The weapon he specifically used when the situation called for lethal force.

This elation was shattered when the Maiden suddenly was surrounded by a similar light, but of a deep, bloody red glow.

She had a weapon just like his.

 _"No..."_ She whispered, as Ash shot back towards the tower and disappeared in its depths, clashing with the Maiden.

Pyrrha redoubled her efforts, forcing herself to run faster as her mind ran wild with what Ash was dealing with, the pain he must be in.

The battle he must be fighting.

* * *

"So tell me... You who fashion yourself a goddess." Said Aldric, as he cracked his gray, sheening knuckles, and crouched down low into a fighting stance, as a wide grin began to grow across his face.

"Do you bleed?"

The woman's eyes narrowed, and she began to levitate, as the very air around her distorted from the sheer heat she was generating. Her eyes were covered in massive auras of fire, their shape reminiscent of the wings of a butterfly. The ground underneath them, and the air around them, shimmered and shook as the two combatants pulled out all of the stops, and drew all of their strength, one to be rid of a pest as fast as possible, and one in the hopes that he may, just may, be able to survive this whole ordeal. All across the academy, and even down in the kingdom, many paused a moment and turned their heads to Beacon Tower, as the Fall Maiden, and Beacon's Master, drew out everything they had. A flaming bonfire versus a napalm campfire, their combined energies were enough such that even civilians, with little aura to speak of, could feel something was off. Aldric felt the weight of the raven-haired Fall Maiden's power crushing him, but he didn't let his grin falter, as he rang the bell.

"You will." And the two launched at each other.

Aldric and Cinder clashed in the center of Ozpin's office, their forearms slamming into eachother and their faces instantly contorting into frowns. The shockwave sent by the impact sent flying everything not nailed down, the impacts of these things splintering windows, and after a moment Aldric and Cinder hit the ground. She ducked underneath a wide right cross and responded by uppercutting Aldric in the stomach. Aldric didn't budge, instead countering by clenching both fists and slamming them onto her back like an ape. She fell to her hands, but bent her legs up and kicked him with both feet, each one hitting a forearm and forcing him to fall back. She sprang back to her feet and then darted forward.

Aldric palmed away a straight right and followed it up with a left elbow to her cheek, and a right punch to her stomach, before throwing both hands over her back and slamming his knee into her gut, bending her over him. Cinder responded by reaching up and clawing at the side of his face, her nails digging into his cheek, and causing just enough pain to let go of her. She dropped to her knees and spun around, kicking his out from underneath him and then, as he fell, she sprang up and pounded her fist into his chest, burying him into the ground with the sound of concrete cracking. Aldric rolled out of the way of her next punch and then leapt up to his feet, throwing his fist around and trying to backhand her. She blocked it with her forearm and then leaned in to hit him with an elbow; he caught the blow with his chest, it slipped off of him and then gave him the opening he needed to hit her with a powerful left to her back, the sound of bones splintering filling the air as she stumbled forward, almost falling to the ground, but recovering and rolling to her feet just as Aldric came in and tried to stomp down on her leg. Cinder coiled up and then sprang at him; his hand thrust out and caught one of her arms, and he used this grip to swing her over his head and slam her into the ground like a mace.

Before the debris from the impact even settled, Aldric was on top of her and wailing, raining down blows with each second, the assault lasting for several seconds, each punch emphasized with an angry grunt from Aldric and a bark of pain from Cinder. Her response was to plant her palms on his stomach and detonate her aura, sending him flying up into the ceiling, burying him into it. Aldric pried himself out of the ceiling and threw a chunk of rock at her; she batted it out of the way with a backhand, shattering it into a cloud of debris, which Aldric shot through with a loud, wild roar.

Cinder hopped away from Aldric's attack, and then had to fall to the defensive as Aldric launched himself at her. She caught one punch with her hand, and then another with her face, but she spun into the momentum and backhanded Aldric with her own fist. Aldric recoiled back, and then lurched forward, ramming his knee into her chest, grabbing the back of her head, and then following up his first knee with a second, and a third, before she grabbed his knee with her hands and halting his attacks, using her superior power to push it back to the floor, and she kicked up with her rear leg, it curving over her back and then smashing it into Aldric's face.

Aldric's response was to let go of her, let her stand up straight, and then throw a haymaker into _her_ face, her skin folding up around his fist and her head twisted around almost one hundred and eighty degrees. She, however, steeled herself and instead of stumbling backwards, anchored herself to the ground, and pushed back, overwhelming Aldric's strength and turning her head back forward, now leering at the levitating Master, angrily defying him as she lifted her hand and locked it around Aldric's wrist.

His response was to drop like a rock and arc his fist up to Cinder's chin, before elbowing her in the chest. She didn't let go, however, and instead tightened her grip and pulled Aldric close, chopping at his throat with her free hand before punching him thrice in the ribs and then kicking him to the other side of the office. Aldric dropped to his hands and knees and then flipped over, his feet ramming into the window he would have smashed into. He used the window to spring back at Cinder, who caught him, spun him around, and then threw him back at the window, this time succeeding in smashing him face-first into it.

Aldric almost went _through_ the glass, the shards stuck in his cheeks proving this easily enough as he pried himself out of it. He landed on the ground, wiping his face with the back of his hand, bloodying it with his new wounds, as Cinder, hands held out to her sides and elbows pressed to her hips, brazenly walked right to him, a smirk on her face.

"What 'power' you wield, 'Goud Etiolate'." She taunted, "where is the ferocity which you forced upon the terrans? Your _mighty_ shield? Hm?" She held one of her hands up, Aldric recognizing what she was about to do.

He leapt to the side just before the ground exploded beneath him, scrambled to his feet and then leapt away before she did it again. On the third time, however, he rolled to his feet and then planted _his_ hand on the ground, and as it began to glow from the heat Cinder was pumping into it, Aldric forced those heavily excited atoms to slow their roll, and soon the both were fighting for dominance, her trying to heat up the ground and make it explode, him trying to keep it from doing anything the sort. Her smirk dropped to a sneer, to a frown, as her arm began to shake.

Aldric snorted, "hey, Lady In Red!" His voice wavered from the effort he was pouring into keeping the ground from blowing up beneath him. " _Chill out!"_ He smashed his fist into the ground and revealed the true extent of his stunt, as an icy stalagmite shot up from the ground. She leapt out of the way and, upon landing, folded her arms, a frown wrinkling her face. "So..." Aldric popped his back, "warmup's done?"

She grinned, "quite." She said, holding her hand out, a sword forming in her empty palm.

Aldric let out an airy chuckle, and nodded. "Yup." He wiped the blood from under his nose. "You know, I upgraded my armor after that fear and dead men?" He held up his fists in a boxer's stance.

"And that explains your missing shield."

"Nah, I've just been meaning to put it through its paces." He sprinted back towards her, and she to him, gripping the glass blade in both hands and swinging it his head as she grew close.

Aldric raised his right arm to block the attack, the blade slammed into his forearm and shattered into millions of glowing pieces. She spawned another blade and swung again, Aldric punched this one and it shattered too. A left and a right from Cinder ushered a responding right and a left from Aldric, both attacks creating and destroying a new blade, and on it went for thirty solid seconds. Every attack had a new sword in Cinder's hands, and each new blade was destroyed by another punch from Aldric, filling the air and a couple parts of Aldric's face with the burning glass. Cinder fell back a step and tried to thrust at Aldric with a longsword, but Aldric turned into it, avoiding the attack and bringing his hand up, closing it around the blade. It ground to a halt in his armored, cybernetic hand, and with a rough jerk, he snapped it in twain and pulled her forward.

Cinder fell into her momentum, bent over at the waist, but used this to her advantage, summoning another blade and then stabbing upwards. This one bypassed Aldric's defenses, but hit the suit beneath his clothes, the tip digging into it and causing a biting pain to jump up into his ribs. The blade again snapped into pieces and, with his cybernetic hand, he rammed it into her back, and buried Cinder into the ground.

She turned it into her advantage and, with fire blasting out of her feet, shot _deeper_ into the ground and tunneled through to the floor below them. On anyone else, her intention may have worked, but on Aldric's radar, he knew exactly where she was and where she'd pop up, so the question he was asking himself was what her play would be - and it was answered when the many multiple gears that made up large portions of the ceiling suddenly came crashing down, falling like mortars, and his efforts at dodging or deflecting them proved great enough distraction for Cinder to then shoot out from under the ground, a sword the size of her held tightly in her hands, which she beat him with, slicing across his back and throwing him into the falling gears. Aldric of course got caught _in_ the gears and then pinned to the ground, which gave Cinder the leave she needed to sprint towards him, tip of her blade dragging against the ground and a wild look in her eyes. She laughed as she sprinted towards him, her blade leaving a fiery trail in the ground.

So Aldric decided to take off the kid gloves too, and with his semblance, pushed the gear off of the ground, slid himself out of it, kicked off of its edge, and blasted it towards her. She carved through it with one large upward slice, and the two halves shot through the room, one getting lodged in the elevator shaft, the other crashing through one of the many pillars in Ozpin's office and causing the ceiling to groan.

Cinder grinned and tore her blade out of the ground - sending a gout of fire in front of her, each one sprouting out of the ground with a loud crack and a spray of heat and flame. Aldric merely arced an eyebrow, walked two feet to the left, and watched as they passed him by.

"What'd you expect me to do, run -" He turned and Cinder arrived, he raised his arm and blocked the blade, and as she struggled against him, he continued, "run... _That_ way?" He nodded behind him. "Wait, were you the chick on the highway? If so that's the _second_ time you've thrown something at us and expected our response to be to run away from it, in the direction it's rolling." His grin grew, "I thought we'd taken off the kid gloves?"

"Oh... We _have."_ Cinder then vanished.

Aldric blinked.

 _Oh right... I forgot she can do that._ He still hadn't figured out that trick, actually.

Aldric could _barely_ sense her with his radar, but she was moving so fast that she looked like a blur of motion and color, it was hard to get a read on her.

Worse was that she figured this out when she got him with six successive hit-and-runs, causing him to spin like a top after she nailed him in the face. Aldric's response was to raise his leg and then slam his foot into the ground - turning the entire floor into a veritable ice rink and immediately making Cinder lose her footing. Now slipping and sliding all across the floor, Cinder leapt into the air, fire spraying out of her feet. She planted her feet on the wall and then blasted off of it; Aldric turned towards her and cocked his arm all the way back, it straightening out at the elbow as he lowered his stance and braced his legs.

Cinder bellowed out as she flew towards him, and Aldric met said bellow with one of his own, and when she reached him and threw her fist forward, he shoved his forward as well. They both met at the knuckles, the floor beneath them shook, the ice shattered like glass, blowing around as though they were in the center of a windstorm, and the shockwave they created was strong enough to shatter every single window in the office. The twos' shouts and roars only grew in volume, but Cinder had the proverbial high ground, and could pour more power into her fist, and more fire out of her feet.

She won out.

Aldric's suit managed to blunt the attack, but like with Thor before her, that didn't do _anything_ to stop her fist from continuing forward when it rammed into his chest, bending his ribs, a few to the breaking point. Aldric shot back like a rubber band, bouncing twice off of the ground and nearly falling off of the ledge, his fingers just barely able to find purchase and stop him. He hauled himself back inside but immediately was on the run as Cinder shot him with a huge spray of fire. Aldric avoiding it by throwing himself out of the way and then ran around the edge of the office; Cinder followed him up until the moment Aldric hopped up, came down like a ton of bricks, tore some concrete out of the ground to make an improvised barrier, and then with a powerful left strike, broke it from the ground and sent it hurtling towards Cinder, the fire spraying off of it in all directions, in a starry pattern.

She cut off the fire and instead blasted it with a bolt of lightning, causing it to explode. Her victory was short lived, however, as Aldric again flew through the cloud of debris, this time feet-first, and hands held high over his head and clenched into fists, it appearing as though he were falling sideways. He slammed both feet into Cinder's cheek and she went flying with a shriek of pain; Aldric flipped rightside up and landed on the ground, before charging right after her.

She crossed over the threshold and actually flew several feet outside before she flipped over and then, with a burst of fire from her legs, jetted right back at him. Their arms clashed again with another, smaller, shockwave, and Aldric followed it up with a cross to her face. She spun over sideways before landing on the ground and then roared as she shoved herself back up and pounded Aldric's face in turn with an uppercut. Aldric stumbled off to the side, but used the momentum to spin around and roundhouse Cinder. She met the kick with one of her own, Aldric kicked again, aiming lower and trying to sweep her leg out from under her, but Cinder's response was another kick, their shins rapidly and repeatedly slamming into eachother and locking in place. They kept this up for three more kicks before Cinder gave up because of equal parts pain in her leg and the need to try something else.

They split apart, and Cinder took the initiative, lunging forward and throwing a lightning-fast superman punch, clearly trying the speed angle again. Aldric decided to play with his semblance, and proved to be the immovable object to her unstoppable force: Relying on his suit to take the hit, and his semblance to keep his body from deforming, Aldric took the punch to his chest, and the result was as though Yang had punched his shield: A bell toll and a shockwave. Cinder tried again, but Aldric met her left strike with a right, she tried again, uppercutting him, but he blocked it with his elbow, each and every impact sending out a clap of thunder and a gust of wind. He threw a jab at her with his right, but she stopped it with her white-hot palm. She thrust her knee towards Aldric's pelvis, but Aldric, owing partially to his newly honed instincts and partially due to eighteen years of avoiding hurting _that_ particular area, was able to avoid this attack, leaning out of the way and causing Cinder to overextend herself.

Her foot hit the ground and she found herself leaning far too forward, Aldric slammed his boot onto Cinder's foot and locked her to the floor. Cinder wrapped her fingers around Aldric's neck and heated them up so much that his shirt caught fire. Aldric put it out with a brief thought from his semblance, and decided to play with it. Throwing as much of his concentration into his semblance as he could without sacrificing his ability to defend himself, Aldric started tearing ambient, freefloating atoms out of the air and rearranging them.

Twenty two protons to twenty two electrons, to just that many and a few more neutrons, the air itself wouldn't have enough for him if he wanted to keep this subtle, so he started stealing from the debris of the fight around them as Cinder planted her palm on his chest and electrocuted him so bad he swore he could see his skeleton from inside the suit. This finally convinced him to let go of Cinder's leg, but he didn't try anything fancy, he lunged backwards and hopped away, keeping her attention focused on him as a lance of solid steel was rapidly coming into being behind her.

She didn't notice a thing, merely grinning, before she charged. Aldric met her grin with one of his own and stalled for more time, ducking out of the way of a fast right punch and bobbing and weaving out of her followup attacks. It took everything he had to keep this up and he still took some hits for his trouble, his ribs starting to ache something fierce, but after thirty seconds, the spear was ready - and with a grunt, he pulled it right towards him.

Cinder heard the air whistling and only got a brief look over her shoulder to warn her of what was happening. She dove out of the way, but it still dragged across her cheek. Aldric caught the spear and spun it in his hands, growling as he saw her aura, bolstered as it now was, take the attack without even flinching. As a final touch, Aldric tossed it up in his hands, got a better grip, and then threw it at her with all his strength. She thrust both hands forward and beat at the spear with hurricane-force winds, inadvertently kicking up a lot of their battle debris and beating and tearing at Aldric with it. Aldric pushed on the spear with his semblance, and when the tip touched her hand, he clenched his fist - instantly heating it up until it was white hot.

He only realized how poorly thought out this decision was when Cinder took that newly glowing metal, heated it up _further,_ let it melt, and then crushed it into a tightly compacted sphere. Aldric let go if it and Cinder picked it up, it hovering over her head before she spun around and hurled it back at him with a concussive blast and a wave of both of her arms. Aldric gasped and backpedaled, holding up both of his hands defensively, and then thrusting them forward as the molten metal ball reached him. A thin, translucent barrier radiating pale clouds of mist appeared in front of him, and when the molten steel touched this barrier, the latter shattered, but not after filling the air with steam and causing the orb to cool so close to absolute zero that even the small space that touched Aldric's ice shield was so cold that the rest of the orb's heat wasted away in trying to equilibrize it.

The now blistering-cold metal sphere reached Aldric and hovered above one of his clenched fists; Aldric compressed it down further until it was the size of a baseball. His fist and his arm both shaking with the effort, he punched the air hard enough that his entire body lurched forward; the hyperdense baseball of steel shot forward, and Cinder had to create a multitude of forcefields with her powers in order to defend against it. It crashed through all of them, more and more of it disintegrating and flaking away as it reached her, but she kept ahold of these new metal shards, now filling the air in front of her. As one, they all turned to face Aldric, Cinder smirked, lazily raised her hand and splayed open her fingers. Some of the shrapnel became cloaked in electricity, others glowed white hot, others became frozen cold, and others still had their edged beaten to a razor sharpness by wind, before they all shot back towards him.

Aldric lifted his hands and then threw both of them to his right, causing all of these shards to hit his low-pressure area and immediately begin orbiting around him, as though they were a hurricane. He began tearing at the atoms that made these shards, them all flaking away and disintegrating in golden embers. When he was satisfied, Aldric lifted his right hand, clenched it into a fist, and rearranged those atoms again - one proton to one electron - instantly filling the air with hundreds of pounds of hydrogen, all of which began to spin and coalesce into a dense, spherical cloud of gas in his right palm.

One spark lit the gas ball in his hand, and he caught that heat and forced it further inside until all of it was one dense ball of reddish-white plasma. Aldric then thrust his hand forward and let that plasma fly, roaring out as he was lit in a deep red glow by the hydrogen plasma.

Cinder, in response, _caught_ the plasma in her bare hands, sliding back several feet and gathering it all in front of her chest. She kept gathering it until Aldric ran out, and when it all reached her, she held it in both hands and then _pressed._

Aldric watched in abstract terror as she forced that glowing red sphere to compress further and further, down to the size of a golf ball, to a dime, a beebee, and smaller still, until even the red glow had vanished, and then, as though someone had flipped a switch, _all_ light began to slowly compress down into the area the plasma had just been. In a runaway effect, soon Cinder was holding a motherfucking black hole in her hands; her head snapped up, a vicious, animalistic smile curling her lips and a fire both magical and metaphorical lighting her eyes, before she _threw_ the fucking thing at Aldric.

Then it vanished after not even making it an inch past Cinder's hand, leaving nothing in its wake but a light gust of wind, and most of the debris on the floor briefly rolling to that spot.

Aldric and Cinder both stared at the place the black hole had been as the office grew utterly silent, the Maiden in confusion, the Master in shock.

Cinder blinked at it, then looked up to Aldric, the facade created of the two briefly being broken as she tried to comprehend what had just happened. Aldric, however, had his shoulders slumped and his head lolling about as he groaned in sheer relief and delayed realization.

Aldric didn't know nearly as much as he should about black holes, Schwarzchild Radii, or Hawking Radiation, but he knew just enough about about all three to know that he'd just witnessed a literal miracle of science and should just be thankful he was _alive._ So, after thanking the late Professor Hawking, Aldric shook his head, decided to stop playing ping-pong with Cinder if she was going to try and play with literally the most terrifying thing he could imagine, and instead try the Goku method and deck her in the schnoz. Then he sprinted back into the fray to do just that.

Cinder, an angry scowl on her face, vanished again, appearing in front of Aldric with her elbow in his stomach. He was stopped immediately, and the force of her attack overcame his speed, and sent him flying back to the edge of the office. He hit the ground and rolled until his arm was dangling out in the open air. Aldric groaned and tried to get to his feet, but Cinder was there - and she grabbed him by the throat and hauled him into the air.

"A good trick, _Goud."_

 _"You almost killed this entire planet you crazy bi-"_ She tightened her grip on his throat, causing his words to be choked out.

She rolled her eyes, reared her arm, and then threw him with out of the office all her might.

Initially Aldric tried to figure out what her game was, because she _knew_ he could fly - but when he heard the chest-rattling roar of the Dragon, and realized that his momentum was so great that he might not stop himself in time, he realized what she wanted to happen. He pushed at himself with his semblance, trying to overcome his backwards momentum and slow himself down, but it was no good - the dragon reached him too quickly, forcing him to yank at his foot to get out of the way. He _smelled_ the damn thing's breath as its jaw passed within inches of his face, loudly snapping shut.

It hurtled past him, and the near-miss slowed him down enough that he could force himself to halt. He stayed there, in the sky, floating, taking a moment to himself to let his heart catch up.

 _Okay._ He thought, gasping for air. _Time to change tactics._ He reached down, and unclipped a certain weapon from his belt. _This'll be the real test._ This entire thing had been the two playing with eachother, literally going through the motions of Aldric's growth from the day they'd met: First hand to hand, then their powers, then their _real_ powers, and now? Now it was time for the two of them to bring it all home and lay it all out on the table. By drawing their lightsabers, they were making their declaration: This was where the fight became lethal, where they would make Goud's death believable.

And, Aldric worried, where Cinder would tell him exactly when she'd begun listening to his and Ozpin's conversation. If she'd heard Torchwick and Taurus' voices, Aldric's life was forfeit and she would stop at nothing to kill him; and if she hadn't, well, his life was still in danger - at the level they were playing that was a _given -_ but there was a much smaller chance she'd intentionally kill him.

With a flick of his wrist, Aldric ignited his lightsaber with a bright blue glow and a loud _zhoom!_ Cinder, seeing this, did the same, sliding her own from the small of her back, thrusting it downwards, and igniting it with the sound of a plasma torch, the red blade first sprouting out from the hilt, and then the side vents. Aldric tightened his scowl and, with a battle cry, hurtled forward, sword clenched in both hands and held low. Cinder fell into a defensive stance, her blade upended and pointed to the ground as she fell onto her backfoot.

Aldric reached her and swung his blade up, holding it perpendicular to him and crashing into Cinder, their blades meeting and forming a cross where, at their intersection, the plasma grinded together and lit up with a bright white flash and the sound of guitar strings scraping against each other. Cinder was forced back several feet, giving Aldric the room he needed to plant his feet on the ground, rip his blade away from hers, and then slice at her again horizontally. His blade scraped off of hers, and she responded by hopping back a step, bringing her bright red sword to bear, and thrusting it at him. It took all of Aldric's speed to spin his in a clockwise motion and parry hers, whereupon, now with her flank open, he lunged forward and slammed his fist into her ribs. She took the blow, but only because it allowed her to swap her sword into her left hand and wrap her right arm around Aldric's neck. Her next attack came when she reversed her grip with a flourish and then roughly stabbed at Aldric's stomach. Aldric twisted to the side, it sliding inches past him before she snapped it back and then lunged, swinging upwards so fast that all Aldric saw was the blur of color.

Aldric was firmly on the defensive now, forcing himself to remember that as much as Weiss and Pyrrha had given him, Cinder was someone who had fought with swords as a matter of _course._ Aldric had picked it up only to diversify his arsenal. The level in skill between them was vast, and this was shown in the ways the two used their swords. Cinder swung hers like a cutting instrument, both compensating for, and using the lack of weight in the blade by throwing more power into every swing without sacrificing speed, whereas Aldric used his as a burning instrument, less trying to lop off his opponent's limbs than he was merely trying to _touch_ her with the blade and burn the hell out of her. Her stance and combat style reflected the design of her sword - she swung it like a longsword, whereas Aldric held his tightly in both hands with a style reminiscent to that of kendo. The result was him twisting and turning his blade back and forth, counter and clockwise, horizontal to vertical, to defend her savagely fast horizontal swings, each impact sending no feeling up his arms but filling the air with the zap of swords striking eachother and the brief flashes of blindingly bright white light that came from the two sources of plasma combining.

Cinder chopped down with her sword and locked it to Aldric's. Aldric's eyes snapped down to the violently wavering jets of red energy pouring out of the vents on the sides of her weapon, then back to Cinder, whose face was lit by the deep red light of her blade. He scowled, teeth bared, and then shoved forward, throwing her off of him and then ducking underneath her followup. He then lunged towards her, burying his shoulder into her stomach and causing her to stumble back, allowing him to dash forward and force _her_ on the defensive. He swung his blade over his head and then down towards her shoulder, and she twisted hers up to block his with a loud zap. Aldric followed this up by kneeing her in the stomach, she used the momentum generated by this and added to it, speeding back, dragging her sword along the ground and leaving a glowing red-hot groove in her wake. Her head snapped up, a grin on her features, as Aldric took back up his neutral stance, sword held in both hands, angled to his right, and hilt held low, just in front of his stomach, his own face wrinkled in a frown.

Then he thrust out his hand, fingers splayed out and tensed hard enough that his entire arm shook. Cinder blinked, expression melting to one of confusion as the tension slowly melted out of her body - only to immediately be replaced when she heard the horrifically loud sound of grinding metal coming from behind her. Her head whipped around and saw one of the two halves of the gear they'd thrown about earlier being ripped out of the elevator shaft and then being heaved right at her. Cinder's sword vanished, leaving the only source of light Aldric's deep blue as she dove to the ground. The giant gear flew over her prone body, now careening towards Aldric, who leaned out of the way and let it fly straight past him and out of the tower.

Cinder sprouted up again, blade reignited, but then found that Aldric had vanished, leaving her alone - a beacon of red in a sea of black. She took up the defensive stance now, strafing the office and searching for any sign of Aldric, completely unaware that the Master, his hand still held aloft, had used the gear as a distraction, so he would have time for his next party trick: Creating a telekinetic barrier of such infinitesimally small size, that even the very photons in the air couldn't get past it, instead being diverted around it - in effect bending the light around him without requiring him to take ahold of those photons and move them himself. Aldric had, in short order, cheated his way to invisibility, and while this did mean those same photons were now missing his eyes entirely, he'd long since learned how to see without _those,_ and with his radar guiding his hand, Aldric slowly lowered his hand back to his now sightless sword, and charged again.

Cinder realized he was playing a trick when she heard the vibratory thrum of his lightsaber as he swung it at her, and she had to use her powers and blast herself out of the way as fast as she could, completely unaware that she'd been millimeters away from losing her nose to his sword. She flipped over backwards, feet landing on the wall and blade clenched tightly in her right hand. Her head snapped back and forth, expression of confusion melting to one of annoyance; she had, after all, learned from Emerald too, and knew how to get around this particular trick.

So with a mighty heave, she shoved off of the wall and then slammed her blade into the ground, forcing it so deep into the floor that its hilt touched concrete. She forced her power into the ground beneath her feet, and the result was as though a meteor had come in and hit that exact spot - the floor buckled underneath her and soot and debris shot into the air. As much as Aldric could keep himself invisible, that didn't mean a damn thing when he still had physical presence in this world - and that proved itself true when she instantly zeroed in on the human-shaped gap in the air, hurtling towards her.

Aldric let go of the pretenses just as he reached Cinder she tore her blade out of the floor with a shower of molten rock, and his collided with hers with a loud zap. Before they could continue their duel, however, both of their heads shot down at the sound of the floor beneath them groaning loudly. They both snapped back up as realization dawned in those precious few seconds before the shock of their battle inevitably came crashing down on the tower.

Literally.

Ozpin's office, after bravely weathering the battle between the Master who feared his power and the Maiden who craved it, finally caved in and collapsed, the floor crashing down to the one beneath it and cascading outwards until it reached the outermost edges of the office. Aldric and Cinder fell to the floor beneath them, the debris destroying the CCT terminals that filled the floor below them, but they themselves were only briefly slowed down - they were on their feet and fighting again the moment they touched the ground, now battling each other in a literal shower of debris. Aldric and Cinder were each a blur of red and blue, their cuts, chops, and swings clashing with eachother just as they sliced through falling debris, soon surrounding them in bisected, glowing hot bits of stone and filling the air with the sparks that shot out from each cut.

Unfortunately, as she had displayed to him before, especially with her newfound power, she was simply faster than him, and after feinting him into deflecting an attack that wouldn't come, Cinder slashed upwards - the blade going for Aldric's arm so fast that he couldn't bring his own around to block it, and couldn't use his semblance to deflect it. It him, dragging against the black vibranium mail that clung to his body, and instantly filling the air with so many sparks that it was as though she were pressing a blade against a grindstone. Aldric leapt back after the blade left his arm, and Cinder took the opportunity to do the same, the both of them curious as to what would come of what she'd just done.

As the aftermath of the floor above them collapsing calmed down, Aldric looked down to his organic arm. His sleeve had been burned off, and he felt his skin roasting underneath the otherworldly metal, itself glowing red and radiating heat from the brief contact with Cinder's lightsaber. Aldric bit back a curse, instead lifting his gunmetal gray eyes to meet Cinder's glowing orange orbs; Aldric swallowed through his now bone-dry throat. The dynamic of the fight had been changed, both he and her now knew she could actually go for potentially lethal injuries and, while he may not be able to shrug them all off, his armor would protect him initially - and he still didn't know if this meant she _knew,_ or if she were just going to use this information to help the act.

 _Okay... That speed isn't good, but she's too strong for me to forcibly slow her down._ Aldric frowned, using his semblance to cool his armor and numb his arm. _How..._ His eyes briefly glanced past her, to the elevator shaft. _That might work..._

He charged Cinder again, she quickly able to bring her blade up to block an attempt by him to lop her head off. Aldric kept pushing, swinging the lightsaber less like a sword than a baseball back, the hilt clenched in both arms and his entire body twisting and turning with every swing. She immediately started backpedaling, right in the direction he wanted. Aldric kept it up, forcing her back towards the elevator shaft, the only idea in his mind being the slight hope that a lot of her prowess may be coming from the room she had to operate.

He considered rethink the how of how he'd force her inside when he sensed a giant boulder get picked up and heaved at him, but the solution to that was as simple as using his semblance to break it into pieces. Cinder tried to overtake the momentum Aldric was making for himself with his powerful swings, reposting on him more than once, and forcing him to take a few hits he otherwise would have avoided at all costs, all in the effort of pushing her to the elevator shaft.

She did exactly what he wanted her to when she found her back to the wall - detonating her aura and ripping the two doors from their hinges to buy herself a little more room, and when she found herself with no more ground behind her, she, with her blade locked to his, looked behind herself, then to Aldric, smirked, and then leaned backwards, falling back-first into the elevator shaft.

With his radar, Aldric didn't need to do the whole 'lean over the edge' deal to see if she'd survived - he knew well and good that she was clinging to the walls of the elevator shaft, inverting her own gravity such that Aldric's 'sideways' was her 'down'. Aldric followed her example and hurled himself over the edge, his hand grabbing at the floor and swinging himself downwards, faster than Cinder had been prepared for. She had to bring her blade up horizontally to block Aldric's lightning-fast downward slash, and when the Master's feet hit the side of the elevator shaft and he telekinetically overrode gravity, he dragged his blade further downwards, tearing it free of hers, before he lunged upwards and slashed in the same direction. His blade hit the 'ground' as he did so, and its tip even dug against the 'wall' too, and Cinder's did much the same when she bent over backwards and twisted her blade into position to parry him. Their reach and their blades long enough to hit and drag at all surfaces around them, soon every single swing had them hitting the wall or the floor and filling the elevator shaft with sparks and globules of boiling hot metal, bringing just a little flame-like orange to the environment otherwise filled with deep blues and reds, and the thin line of purple where those lights met.

Aldric viciously cut at the air as Cinder struggled to adapt to their new environment, the change in them having been akin to going from a boxing ring to a phone booth. Unfortunately, this meant she figured out _fast_ that this meant they were in an environment where their skills with a blade determined the flow of the battle. Her first act was to hop back and dodge out of the way of Aldric's next chop, and when Aldric lunged forward to try and keep up the pressure, she swung her blade around in a wide arc, practically pirouetting with it, and cutting through everything around them, the air, the walls, the cable in the center of the shaft, none of it was spared. This forced Aldric to dive underneath her and slip past her, canceling his attack in the effort of avoiding hers. He hit the ground and had to sheathe his sword so he wouldn't faceplant on it, and when he did, he had a momentary lapse in concentration that sent him sliding several meters down the cramped elevator shaft before he could cling back to the 'floor'.

Cinder took advantage of this immediately, dashing forward and putting _Aldric_ on the defensive, and with the split in concentration from fighting gravity and using his semblance defensively, this meant he took hits. Minor hits, but with each impact the portions of his suit she was cutting at glowed brighter and brighter, until he could hear his skin sizzling, and as Cinder's attacks grew faster and more precise, he actually saw the magical metal _melting_ from the heat and fusing together, and felt the blade horrifying go _through_ the thin mail and cut into his body in the more seriously weakened segments, and that's when Aldric realized Cinder was doing one of two things: Actively trying to kill him, or shift the power dynamic back in her favor by literally cutting away at his suit's integrity. Worse was that the suit's glowing meant she could do it - it was thin layers of vibranium, it didn't _need_ to be as thick or as rigid as his shield, not to work like it did, and especially not if it wanted to keep its mobility.

Aldric felt himself proven right when he realized Cinder was focusing a lot of her attacks on his left arm - the arm he could afford to replace. Aldric shifted back, using his dominant side more often, but she still managed to cut and tag at his cybernetic arm, until the metal was so hot that it glowed white and shifted with a liquid quality. She saw dollar signs at this, lunged forward, locked their blades together, and then grabbed at his arm with her left hand.

It took two mighty tears before she ripped the sleeve off of Aldric's arm. The mechanical limb now bare, Aldric's eyes snapped up to Cinder's, meeting the orange, glowing orbs, but then looking past them and widening in fear.

 _"SHIT!"_ Aldric threw himself at the 'ground' and smashed at it with his semblance, creating a small crater for him to cower in.

Cinder about-faced and then let out a similar curse, but Aldric then threw everything he had into his semblance, forcing her to move too slowly to avoid the elevator plummeting towards her. In her haste to take the battle back in her favor, she'd earlier cut the cable to the elevator, and it held out as long as it could before finally obeying gravity, and slamming into her like a speeding semi-truck.

It took her along for the ride.

* * *

 _"Professor Goodwitch!"_ Pyrrha cried out, sprinting towards Beacon Tower. _"Professor Goodwitch, Professor Ozpin is dead, and Ash is going to fight the woman who did it!"_ She heard the sounds of heavy combat over the scroll link, and with the damage the tower was taking, knew she wouldn't have a connection for long. _"Please, we need help!"_

Over a distant cry of effort, all Goodwitch gave her was, _"help is on the way!"_ Before hanging up.

Soon Pyrrha was at the fountain, but there was no Jaune. Frantically, she looked from the shaking, shouting tower, to the direction of the docks, where she could hear the sounds of fighting, a lot closer than it had any right to be. Forcing herself to acknowledge that she needed Jaune and the help he'd brought if she were to help Ash, she took off towards them and followed the sounds of combat.

The grounds were abandoned and empty, but this didn't last long - as at full speed she quickly found Jaune, Ruby, Ecru, and Yang fighting dozens of Grimm. Approaching them with her weapons drawn, she realized that she wasn't even as needed as it looked - they were tearing through the Grimm as quickly as they arrived, with some being blasted back by Yang's gauntlets, some being bisected by Ruby's scythe, some crushed under Ecru's bat, and others sliced apart and burned alive by Jaune's -

 _"Jaune!"_ Pyrrha couldn't believe her eyes - Jaune looked like Ash had after his attack on the docks, covered in his own blood and wounds, and his every attack had the weight, speed, and laboriousness of those wounds behind them, but still he fought on, his weapon smiting Grimm left and right.

Pyrrha threw herself into the fray, twirling her sword in her hands, it shifting and extending until it turned into a spear. She threw it, it exploding forward with the sound of a gunshot and soaring into the air, burying itself into the belly of a boarbatusk launched by an uppercut from Ecru. It quickly dissipated into smoke, and she leapt into the sky, grabbing her spear, turning it to a rifle, and laying down precise fire even as she came in for a landing. She dropped to the shoulders of an Ursa and, after shifting her rifle into a sword, buried it hilt-deep into its neck, wrenching it this way and that until she fell through a cloud of Grimm-smoke. The battle continued like this another five minutes, in which she saw Ecru's aura flash, before the Grimm trickled down to a nothing, instead retreating, running for the Tower.

Everyone quickly rushed to Pyrrha, with Jaune being the first to speak up, "Pyrrha, are you -"

Pyrrha hugged Jaune to quiet him down, before holding him out at arm's length, "Jaune, I thought -"

But he shook his head, "it looks worse than it is, but where's Ash?"

Ecru chimed in with a loud, "why do you have his shield?!"

Then Yang, "and what's this about Ozpin being dead?"

Pyrrha took a few steps back and looked back to the tower, realizing she hadn't heard or seen anything since Ash had drawn his sword. "He's up there... He gave it to me. I don't think he intends to make it out." She wavered, "and it's the person he's fighting." She turned back towards them, "she killed Ozpin... And that's -" But as she spoke, the ground shook again, and Ecru gasped, covering her mouth with one of her hands.

Pyrrha whipped around, and saw the dragon coming in for a landing in front of the tower. Still leaking Grimm, the giant creature seemed to _know_ that its master, or its ally, or whatever the Maiden was to it, that she was in danger - that Pyrrha, Ruby, and Jaune and everybody were coming to attack it.

"She's in control over _that?"_ Jaune gasped.

Pyrrha nodded, "kind of."

Ecru, however, sounded excited. "Alright!" She raised her fist to Yang, who bumped it. "Yang! You, me, and Jaune - we can take care of that thing!"

 _"What?!"_ Jaune shouted, as the Grimm being spawned by the dragon began charging across the grounds, past the fountain and straight towards them. _"I'm going to do what?!"_

"Your sword blows up Grimm, Vomit Boy." Yang grinned. "And me and Ecru are our heaviest hitters. So we keep that thing busy while Pyrrha and Ruby go help Beebee." She shoved Jaune on the back, "unless that Ursa took more out of you than we thought."

Jaune shook his head and let out a sigh, "oh, man..." He nodded his head, psyching himself up. "Okay... I can do this." He looked back and forth at everyone, "alright... Let's go!" He and everyone charged the Grimm.

It took two seconds before they all clashed, Pyrrha and Ruby in the back, Ecru, Yang, and Jaune in the front. Pyrrha could see now that the training Jaune had been forcing himself through was paying dividends, but it wasn't making him nearly as good as the others around them - he was still slow, he still lumbered about and stumbled. He still took hits he could avoid and still required clear effort on his part to remember to raise his shield against them. He made up for it all, however, in raw determination - perhaps the same thing that had beckoned him to take his ailing, bleeding body to the Tower. It was the same drive that was killing Ash, right now, in that tower.

* * *

Aldric sheathed his blade and flipped over to his back. He was slowly sliding out of his crater in the side of an elevator shaft, but he didn't resist it, or slow it down. He took his chance to rest, to gasp for air.

 _Fuck._ He cursed. _Fuck... Fuck... Fuck._ It wasn't lost on him that, of the two of them, she'd fought two gods and was pretty much without injury, whereas he parts of his body had been ventilated, he could feel a few ribs broken, and she'd figured out how to tear apart a previously impregnable suit of armor, and, if there even _was_ a later, he wasn't even sure if he could fix it.

His feet were dangling freely in the elevator shaft, and he began sliding faster.

Yes, he knew he'd not used his magic yet except for that stunt with his eyes, but he was saving for a very specific purpose, he couldn't use it willy-nilly, not without consequences he couldn't afford, not in this fight, not here, not now, and since his only other option was one that would reveal Goud had hidden a lot more than just his power, that meant he only had one option: To try and open up an avenue for _him_ to kill _her,_ and if he couldn't, _pray_ to anyone that would listen that he was wrong, and Cinder was just letting the adrenaline get to her.

He slid out of his crater and began plummeting through the elevator shaft like a rock, soon falling forward enough until he was speeding towards the ground head-first. The elevator crashed to a halt at the ground floor, hitting the blast door that kept anyone from accidentally going down to the Vault. Aldric didn't move until he was but a few meters from the elevator, whereupon he righted himself, crashed through the hole Cinder had previously burned in the roof of the elevator, and then _slammed_ into the ground. His suit, damaged though it was, protected him from much of the landing, and his impact only added to the dust and debris that was shooting out from the ruined elevator shaft. Outside, past the lobby, he could just see with his radar a battle raging outside the building, the dragon and multitudes of Grimm fighting what he assumed was Ruby and whoever she'd assembled to come rescue him.

But it was what was under the elevator that stole his attention -

Cinder exploded up from the bottom of the elevator, her blade filling it with its harsh red light. Aldric grunted in fright, lunging to the side to dodge her downward chop. He hit the wall of the elevator and bounced off of it, reigniting his blade and cutting at her with a wide swing, burning and melting through walls and the ceiling alike. Cinder spun out of the way and batted his blade aside with hers, before turning it into a thrust, which dug into Aldric's chest and slid off. Aldric barked in pain, feeling his chest burning as though he'd laid down on a grill, but he had no time to deal with it - because as he and Cinder swung again, her downwards and him upwards, the elevator groaned, shaking and falling several inches.

Aldric and cinder's blades met in a cross as the blast door keeping them away from the vault, already weakened by Cinder's earlier flight, finally gave in and collapsed. It crumbled to pieces, and the elevator fell again. Cinder, with a snarl, kneed Aldric in the stomach - shooting him back and ramming him into the wall of the free-falling elevator. He hit the wall and then yelled in fear, wrenching his head to the side just in time to avoid Cinder ventilating it with her serrated red blade. He elbowed her in the face and then blasted her to the other side of the elevator with his semblance; her blade nearly fell to the ground and through the hole, but with their falling, its descent was slowed enough such that she could snatch it out of the air. Cinder picked up her blade and swung it heavily with both hands, and Aldric shot his blade up to catch it -

And then his vanished with a barely audible _zip!_

Cinder, stunned, and dedicated to her attack, massively over extended herself as Aldric used his semblance to ensure he didn't get hit. Again her blade was buried into the wall, and again the elevator's descent slowed thanks to it. He gripped the hilt of his blade tightly in his still-armored hand and then brought the butt of the hilt down _hard_ on the crook of Cinder's right elbow. It stunned her and caused her to stumble forward - nearly face-planting on the wall and giving Aldric the time he needed to spin around her, lock both of his arms under hers in a full nelson, then knee her in the back twice, before heating up his cybernetic hand until it glowed white hot. The burning pain caused Cinder to cry out and let go of her weapon - which Aldric kicked away with his semblance, before smashing the hilt of his on the back of her head.

Cinder stumbled forward, falling to the ground as though they weren't in a plummeting iron box, but as Aldric took his chance to recover, he found that this had been Cinder's plan - she rolled into her momentum and flipped onto her back, a bow in her hands and arrows already flying at him, some glowing with fire, some wreathed in electricity, others covered in ice. With so little space between them, Aldric knew this was going to suck - and when she fired, Aldric beat at the arrows with his saber, turning some to ash, and taking others to the weakened, molten sections of his suit, but this also turned out to Cinder's advantage, as she shot the ground at his feet with an arrow that detonated a second later.

Sent flying into the roof of the elevator, his sword clattering to the ground and stopping inches from the hole in the floor, Aldric's head hit the metal wall, his vision swimming, heavily concussed by the explosion. He wasn't able to recover fast enough for Cinder's response - her blade flew back to her hands and ignited with another shriek of plasma. She leapt into the air, burying her knee into Aldric's stomach, blade held in both hands and out to the side. She dug one of the side vents into Aldric's shoulder, and used the main blade to limit how much his head could move, and instantly his suit began to heat up white-hot; Aldric began screaming in pain as his flesh burned and sizzled, and Cinder only pushed _harder -_ skipping straight past melting the armor and going to _boiling_ it off.

Aldric clenched his left fist and, with all of its strength backed up by his semblance, lunged downwards and locked it around Cinder's wrist, using the plasma not two feet away as a fuel source to steal excited electrons and electrocute Cinder so badly that, by the time it was over, she was openly smoldering, hands spasming, aura flickering across her body, and her blade sliding across Aldric's chest and going inactive without her grip. It clattered to the ground next to them, and Aldric collapsed - allowing Cinder to force herself back into it. She straddled Aldric and slammed each fist into Aldric's face. A left, a right, another left, Aldric's head whipped back and forth with each impact, his face soon splitting open and leaking blood, his nose bent at a horrible angle and his cheeks swelling up.

Then the elevator slammed into the ground with a sound reminiscent of a car crash: Glass and metal breaking and bending. Cinder and Aldric each were thrown out of the elevator and deep into the Vault, both of them coughing and groaning in pain. It took two entire minutes for them to recover, it taking all of Aldric's strength just to get to his knees, while Cinder was already stumbling to the side on her feet, hand held out and the hilt of her blade sliding across the ground, as though pulled by a length of string.

Aldric coughed and groaned, voice wavering in pain as he tried everything he could to force himself to his feet. One look at the hole she'd burned in his armor told him everything he needed to know: It was right above his heart. She was playing coy, be it intentionally or otherwise. From this chink in his armor, this veritable Achilles Heel, she could do whatever she wanted: Fake his death, or actually carry it out.

Bracing himself against the wall and using his cybernetic hand to haul himself upright, Aldric, shoulders slumped, organic arm hanging limply, some blood leaking from his mouth and his entire body feeling like one giant bruise, he turned his head over to the side and saw, in the center of the vault, half buried in rubble, Ozpin's body - his cane impaled in his chest and covered in his own blood.

 _Huh..._ Aldric lethargically turned back to Cinder, feeling his radar slowly constrict. _I guess she really did kill 'im..._ He clenched his right hand tightly, forcing it to work again and brushing his skin against his jaw, wiping the blood from his face and smearing it across his left cheek.

Aldric witnessed the blade she'd lost slide across the ground and then shoot through the air, landing in Cinder's palm and then sparking to life. Aldric met Cinder's eyes, and saw a fire in them that had nothing to do with the blade in her hands. With a tired groan, Aldric tried to do the same for his, able to see his blade mere feet in front of him, but it didn't respond to his commands. With a curse from the Master, the Maiden braced herself and then charged forward, blade aimed right for Aldric's chest.

But then, distantly: _"Ash!"_

* * *

In any other situation, even ignoring the force multiplier that was Jaune's sword, Grimm numbering even in this many would be child's play for the number of Huntsmen and Huntresses fighting them.

But this wasn't any other situation. There was a _dragon_ augmenting the Grimm in a way none of the assembled fighters were truly prepared for, because for the first time in history, the Grimm were employing _tactics._ _Intelligence._ They knew to avoid Jaune's blade else court instant death, they knew to keep Yang and Ecru separated, and they knew to stay out of Pyrrha's range. And then, of course, was the dragon itself, appearing to _lead_ them, as it focused, of all things, on _Ruby._ It was all the Rose could do to stay out of the Dragon's reach, constantly sprinting away with her semblance and employing hit-and-run tactics on what Grimm she could reach. Pyrrha and the impromptu team had hardly moved an inch after clashing with the Grimm, Ecru's initial plan to focus on the dragon had been thrown to the wayside, left only with the pandemonium of having to deal with smart Grimm.

And through it all, Pyrrha's sense of impending doom, for both herself and for Ash, was only growing higher and higher. She would dispatch one Grimm only for two more to rush her from either side, forcing her to leap away. She would take to the sky with her semblance, only for a flying Grimm to come screaming in and crashing into her, throwing her right back into the fray. She would shoot at the Grimm and they would scatter, finding cover or - in displays she knight couldn't fathom - would _be_ cover for the others.

Pyrrha, her back to the fountain, could just barely see inside the tower's main entrance, dark as it was. Her expression was half determined and half worried sick, as she tried to figure out some sort of way through this. What surprised her, however, was that it wasn't her to come up with the solution.

No, the solution came in a shower of rose petals, as Ruby came in for a landing and sliced apart several Beowolves, buying her and Pyrrha seconds before the dragon would arrive and try to burn them alive.

 _"Pyrrha! Idea!"_ Ruby shouted out in rapid fire, as she blasted two Grimm and forced them to scatter. _"The tower! Funnel them! We -"_ She gasped, head snapping up and silver eyes aglow with fear, before she vanished.

Pyrrha saw the shadow before anything else, and she threw herself forward with her semblance, leaping out of the way of a giant molten fireball that blew apart the ground where she and Ruby had just been standing, setting the whole area ablaze and even incinerating some of the Grimm.

 _Funnel?_ Pyrrha wondered, rolling to her feet and spinning around in a full circle, slicing apart the calves and tendons of several Grimm around her, before smashing the side of her shield into the flank of one, and burying her spear into the neck of another. _What does she -_ Pyrrha was sent flying forward by a raging boarbatusk, but found that she hadn't felt the impact at all.

A glance over her shoulder as she landed told her all she needed to know: Ash's shield had taken the hit.

And that was when it clicked: While not necessarily capable of creating a shield wall like the armies of old, Ruby wanted to do the next best thing, and line everyone up in Beacon's lobby. The front entrance would bottleneck the Grimm and make them easier to deal with, so long as they had one or two of them to do it with. Ruby could then attract the attention of the dragon, but the question would be which of them would fight it?

Pyrrha's attention turned to Jaune as she backpedaled away from an attacking Griffon. Would his sword be able to damage the dragon?

She shook her head - they'd have to gamble on it, there was no other option. Any less than two people bottlenecking the Grimm would be ineffective and would let some slip past for whoever ascended the tower to help Ash, and as strong as Yang and Ecru were, Ecru's aura had already broken and he highly doubted Yang could punch the dragon as well as she'd done the Nevermore at the beginning of the year.

So, Ruby's idea in mind and a plan having formed around it, Pyrrha raised her shield and prepared to charge. She paused, however, sparing her shield a glance as several Grimm came to surround her. Hers was already damaged and mangled, claw marks marring its surface, and what she needed to do right now - she worried her shield may not survive.

So, with a frown, she deigned to borrow Ash's - just for the moment. With her semblance, she focused hard - the concentration required for the strange metal his shield was made from - before she used it to swap out her shield with his. Now armed with his star-spangled defender, Pyrrha launched herself forward, crashing into the Grimm and stabbing viciously at them with her spear, it shooting back and forth with multiple gunshots. She tore through the Grimm, filling the air with the dark clouds of smoke, and she took more than a few passing glances to her back, feeling her aura slowly drain, before she broke through their defensive line and made it to Yang.

The Grimm immediately redoubled their assault, knowing how bad of an idea it was to keep the two of them together - but Pyrrha didn't let her momentum die down. She rammed the broad side of the shield into Yang's back and used her semblance to keep the brawler from falling to her hands and knees. Getting the hint, Yang joined her in circling around Beacon Tower's fountain, the two of them, with an ever-increasing horde of Grimm at their feet, rushed towards Ecru, who, though bloodied, was sending Grimm flying with each heavy swing of her bat.

With Yang and Pyrrha both working towards this goal, they broke through Ecru's Grimm just as fast as they reached it, and now with the three of them, they rushed for Jaune. The Arc looked terrible, exhausted and covered in sweat. Each swing of his blade accompanied an agonized shout of effort, but also preceded a flash of light and a burning Grimm. With three Huntresses rushing towards him to assist, it took even _less_ effort to get him out of there - but Ecru was forced to throw one of his arms over her shoulder and helping him follow them as Pyrrha led them to the tower.

Behind them, just as they cleared it, Ruby led the dragon on a merry chase, causing the giant creature to slam into the ground and destroy the fountain, causing it to crumble into rubble. As it recovered and shook some giant chunks of debris from its head, Ruby changed course and followed her allies, the entire group sprinting for the tower. Over the sounds of the dragon's roar and the wild calls of the Grimm behind them, the motley crew reached Beacon Tower.

In the distance, as they skidded to a halt and turn to tackle the approaching horde of Grimm head on, Pyrrha saw a battle waging inside of a busted open elevator. She couldn't see much through the thick cloud of smoke that had risen up in the wake of the elevator's impact with the ground, but what she could see painted the picture clearly: Two glowing blades, one straight and blue, the other wavering, serrated, and red, clashing at a frantic pace, filling the air even so far away with the distant sound of zaps and the flashes of white light as they hit eachother. For a moment, Pyrrha had hope that they might be able to reach Ash, but the universe chose instead to take this hope away from her, as the elevator suddenly and unceremoniously plummeted out of sight, taking Aldric and the Maiden along with it.

Pyrrha, holding tightly to Ash's shield, about-faced, nimbly spinning her sword in her fingers, it elongating and thinning out until taking on the form of a spear, which she held tightly as she and the others braced for battle. The Grimm were seconds away, a horde of oily black shielded by white exoskeletons, led by the dragon looming above them.

Pyrrha swallowed thickly, "we stand here." She declared, forcing her voice to calm.

Ruby picked up, she seeming to be far more collected than the older of the two. "Yang, Ecru, Jaune you guys need to stay here, at the front. We can funnel them through this door." Pyrrha saw the brawler and the batter each nod, determined expressions settling on their faces, while the swordsman steeled himself, breathing heavily.

"And the dragon?" Pyrrha asked, hoping beyond hope that Ruby wouldn't say what she thought she would.

But Ruby proved her right, and wrong, by saying, "did you see it earlier? It could have hit the tower but it didn't... So I think as long as we're in here we'll be safe. But you and me need to move fast -"

Pyrrha nodded, picking up on Ruby's line of thought and turning towards the direction of the elevators. "They may figure out to fly or break in while we wait."

Pyrrha and Ruby sprinted off just as Yang and Ecru opened fire, indiscriminately laying waste to Grimm and trying to stem the tide as best they could before the veritable tidal wave of Grimm would reach them, and Jaune took up a defensive stance between the two, shield and sword held high and ready. Pyrrha was unable to force herself to ignore the sounds of the Grimm howling and dying, and the rapidly growing sounds of the three of them engaging in a melee, especially when she realized that as much as they could bottleneck the Grimm, _some_ would still make it through. A look over her shoulder confirmed this: For every ten Grimm that got destroyed by the defenders, one managed to slip past the chaos. Jaune noticed a few and tried to intercept, only to be accosted by others and have to deal with them, or risk the already crumbling integrity of their defense.

So Pyrrha made a call: "Ruby!" Ozpin had told her about Ruby, about people with silver eyes and their skill in battle, and she had to bank everything - Ash's life included - that he had been right. Ruby looked over at Pyrrha as they reached the elevator, and nearly stumbled over herself when Ash's shield was thrust into her arms, but she got no time to question it, as Pyrrha turned her to the elevator and pushed her with nothing more than a _"Go!"_ Before she turned to face the oncoming Grimm.

Now alone, Ruby slid Ash's shield to the weapon mount on her back and leapt into the elevator shaft. She stuck the blade of Crescent Rose into the wall to slow her descent, and soon all that was there to accompany her was the sound of metal splitting metal and the sparks that filled the air as a result. Ruby steeled herself as she reached whatever basement the tower had underneath it, and swung out of the elevator shaft, using her scythe as a pendulum from which to do so.

Time slowed down as she saw Ash, leaned up against a wall and covered in his own blood, staring down who Ruby recognized from the tournaments as Cinder Fall - and her eyes widened when she saw Cinder armed with a sword almost _exactly_ like Ash's, differing only in color and its longsword design.

Acting fast, as she reached the apex of her leap, Ruby called out, _"Ash!"_ And with her semblance, threw his shield towards him like a Frisbee, flower petals trailing behind the spinning disc.

* * *

Aldric blinked, eyes shooting open wide and seeing Ruby swinging out of the destroyed elevator shaft. With Cinder still charging him, Aldric grinned languidly, straightening up. " _Ruby... I'm done. I'm gonna need, like... Five minutes -"_ But he realized that something else had followed Ruby.

Or rather, she'd brought it with her.

He saw his shield hurtling towards him, a few rose petals trailing behind it.

Aldric nodded his head to the side, _"never mind -"_ He thrust his hand out and the shield sped past Cinder and fell into place. _"WE'RE BACK IN BUSINESS!"_

Cinder came within feet of him.

He dropped to his knee.

Cinder raised her sword high for a decapitating strike.

Aldric secured his shield to his arm.

Cinder reached him.

Aldric raised his shield, teeth bared.

Cinder swung.

The blade slammed into his shield and sparks began flying as though someone had lit off a steel wool sparkler. All Aldric could hear was the sound of plasma grinding against metal, Cinder's sword trying its absolute best to melt Aldric's shield. Aldric's knee was pressed into the ground as though he were shouldering the weight of a mountain - Cinder was using all of her power to try to win this. Aldric, in response, used his to push _back,_ and in seconds the ground was shaking and the air was howling, it joined soon by Aldric and Cinder alike as they began roaring out in defiance of eachother. The Maiden who had spent her entire life earning her power, and the Master who had spent the last two years systematically stealing his. The ground splintered underneath them and the vault was set ablaze by the flying sparks. Soon the two of them were on a lone island situated in the epicenter of a crater that only grew larger as their struggle continued.

Then, Aldric saw something.

A spot of light on his shield.

Not from the growing fires or a or even the sparks flying in all directions, but from the shield itself.

His eyes began to grow wide, as did the spot of light, until it was a thick line of glowing, white-hot metal.

Aldric felt sweat begin pouring down his head, knowing he couldn't do anything about this without giving her the advantage.

But then, a lot closer: _"ASH!"_

Aldric looked over his mechanical bicep and saw Ruby taking aim. The Rose slammed the blade of her scythe into the ground to steady it, before she pointed at Cinder. She fired, and the slug shot towards the Maiden.

Cinder, however, was able to deflect it without a second's thought, and send a fireball their way - but this momentary lapse in concentration gave Aldric the chance he needed to lunge upwards. He shoved his shield to the side and slid Cinder's blade off of it, calling his back to his side as he rammed his fist into Cinder's stomach. She stumbled back, and Aldric chopped at Cinder's throat with his shield. She caught it with her hand and, sensing the awkwardness of their position, killed her blade, stowed it on her back, and then tried to uppercut him from beneath the shield. He blocked it with his metal hand, the impact of her fist on his palm sending out a small shockwave and causing the entire vault to shake, filling the air with clouds of dust and debris. Aldric shoved it back, but she grabbed ahold of his shield with both arms and then twisted it violently, trying to tear it from his grip. Aldric flipped into the direction she torqued his arm, but roundhoused her on his way over, causing her to stumble back and let go of him as he landed.

His sword returned to him, but he didn't have the time to ignite it - the ground at his feet detonated, forcing him to run. When he landed this time, he sensed Ruby charging deeper. Aldric gritted his teeth and ignited his blade, and as Ruby grew closer, she did so just in time to see 'Ash' charge the Maiden.

He stabbed at her, at an upward angle.

She lunged at him, both arms held straight out.

Skidding to a halt, for a moment, Ruby couldn't understand what she was seeing - she only saw the two of them, leaned forward, their glowing blades sticking out from behind their opponent. The dust, smoke, and debris of their battle making any finer details too hazy to make out.

But then she saw Aldric's fizzle out, blue smoke wafting from its hilt. Now lit from within the smoke of battle only by a deep, harsh, blood red light, Ruby saw him stumble forward, heard his ravaged cough, and witnessed his shield hit the ground as his hand grasped Cinder's shoulder, it the only thing keeping him conscious.

Her eyes grew wide as she saw Cinder dig the blade further into Aldric's chest, her own heart practically stopping when she heard his anguished grunt of pain.

"You tried, Goud Etiolate." She heard Cinder gloat. "But clearly... Not hard enough." She tore her blade out of his body.

Ruby limply watched as Ash collapsed, a hole gaping in his chest, right around where she knew the heart to be, and the rest of his chest glowing brightly from the aftermath of Cinder's last attack. Her jaw slowly fell open as his body crumpled beneath him. He fell to his knees, his back folded in on itself, and his arms fell to his sides. Then she felt tears well up in her eyes as she watched Cinder viciously raise her blade, and slice it across his chest, before ramming her heel into it for good measure.

Aldric fell to the ground.

And he wasn't breathing.

Cinder's gaze lifted, and that was when she realized Ruby was even here in the first place.

Cinder gasped, eyes snapping open wide.

 _" **ASH!"**_

 _"NO!"_ Screamed Cinder, as Ruby became enveloped in a halo of pure white light.

* * *

Her aura depleted, arms burning from effort, ammunition depleted, weapons growing dull and damaged from overuse, and back to the elevator shaft, Pyrrha kept cutting at the endless hordes of Grimm. She knew she was out of time, and that she had no idea how to get everyone - least of all Ash - out of here alive. The Grimm kept coming, and they only got smarter, the Dragon having attached to the tower and began pouring Grimm into the upper floors. The entire assemblage of Pyrrha, Yang, Ecru, and Jaune had all been forced back to the elevator. Pyrrha _thought_ she could see activity outside, beyond merely more Grimm showing up, but she was so focused on not dying that she couldn't figure out what it was.

She didn't realize something had gone horribly wrong - or perhaps horribly _right? -_ until all of the Grimm surrounding them suddenly froze, seizing up and then writhing, screaming and howling as though they all were in some kind of pain. Pyrrha, gasping for air, wiped some sweat and blood from her eyes - and immediately felt Jaune fall into her when the ground started shaking, in the worst earthquake she'd ever felt.

 _What the -_ But before she could even question it, a pillar of white light shot up through the elevator shaft, shooting out of the open doors and spilling out into everything present. Pyrrha suddenly felt winded, as though all of the strength and stamina she had left had been stolen form her at the snap of a pair of fingers. Jaune lost consciousness entirely, Yang and Ecru had to brace against eachother, and the Grimm -

The Grimm began vanishing, exploding into clouds of black smoke and fading away, and that was when Pyrrha realized that this wasn't good or bad.

It was both.

Ruby had awakened her powers.

But what had caused her to do so?

She looked at the elevator shaft, but had to turn away as the light grew blinding and the earth shook harder, stealing Pyrrha's feet out from underneath her. She thought she could distantly hear the dragon shrieking out in pain, but the light and the ringing welling up in her ears made her not sure if it was that, or just the Grimm around them dying.

Whatever it was, it ended just as soon as it started, and it left only an eerie, dead silence in its wake, the only sound being that of wind blowing across Beacon's grounds.

Feeling a fuzzy numbness in her chest, Pyrrha first checked Jaune to ensure he was still alive, and after confirming he'd merely lost consciousness, she lumbered over to the elevator shaft. Fully intending to plant her sword in the wall and jump in, she found herself stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

"Whoa, kid." She heard a voice rasp. "Hold on." She turned to find Qrow standing behind her, pushing her to the side and frowning at the elevator shaft.

"Mister Qrow -"

But Qrow shook his head. "Beacon's lost, kid. The terrans aren't helping us and that Dragon's doing too much for the White Fang's help to mean anything. I'll go down and get them, you take your friends and -"

But he was interrupted by a pained grunt from Yang, who shoved off of Ecru and advanced on Qrow, a hand pressed to her side. "That's my sister down there, Uncle Qrow. And our friend." She shook her head, "we're not waiting."

"You're half dead." Qrow pointed out.

"It's the other half that matters." Yang indicated one of the other elevator doors, "can any of these take us down?"

Qrow sighed, "not with the power out, kiddo." He said, leaning into the elevator shaft and looking down. "Good news, though..." He picked up his sword and rammed it into the wall, before prying off a plate, that revealed a lever hidden inside. "Oz always plans ahead." He took the lever in his hands and began cranking it, causing hundreds of other plates to begin splitting open, revealing a ladder that would lead down to the vault.

Ecru spoke up, as she lumbered over to Jaune. "I..." She gasped. "I can't make that climb." She said, nursing a nasty head wound and a limp arm, her bat hooked into one of her belt loops. "I'll... I'll get him out of here."

"You do that." Qrow nodded, as he hopped onto the ladder and descended without another word, taking the rungs two or three at a time.

Pyrrha and Yang, exhausted as they were, followed him, their pace far slower.

Pyrrha prayed that the continued, albeit weaker, quakes of the earth weren't indicative of something terrible she'd find down there.

* * *

 _This_ was why he'd saved his magic.

Call it a spell, call it a contingency, call it a gamble that shouldn't have paid off, call it whatever one would like, the results were the same: He'd shunted as much magic power into his bloodstream as he possibly could the moment after Cinder had stabbed him with her lightsaber. This magic turned to stem cells, which he knew were functionally magic in the biology field, capable of staving off aging, curing diseases and, most importantly, fixing otherwise unfixable wounds and conditions, and since Aldric knew he'd be walking out of this with a pretty sizeable hole in his chest, he'd decided to just pour pretty much everything he had into making the stem cells.

The good news was that he didn't feel a breeze in his chest.

The bad news was - _JESUS!_ It felt like someone had skinned him alive, left the nerve endings, set his entire body on fire, drowned it in salt water, and then set it on fire again. He was in agony, he felt a weakness in him that he hadn't since his first fight with Cubone, an emptiness he hadn't ever experienced before, and to top it all off his entire body felt fuzzy, tired, and exhausted. Sensations felt distant, sounds felt muffled, colors muted, it was as though he were experiencing the entire world through six layers of cloth. This separation, the simultaneously agonizing and terrible pain and the distant sensations, it felt as though both his body and his mind were broken, and it only served to make the anguish afflicting him all the worse.

 _Okay... I better open my eyes. Assess the..._ He paused, realizing that whatever was under his back wasn't metal, or fur, and he couldn't feel the vibrations of an engine keeping him in the air.

They weren't on the back of a Grimm getting the fuck out of dodge. They weren't in the aviator. They weren't in the pelican.

 _Oh..._ He opened his eyes. _God..._ He groaned, it degenerating into a long, airy sigh. _Fuck._

The vault was getting ready to fall apart. The ceiling had huge fissures running through it, chunks of stone were openly cracking off and falling to the ground, dust was streaming constantly, the ground shook with each impact. Most of the pillars running the sides of the vault had already fallen to pieces, it looked like the entire goddamn place was ready to implode any minute.

Aldric tried to turn over to his side, but doing so instantly filled him with a horrendous pain, as though his entire skeleton had been replaced with broken, jagged glass, that every movement risked breaking him further. He often liked to use the phrase 'it was everything he could do' to describe his doing something requiring great effort, but this was one of the few - if the _only one -_ instances where it literally took everything he had inside of him just to turn over to his side. He was left panting, exhausted, streaming sweat, left arm pinned under his chest and right arm limply pressed to his back, with just the effort of turning to his side.

 _This... This is Ruby?_ He asked himself, needing to take the time to rest his eyes, to recover some minuscule amount of strength. _This is... This is what she can do? What people **like** her can do?_ He didn't know if he was feeling it worse because he was a Master, or if this was literally what _anyone_ with aura would feel if they were subjected to a Silver Eyed Warrior's wrath. _Side note..._ He took in a deep breath, steeling himself. _Need... Shorter term... I'm thinking 'Templar'._ He opened his eyes again to examine the carnage around him.

And he didn't like what he found.

If the ceiling above him, the roof that kept the underground vault from collapsing, was damaged, then the ground beneath it looked like a wasteland. Giant piles of rubble strewn about everywhere, with ever more falling down from above with every passing second. There were fires creating small plumes of smoke that wafted upwards. The ground was torn open with fissures as wide as cars and deep as canyons. Ozpin's body had fallen into one of these, gone forever, Cinder was barely visible, her scarred, openly bleeding, burned body resting atop a pile of rubble, one arm in front of her, and one hand dug into the rocks, as though she had tried to claw her way to freedom and safety, but had suffered just as Aldric and had simply fallen victim to the aftereffects of Ruby's titanic power.

And Ruby -

 _Oh... Jesus._

Ruby was, obviously, at the epicenter of all of this. Waves of devastation spreading outwards, and small streams of dust and debris falling right onto her from above. She was at the base of a large pile of rubble, and had miraculously managed to being buried by this due to the intervention of two large pillars falling around her, creating a veritable barrier around which the pile of debris flowed. But while she was stuck in a pit between a literal rock and a hard place, Aldric dragged his eyes upwards, following the trail of dust to the ceiling, where he found, to his mounting horror, that her luck was running out: A giant, jagged hunk of detritus was getting ready to fall, the dust streaming from its sides slowly picking up speed and growing in volume until it looked as though someone had just taken a sandcastle and dumped it out. Aldric could tell that this thing would hit her wholesale, falling between the pillars that shielded her thus far, it would spear her and end her life in an instant.

 _Oh... Kay._ Aldric swallowed thickly. _Okay... Okay, c'mon, Neb..._ He gasped for air. _Think... Think, think, think..._ The quickly escalating heartbeat in his chest was only making the pain worse, but he had to fight through it to try and find a way out of this.

He couldn't try and move over to her, to use his body - and, specifically, his suit - to shield hers. His right arm could barely twitch, let alone drag him along the ground, and as strong as it was, moving his left arm required him first to get off of it, which was clearly out of the equation, any more pain would probably black him out before he could get something productive done.

 _Pain... Fuck!_ He gasped, some spittle flying from his mouth. _I've... I've gotta..._ He gritted his teeth, but his body wouldn't obey his commands and _move_! _I've gotta..._ He blinked. _Gotta..._ And an idea formed in his head.

His eyes slowly dragged downwards, where he saw his shield and the lightsaber, discarded mere inches away from where he'd fallen, and then further down, to his belt.

 _Now... That could work._ He swallowed thickly and, with every twitch of his leaden hand, forced it closer and closer to one of the pouches on his hip, aiming for one in particular - the very one in which he kept one of the few unshrunken artifacts from his plane crash. It filled his body with more of the mind-breaking agony, it refusing to clear up even as his brain instinctually flooded it with endorphins. But progress, while slow, was still progress, and after a minor eternity, he was able to reach the pocket and pop it open.

Out soon tumbled a small, orange bottle, with a white top, it filled with dozens of small capsules.

Aldric gasped with effort, his head covered with sweat and face red with both pain and effort. He slid his hand far enough that it was able to fall from his hip like a lead weight, and then was able to reach the pillbottle just as he noticed larger pebbles beginning to fall down to Ruby. Running out of time, Aldric gripped the pill bottle and popped the top off with his thumb, it feeling as though it would shatter into pieces as the plastic resisted the action. He stopped concentrating as hard at this, and allowed his hand to spasm in pain for a few seconds, which caused the small, powdery-white pills to come spilling out.

He scooped two, and slowly pushed them over to his face. Cheek pressed into the ground, Aldric opened his lips and stuck out his tongue, lapping up the pills, before slowly pushing them to the corners of his jaw, and biting down _hard._

 _Crunch_ ,went the pills in his mouth, instantly filling it with their contents. He crunched down a second time before gathering as much saliva as he could, and swallowing.

It took twenty seconds before they kicked in, and soon, all of the pain melted away, losing the fight against Aldric's recovered stash of oxycodone.

Aldric coughed once, then again, entire body suddenly feeling empty as the pain evaporated. He convulsed for a moment, before he planted his hand on the ground and pushed. Feeling stronger now in the absence of pain, he pushed as hard as he could, and was able to force himself up to a seated position, and then, unsteadily, he rose to his feet. A small warmth had appeared in his chest, Aldric could barely recognize it as the fuzziest remnants of the power he had exercised so much of tonight, and he immediately put it to use as a crutch to help him to his feet.

He stumbled over to his right, now standing just above his weapons and leaning against a pile of debris, both hands bracing him against it.

 _Let that... Be a lesson, kids..._ Aldric thought, rubbing his metal against his suddenly numb face. _There exists no problem that can't be fixed with controlled substances..._ So long as one ignored the fact that his throat was dry, he was pretty sure there was still some remnants of the pills in it, and it felt as though his tongue was twice its normal size and fuzzy as all get-out.

Aldric opened the eyes he hadn't realized he'd close, and then blinked in confusion as he noticed a shadow growing around him. Wasn't that a Zelda enemy? Was he about to be teleported to the beginning of the dungeon? How'd he kill them there, he had to -

 _"Oh shit!"_ Aldric fell to his knee and thrust his hands skyward, his semblance immediately grabbing ahold of a huge pile of debris that had broken loose from the ceiling, it feeling as though he were trying to keep the entire world from falling apart, as though he were Atlas, with the world on his shoulders.

Then, of course, things went from bad to worse - as this pile of debris had a destabilizing effect on the whole ceiling, and soon Cinder was being buried first in dust, and soon to follow piles of stone. Aldric had to throw his hand out to the side and split his waning power between both piles of debris, the muscles in his organic arm straining wildly underneath his skin and the servos in his mechanical limb grinding loudly, the telekinetic strain having a physical effect on his body.

But of course, the world wasn't done yet - because through the slowly descending piles of debris, Aldric could just see, past his own mounting pile of death, Ruby's death sentence beginning to obey gravity.

 _"Fuck!"_ Aldric gasped, a dollop of blood spraying out from his mouth, his head feeling as though it were in a vice grip.

Aldric tried to grab ahold of his shield with his semblance, but that resulted in the debris over his head falling several inches and picking up speed. He let go of his shield and focused more on his debris, but that nearly killed Cinder as he tried to find his balance again, the result being his debris nearly touching his metal palm and Cinder's hovering a few feet over her back, and _both_ piles still slowly descending.

 _Okay..._ Aldric gasped. _Okay... Think._ He felt short of breath, it was taking more and more effort to keep everything from literally falling apart, he thought he could _feel_ his muscles shearing themselves apart inside his arm and his chest. _Think - think faster!_ _C'mon, come -_ But then his concentration slipped. The briefest of hiccups as he took in just one shallow, ragged breath.

Aldric was buried in the time it took him to blink. Cinder's left side was crushed moments later. There was so much weight on him that Aldric could barely breathe, and he was pretty sure it shouldn't feel as though something was spilling out of his thigh as freely as it was.

 _Plan B..._ He thought, faintly. _Plan B..._ His entire body was convulsing, his leg was feeling warm and wet, the entire world was fading away. _Plan..._ He only had enough power, enough effort, for one last act. _B..._ He used what he had left to pick up his shield, it now hovering just a few inches over the ground.

Just as the stone that would kill Ruby finally fell from the ceiling, he threw the shield at Ruby.

It slid into place between the two fallen pillars just as the giant rock made it to ground. The boulder hit the star on the shield and quickly began shattering to pieces, burying Ruby, but otherwise leaving her unharmed.

Aldric blacked out.

* * *

 _"Ruby!"_ He heard a loud, raspy voice call out.

 _"Ruby!_ " Came a female voice, before being joined by a much more panicked woman's similar cries.

 _"Ruby!"_ He heard the third voice scream, _"Ruby! Ash!"_

 _"Beebee!"_ The second voice added. _"Ash, come on!"_

Aldric was freezing cold. His entire body was numb. When he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness. He had been buried by rubble, he could just barely see a huge stone pressing against his chest, restricting his breathing.

But he felt his power. A tiny amount - barely a thimble full - bubbling beneath the chill. Was that his soul? Was that literally _everything_ he had left? That small shot of energy that, when faded away, would signal his death? Or was it that minor amount of aura his body had desperately scrounged up to keep him alive?

 _"Ruby! Ruby where are you?! Answer me!"_ This voice almost sounded like Qrow's.

 _Just one more..._ Aldric wheezed, as he shut his eyes. _Let me do just one more thing..._

He felt out with his radar pulse. He saw Qrow, Yang, and Pyrrha desperately searching the ruined vault, as even more rubble streamed down from the collapsing tower above them. They were randomly throwing aside bits of rubble, digging into promising-looking piles, and leaving red-eyed and holding back tears. Or actively sobbing in Pyrrha's case, as she screamed the names of both of her friends.

But none of them had found Ruby, buried under several layers of rubble, protected by the ever-faithful star-spangled shield, or even Cinder, partially hidden by the debris pile that had crushed her left half.

 _Just one more..._ There was so little left inside of him that to compare it to how he'd woken up today would be like comparing a firecracker to a fission bomb. He could only do one more thing, and when he did it, that would be it. He remembered what happened last time he used _literally_ everything he had. If he did this, that would be his last act. It would be all of his power, and all of his everything. When he used this last bit of his power, he would die. He knew it.

He just had to pray his backup plans would pan out without him.

 _Just one more..._ He thought, focusing everything on the rubble right above his shield. _Push!_

And he did.

It didn't blast into the air like he'd hoped, but he'd caused enough of a 'hiccup' in the rubble, that Qrow, nearby, saw the movements. He sprinted over to her.

 _"Ruby! Uncle Qrow's here!"_ He screamed, desperately, as he wedged his sword in between two larger stones and pried them off, as Yang and Pyrrha dashed over to help.

When they unearthed enough rubble to see Aldric's dust-covered shield, Pyrrha gasped. _"Ash!"_ And two of them threw more chunks of stone in every direction, with Qrow briefly scanning over the entire vault, before he assisted in prying the shield out of the rubble, and revealing Ruby, covered in dust and debris, and unconscious, but otherwise untouched.

 _"Ruby!"_ Qrow shouted, as he stowed his scythe on his back and bent down to pick up his niece, bridal-style.

"But -" Pyrrha sputtered, looking from the dust-covered shield in her hands, eyes filled with dread at the paint that had been melted off of its center, the horrendous scorch marks that marred the rest of it, and then looking around the crumbling vault. "But where's -"

But she was interrupted by yet more debris falling from the ceiling.

 _"We need to go!"_ Qrow shouted over the sounds of the vault imploding around them.

 _"WHAT?!"_ Pyrrha rounded on Qrow. "Ash is still in here and he saved her! We have to -" But Qrow rounded on _her_ and slapped her hard enough to be heard even over the crumbling vault and the collapsing tower, leaving her stunned.

"You told me he was fighting the Maiden! That means that kid was so weak he had two choices: Use that shield to save himself, or use that shield to save Ruby!" Qrow yelled over the showers of rubble. "He made his choice! And if we don't get out of here, his sacrifice will be meaningless!"

"No!" Pyrrha cried. "No we have to -"

"Pyrrha!" Now it was Yang, as Aldric's world was suddenly enveloped in darkness, the radar gone, the power along with it. "Pyrrha, he's right! Beebee..." She sounded hesitant, before steeling herself. "Goud is dead! We need to get out of here!" And the longer they spoke, the further away they sounded.

Aldric couldn't make out the rest of their argument, furthermore he was pretty sure he couldn't feel his heartbeat anymore, but one of the last things he heard was the three of them leaving, and soon after, the sound of more rubble hitting his pile, driving the rock over his chest even closer to it. He literally could not breathe anymore, though with the absence of a heartbeat, that wasn't necessarily the worst thing.

 _I..._ He wondered, faintly. _This is..._ Was it really a _bad_ thing he was dying? _Good..._ Considering all he'd done? _Isn't it?_

God, Aldric felt exhausted.

So he went to sleep.


	58. Fox Die Ja Nai

_AN:_

 _Two and a half years, fifty six chapters and a prologue, and we finally got the fight I've been promising._

 _God **damn** I'm glad you all liked it so much._

 _So, that's about... A third of the story done, if I had to predict._

 _Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe two. Maybe._

 _Regardless, let's go on, shall we?_

* * *

Chapter 57

* * *

01101111(072)01101000(101)01100111(108)01101111(108)01100100(111)01110111(063)01101000(013)01111001(010)

01101001(073)01110011(115)01101001(032)01110100(116)01110011(104)01101111(101)01100011(114)01101111(101)

01101100(032)01100100(097)01101000(110)01100101(121)01101100(098)01110000(111)01110011(100)01101111(121)

01101101(032)01110101(105)01100011(110)01101000(032)01110000(116)01100001(104)01101001(101)01101110(114)

01101000(101)01100101(063)01101100(013)01110000(010)01101101(074)01100101(117)01110000(115)01101100(116)

01100101(032)01100001(110)01110011(111)01100101(100)01101000(032)01100101(105)01101100(102)01110000(032)

01110000(121)01101100(111)01100101(117)01100001(032)01110011(099)01100101(097)01101000(110)01100101(032)

01101100(104)01110000(101)01100011(097)01100001(114)01101110(032)01110100(109)01110011(101)01100101(046)

01100101(013)01100011(010)01100001(073)01101110(115)01110100(032)01100110(116)01100101(104)01100101(101)

01101100(114)01100011(101)01100001(032)01101110(097)01110100(110)01101000(121)01100101(111)01100001(110)

01110010(101)01101000(032)01100101(104)01101100(111)01110000(109)01101000(101)01100101(063)01101100()01110000

* * *

The first thing Ruby Rose felt as she slowly roused herself to consciousness was the familiar feeling of a warm bed beneath her back.

She opened her eyes and found herself in her room - _her_ room, she realized belatedly. Not her dorm or the hospital, but her room back in Patch.

But what was strange was that, when she turned her head, she could see bars on the window.

Ruby blinked, frowning as she slowly lifted herself up.

Then, as she ran her hand through her hair, she heard a familiar voice gasp, and she was soon wrapped up in a pair of powerful arms. _"Ruby!"_ Her father cooed, the smile as evident in his voice as it was in the strength with which he hugged his daughter.

Ruby was able to slide her hands out from between her and her father's chests and reciprocated the embrace, "hi, Dad!" She gasped, voice muffled by his chest, his warmth spreading into her body and leaving a feeling of comfort behind.

"Wait, Dad -" He let go of her, the expression on his face making it clear to her that he knew what she was going to ask. "Dad, what happened?" She asked, silver eyes wide, beseeching him to give her the answer she wanted to hear, and he wanted to give. "Everything's... Fuzzy."

But he looked away, slowly sinking back into his seat, frowning in pain. "Ah... Uncle Qrow found you, unconscious." He said, slowly. "He got you out of Beacon and brought you here... They've got a safe zone set up in Vale, but they've been evacuating most of the wounded and non-combatants here." He explained.

This jogged her memory a bit, and she asked, "what about the school? And the Grimm?" She asked, earnestly, hands clenching into fists and bundling her blanket underneath her.

Taiyang sighed, "things in Vale are under control." He said, "the White Fang really saved our bacon, there. With them and the other kingdoms' help we managed to contain most of the damage. The school, though..." He shook his head. "The dragon is really messing things up. You did a hell of a job, but as best we can tell it isn't... _Dead,_ just frozen. And it's still attracting Grimm. We won't be able to take Beacon without an army, and the other kingdoms aren't committing, not after what we heard about Earth."

Ruby blinked, naively.

And Taiyang acquiesced, "we don't know who it was, but a bunch of huntsmen snuck through the borders and got to Earth. They killed a _lot_ of their leaders, and Earth shut down their embassies here. Pulled their armies back to Earth, refused to help Vale at first, and have been real quiet ever since. They're expecting the worst -"

"Wait..." Ruby interjected. "Wait, what did I do?"

Taiyang blinked, turning to make eye contact with his daughter. "Huh?"

"You said I did a good job... On the dragon?" Ruby tilted her head innocently.

"Oh... Uh..." Taiyang leaned back, brushing one of his callused hands through his unkempt hair. "Well... Look -" He shook his head. "That doesn't matter right now... What matters is you and Yang are safe. Your friends are holed up here, too. Things might be a mess, but - "

"Things are _always_ a mess." The two heard a deep, raspy voice speak.

Ruby blinked, and both she and Taiyang turned to see Qrow standing in the doorway, finishing off the golden liquid in his ever-present flask.

"Mind if I have a minute?" He asked, screwing the cap back on and stowing the flask on his hip.

Taiyang looked indignant, "what, I can't be here?"

Qrow beseeched Tai with a sigh and pursed lips. "Tai." Was all he said.

Taiyang and Qrow stared off, before the former shook his head and got to his feet. He leaned in to give Ruby a kiss, and she leaned into it, glad to be home with her dad. He said as much to her, before leaving to make a pot of tea, wondering aloud if Yang hadn't already finished the last one off. Qrow stepped aside to allow Taiyang to leave, and once they were alone, he stepped inside, shut the door, and sat in the seat Taiyang had been occupying.

"So." He rasped, crossing his arms. "How're you feelin' kiddo?"

Ruby mentally checked herself over, and came up with one word: "Achy." She said, "I kind of... Hurt all over." It reminded her of the first day she'd woken up her semblance, how sore she'd been after she'd spent three hours doing nothing but running.

Qrow nodded, chuckling. "Well after what you pulled off, I'm not surprised." But her silence prompted him to say, "looks like you don't remember."

She shook her head, "Dad said I did something to the dragon... But the last thing I remember I was in this big... Place, under Beacon, and -" She gasped, head shooting up. "Ash! Uncle Qrow, is Ash okay?!" She begged.

Qrow let out a long sigh, and in response, he pulled out his scroll. "Don't think I'm... Gentle enough to explain that bit." He said, typing out a message. "Don't know _what_ we'd do if the short-range comms weren't working." He said, leaning back.

Ruby was about to ask him what was going on, but before she could, someone else came and knocked on her door. She turned to it, and Qrow beckoned the new entrant to come in.

Then, standing in the slowly opening door, was Pyrrha, her eyes puffy and red, hair disheveled and in clumps, her normal armor covered up by thin, baggy casual clothes, and something big and round hanging from her back.

Confused, but her heart fluttering as she began to consider the implications, Ruby tilted her head, "Pyrrha?" She asked, "why would -" She looked to Qrow, who was forlornly eying his empty flask, then back to Pyrrha. "Pyrrha, why are you here?"

Pyrrha stepped inside, and, silently, reached behind her back. Ruby watched her do this, and her eyes grew as wide as saucers as she watched her slide the round object from the weapon mount on her back, and saw what exactly it was that was hanging from her back. Loosely held in one of her hands was Ash's shield, covered in black scorch marks, them running over its two sides like blood, the star on its center blacked out completely, and running along the shield's center, length-wise, a thin line of sterling silver and curdled metal, the paint having been burned away entirely and some of the metal having been partially molten.

It was as close to broken as Ruby had ever seen the indomitable disc, and looking at it, she felt as though someone had shoved a stake in her chest.

Ruby's hand slowly came up to cover her face, and tears began to well as she realized what this meant.

"The vault was coming down, and your friend made a choice." Qrow explained, as he nodded at Pyrrha, and she found herself a seat. "I know this hurts, but do you remember anything else?" He asked, placing the shield back on the carpet.

Ruby, feeling short of breath, shook her head. "He was... That girl, the leader of that team that hurt all the terrans..." She paused, face contorting in both pain and concentration as she tried to bring her name to mind. "Cinder..." She opened her eyes again. "They were fighting. I tried to help, but I..." Her voice shook, "I was too slow. She stabbed him and... And..." Lip quivering, she shrugged, sheepishly. "Everything went white, and my head hurt, and it still hurts, then I was here."

She noticed Qrow nod, and spare a glance Pyrrha's way, but Pyrrha's eyes were halfway between Ash's shield and the foot of Ruby's bed. With a deep sigh, he spoke up, "tell me, kiddo. Ever wonder why the Oz let you and your friends get away with all you did?" He asked, waving one of his hands in a circle. "Gigantic fight in the cafeteria, practical war against one of the world's biggest crime bosses, gathering up a bunch of students and going AWOL to launch a rescue mission?" He listed off.

Ruby frowned, "I mean..." Through the fog in her head she realized she'd never really spared it much thought.

Qrow understood, "you remember what he said to you, first night you met?" He let Ruby think a moment, and when she didn't respond, he said, "something about your eyes, right?" A beat, "silver eyes." He indicated her. "An extremely rare trait."

Ruby blinked, brow furrowing as she looked up to Qrow. "Yeah?" She tilted her head. "What's so important about that?"

Qrow leaned back in his chair, briefly breaking eye contact with Ruby as he looked up to the ceiling, "the things they don't teach these days." He chuckled, "reason they never let me pick my own curriculum." He shook his head and looked back down to her. "To make a long story short, for a very long time there's been a legend passed down about warriors with silver eyes. That they're destined to _lead_ the life of a warrior, as they're among the strongest fighters ever to live." He gave Pyrrha a nod, "only out-and-out _prodigies_ can, at their best, match one of them at their basest." A beat, "if you believe the legends, at least." He huffed.

Ruby blinked, "but, Ash and Pyrrha -"

" _Are_ those prodigies." Qrow shook his head, "but they're not silver-eyed-warriors. They lack something that people like you have... You believe the legends, your kind of warriors can strike Grimm down with just a look. Can take on entire armies on your own. Can do things..." He shook his head. "Hell, can do things that once I wouldn't have believed."

Ruby frowned, "once?"

To which, Qrow nodded. "We live in a world with space aliens whose society revolves around setting their planet on fire, and to be honest, kiddo?" He shook his head, "that's not the strangest thing I've seen in my life. Just one of them." He leaned forward, "has it clicked for you yet that I shouldn't really know what Oz said to you when you met?" He asked, before nodding at Pyrrha again, who was now paying more active attention to the conversation, having finally torn her eyes away from the floor. "Or why I didn't make her leave after she dropped the news?"

"Well..." Ruby shrugged, having not wanted to say anything.

"All those missions I tell you about? The reasons I'm at school as often as I'm not? They're for Ozpin, kiddo." He explained, "he and I... Well, suffice to say his finger was firmly on the pulse of the world, back when he was kicking. I helped out when he needed me to, was and still am in on the loop." He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. "The world's a _big_ place, kiddo, and Earth getting added into the mix only made it bigger. It's a... A very long story, but the short version would be that this isn't the first time Ozpin's died." He gave Ruby a moment to digest that information, and as her eyes shone with confusion and her jaw slowly creaked open, he continued. "I know you've heard the story of the Maidens. It was one of those things Tai and I agreed he'd tell you when you were kids." She nodded, curiosity now shining in her silver eyes as she tried to understand his meaning. "Well, that fairy-tale isn't as fictitious as everyone thinks. The Wizard, the Maidens... They all exist. They're real -"

Ruby blinked, eyes shooting over to Pyrrha. "Is - Pyrrha are you -"

But Pyrrha shook her head, pressing her lips together. "I was... In the running." She said, with a hesitant nod. "Professor Ozpin and General Ironwood had learned how to transfer the aura of a person to another, and they needed that because Cinder had stolen half of the powers of the Fall Maiden... The entire attack on Beacon was subterfuge, such that she could steal the rest of them."

Qrow picked up with, "that 'big place' under Beacon was where we were keeping her on life support, while Atlas could finish the device." He held his finger and his thumb an inch apart, "we were _this close_ to getting it, but then Cinder launched her attack and..." He trailed off, not needing to go there again.

Ruby felt light headed, from all of this information slamming into her. "But... _Why?"_ She managed to bite out.

Qrow sighed, "that's the million lien question, ain't it, kid?" He straightened back up. "Much like the Maidens exist... So does the wizard. And to make that one a much shorter story, it's Ozpin, Ruby. Whenever he dies, his soul moves on, finds another host and they begin to bond. Share memories and experiences." He explained, "but he's _like_ that because... A very long time ago, he failed to do something. The way he explains it, the Brother Gods themselves came down and cursed him to reincarnate. Whether or not that's true, it doesn't eliminate the fact that he comes back, and it implies that what he failed to do was _bad._

"Ozpin had the chance to destroy the woman who led the Grimm forever, and he failed to do so."

Ruby leaned back in bed, back pressing into her pillows, as though the weight of all of this now had a physical drag against her. "So... Cinder works for that woman?" She asked, both to make sure she was understanding his implication correctly, and in the hopes that this would expedite the conversation and give her time to digest all of this.

Qrow nodded. "They've been at war a _long_ time. Ever since they met, she's been after four relics of _immense_ magical power. Stronger than him and the four Maidens combined. He barely kept them out of her hands last time, and made it such that they could only ever be obtained by the Maidens they were linked to, and ever since then she's been preparing to make another play for them." He explained, "bringing us to today. As best as we understand, she had long since learned that humans were too tenacious to be killed by the Grimm, but we excelled at killing ourselves. Her plan, therefore, was to force humanity to enter into a war so great and terrible that, once it was done, there would be nothing left to protect the Maidens and the Relics.

"So, she found Earth, and set things up such that war between our worlds was inevitable. Cinder and her team made Earth _mad_ with their stunts, and we're pretty sure they were behind Earth's supposed cheating during their sports, as well. Then there was the guy who shot Etiolate, and a bunch of fallen huntsmen who tried to kill a lot of important people on Earth..." He shook his head. "It hasn't started yet, but pretty much all of Remnant has shut down and adopted a holding pattern, because Earth's been _very_ quiet these last few days... And it's when they _won't_ be so quiet that's worrying us."

Ruby nodded, remembering vividly how badly things had gone in Vale when the terrans had attacked, and the pictures from Atlas' battles against them. Now that the kingdoms knew how they fought and were more prepared for them, any war fought between them all would only go _worse._ She wondered if they would be lobbing any more sun-bombs over, and that _scared_ her, especially if the prospect of the aftermath of such a war was _all_ of the Grimm coming in to finish the job, and this woman getting her hands on these Relics.

But, a light of hope flickered up inside of Ruby, as her eyes briefly flickered over Ash's shield. It dawned on her that Qrow wouldn't be telling her this without a reason, and if Pyrrha was here and she was important to Ozpin, and Ruby herself apparently had some kind of value, perhaps there was a part of the plan Qrow hadn't mentioned yet?

She voiced this hope, "but... There's something we can do, right?" She asked, eyes wide.

To which, Qrow sighed. "Kind of." He said, "before the war really started, the Terrans sent some of their astronauts - the people whose job it is to go out into and study outer space - and some of their satellites to Remnant, through the wormholes she'd opened up." He explained, "they figured out just enough to know that there was more to the story than they knew... But not enough concrete evidence to call off their war. So once Remnant capitulated, they sent out some feelers to try and investigate more closely. Ozpin noticed and made contact, and to shorten that up a bit... We've got _some_ allies on Earth that know about all this." But before Ruby could get too excited, he cut her down. "But their bureaucratic machine is... Well, it's designed to oversee an entire _planet,_ not just four sections of one... So without any evidence, to avoid the war, there's not much we _can_ do. Anything we have is hearsay from Ozpin's end, from a legal standpoint." He growled, "so without finding Salem and dragging a confession out of her..." He shrugged, "our plan at the moment is to track down the other Maidens. The terrans know about them, and will want them either under their control or just out of the war in general, and Salem's after them to get the relics. So with _everyone_ looking to find them, for the moment, our best bet is to do the same.

"Our endgoal is to find Salem's associates and capture one in the course of their hunt for the Maidens. If we can drag out a location, alongside preexisting agreements from the four Kingdoms and a promise from Adam Taurus' White Fang, the Terrans have promised some amount of help for us in fighting her." He finally let out.

That bare flicker of hope inside Ruby's chest blossomed into a small flame, helping just barely to drive away the despair and hopelessness that had welled up inside of her. "And... That's why you're telling me all of this." She confirmed, with a nod. "Why Pyrrha's here... And our teams."

Qrow nodded. "Any other situation, I'd try the hands-off approach. Do the whole, let you know without saying it, thing." He explained, "but, this situation... We are honestly closer to oblivion than we have been in... Thousands of years. Oz was actually worried that Salem would win. That... It calls for more of a direct approach." He nodded to Pyrrha. "She's already agreed to help out, and we brought her team into the loop so they'd know what they'd be signing on for." He nodded to Ruby, "your team, they don't know yet. We were waiting to tell you before we told them... It's your choice, Ruby... But you need to understand what it is you're signing on for." He explained, "we're not necessarily going off the reservation here, but the four Kingdoms lost a lot of faith in Oz when Earth showed up, and suffice to say so few people on Earth are in the loop that it's easier to say that _anyone_ from their neck of the woods is out for our blood. Functionally, we'll be alone. No help but what we can provide for ourselves. No support structure... And we may very well be fighting in two wars we won't and can't win. To say nothing of the fact that we're somewhat certain Salem has, on her side, people who have fought and killed Silver Eyed Warriors before, and take pride in doing so. Even moreso than just regular Huntress duty, your _life_ will be in danger.

"There's no shame in saying no, Ruby. If you want to join us, we'll take you, but if you'd rather stay... Just fight the Grimm and try and keep the Terrans at bay... We'd understand."

* * *

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* * *

There were not words powerful enough to describe the pain Cinder Fall was in. It was, without a doubt, the worst, most intense, agonizing pain she had ever felt in her life. As though there was liquid fire, stuck to her body, constantly burning but never destroying her nerves and numbing the pain. Every movement, every breath, every _thought_ just caused these fires to burn brighter and hotter, caused her more pain and more suffering. One would think the bone-dry atmosphere of the castle and its surroundings would help this, but it only made it _worse,_ making it such that any shift in the air was instantly felt on her otherwise bare skin. Any change in the heat causing her to sweat adding more pain to her body.

No drugs, nor magic, nor even the power of will could free her from or even dulled this agony. She could hardly even sleep, only able to do so when she was so utterly exhausted that she would collapse into bed.

But, of course, the dreams didn't help.

Such a plan they'd crafted. _Fight,_ they'd decided - fight to their heart's content. Pull out all the stops, convince them beyond the shadow of a doubt that Goud Etiolate had died and would die a hero, such that, when he inevitably 'came back', the emotional blow to Ozpin's forces would devastate them. Take it to the ground floor, and then to the vault, where Nikos - the greatest fighter of them all and thus the one best suited to punch through the Dragon's Grimm - would inevitably follow, whereupon she could _witness_ Goud's death and flee to tell about it. Then they would retreat to his 'Pelican', retrieve the relic, fly to Salem's domain, and during the flight he would administer some medicine he'd concocted, something he called a 'Senzu Bean'.

So well they had executed it, the two knowing eachother so well, having fought with eachother so long, that the battle they'd shared had managed to dwarf that of the one against his father. Cinder had actually felt him break her aura! A feat that a scant few years ago would have been absolutely impossible for him. She dared say she even had _fun!_

But all of it had been thrown away by that _damned_ girl deciding to be the 'hero' and go herself, and now Aldric was dead, and Cinder was in the worst pain of her life, forced to lay her head down in this dreadful place, and stagnate such that she could recover.

She turned her heavily bandaged head down to her arm, equally as wrapped up in thick bandages. She could barely _feel_ it in the first place, and she grappled every _minute_ with just lopping it off, and not for no reason: As had been explained to her, this pain wasn't merely physical. If that were the case, there were any number of drugs on either world she could use to medicate herself and recover faster. No, this agony that filled her every waking moment was due in large part to _what_ Ruby Rose had done to her - not merely content with burning her alive, the girl had damaged Cinder's very soul. Ruby Rose had been in such emotional pain at seeing her friend 'die' in front of her that she had unleashed her everything, and that had nearly killed Cinder, and it _did_ kill Aldric. Cinder could count herself lucky in that regard, while painful and a long process, this was something she could heal from - whereas Aldric wouldn't have even have had the chance.

This damage to her soul, added onto the damage to her body, meant that both would require _months_ before they would heal completely, and every minute, Cinder grappled with just cutting it off, as offered by Salem. Such a thing wouldn't expedite the process of her soul healing, but it would give her full control over her faculties again, and she wouldn't be lugging around dead damn weight.

 _But..._ She turned to her room, looking inside from the door leading out to the balcony upon which she stood, seeing the bag of beans Aldric had stashed in the Pelican. Those right there were her ticket back to physical health, but only when her soul had returned to full strength, and thus her dilemma: Was she so impatient as to take a short-term gain in the form of a Grimm's arm? Or could she wait, and return back to complete health?

She shook her head and turned back to face outside, looking out at the red-tinged sky and the scarred, blackened and purpled grounds surrounding the castle.

What would she do without him, she wondered? Lacking Emerald and Mercury, with Torchwick in prison and Adam Taurus having betrayed her, there were none she could trust anymore. Certainly, she had Salem, but that trust was less of the partnership she had with Aldric than it was her relying upon Salem as a ticket to power, but therein lay the problem. Aldric, merely through force of will, creativity, and intelligence, while he hadn't truly come close to _killing_ her, had fought her to a standstill, and the only assistance he had ever needed was the push in the right direction, the spark that had lit up his aura. He, functionally, had had the same powers as her - albeit at a lesser mastery over them - and he'd come so far without having ever even _met_ Salem.

And then, of course, were the other three Masters.

 _Well... Two, now._ She thought, with a sense of bitter satisfaction.

Despite their age they each towered over Cinder in strength, and both spent so much time away from the castle that there was practically none at all to receive instructions from Salem. Then of course were the others, Hazel, Tyrian, and Arthur, none of whom ever even considered asking the woman for what Cinder did, making her the only one here who truly had to rely on anyone _but_ herself to grow in power. Ironic, considering her goals.

She sighed again, gaze going to the horizon, seeing the sun dipping down in the sky. She'd been fond of him - she'd even go so far as to say she genuinely enjoyed his company, whenever he wasn't actively trying to get under her skin. Just _one_ variable out of place had killed a man whose meteoric rise to power had affected even her. Why did he have to die? Why couldn't -

A knock on the door inside snapped her out of her reverie. Cinder frowned,and looked over to a small goblet of water. She picked it up in her good hand and strode inside, feeling the temperature drop several degrees as she crossed into its threshold. Her room was expansive, larger then the suite she frequented at the Vale Garden, which itself had been the size of some apartments. She crossed over its carpeted floor without much thought, and set the goblet down on a table near the door; she already knew who would be there - few here really _wanted_ to ever seek her out.

So, with a single, calming breath, Cinder opened the door and lowered her gaze, nodding at her guest.

Looming above her, her presence able to take up the entire doorframe, her master, Salem, gave her a smile of such warmth that it clashed with her ashen pallor. "I am glad to see you awake, Cinder." She said, her voice like velvet and washing over Cinder like warm water. "May I enter?" She asked, with a polite nod.

To which, Cinder nodded again, stepping aside to allow the lady of the castle entry. Salem walked past her, appearing to glide over the floor, her dress trailing behind her, its ends rolling like smoke above the ground. Cinder shut the door with a light click and retrieved her water, following Salem into the room and joining her when she sat down, the Grimm Lady on a luxurious couch, the Fall Maiden in a chair large enough that it had once made her feel strong, but now made her feel tiny, especially when compared to the woman to her front.

"Can you yet speak?" Salem asked, black and red eyes briefly locking onto the goblet held loosely in Cinder's good hand.

Cinder nodded, and indicated the goblet, the water inside necessary to wet her throat and get at least a few words out.

Salem hummed, appearing to have expected her answer. "And your abilities? I do not think Ruby Rose would have ruined them in their entirety."

Cinder shook her head at this, placing her finger on the side of the goblet, near its bottom, and then dragging it up to the top, and repeating it twice, indicating that it was through her own power that it was staying full.

Salem smiled, proudly. "Good. When I heard you were awake, I felt you may desire to know that I found Nebo Aldric's corpse."

Cinder pursed her lips, closing her one bare eye and nodding, bracing herself.

"I ensured he was given his due diligence, and had him buried where his plane touched down." Salem explained, smooth voice able to somehow calm Cinder's quivering heart. "From what you have told me about him, I feel he may have appreciated it... And for what he did for us, what he helped us to obtain... He deserved far more."

Cinder nodded, thanking the woman on her friend - no, her _partner's -_ behalf.

Salem allowed a few moments silence, before she continued, "how is the pain?"

Cinder held her hand flat in front of her chest, and then raised it above her head, embarrassedly wondering how the hell Neopolitan _lived_ like this.

"I figured." Salem said, sympathetically. "Unfortunately it will not be an easy or quick recovery."

Knowing what she was intending to prompt, Cinder took a drink of water and, after a moment, spoke with a rasping, hissing voice. _"Maidens?"_

Salem nodded, "Earth's nations have formally declared war. In days they will be crossing the borders to begin their attacks... Whereupon I've tasked Helmut and Arthur to find Summer, Ben and Hazel to find Winter, and Tyrian is hunting for Spring. With the information we retrieved from Earth, we believe we will locate them around the time your soul will have fully recovered, and long before Ozpin will return."

Cinder couldn't help but smile at this. They were close - _so_ close. Her injuries were an anger-inducing setback, and Aldric's death was a heavy blow, but both were, in the long run, temporary, and both, in their own way, were why she only grappled with cutting her arm off, and never actually went through with it. Power was her goal, independence her drive, and replacing her arm with something that would introduce as much weakness as it would strength would only run counter to her goal.

"And in the meantime... We can acclimate you to your newfound power."

The grin turned into a sneer, and she nodded again, a fire both metaphorical and literal gleaming in her eye.

 _"When..."_ She croaked, _"do we... Begin?"_

* * *

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* * *

Word, it appeared, had been intercepted from a huntress brave and skilled enough to cross the border and make it to Earth, whereupon she learned of the multiple assassinations that had occurred, and the several Grimm attacks still ongoing according to 'Salem's' plan. The Earth's United Nations had, as a result, declared war on Remnant and were rallying their militaries for another invasion whilst simultaneously working to contain their Grimm outbreaks. With naught but days to prepare, Vale Armed Forces had set up a more fortified base in Patch, knowing that the Terrans would no-doubt deign it to be their beachhead for any attacks into Vale proper, and had brought with them multiple scores of huntsmen and huntresses, as well as a conscription order for any non-aura-users over seventeen to report for duty. Ruby spent days in bed, during which either her father or Qrow were at home, but never at the same time, with one or the other assisting in either the rapid training and arming of a militia, or the building of fortifications around the populated areas and coastlines of the island.

Ruby and Qrow brought her team into the loop, as it were. Reactions were similar to Ruby's own - an abundance of shock - but also varied. Yang signed onto 'the good fight' the moment she could after realizing that this was what Ash had, intentionally or not, _died_ for, Blake showed some hesitance before choosing to remain with her team and protect them as best she could, and Weiss' choice came in the form of her tearing a letter with the Schnee family seal on it in half and nodding once. In their own ways, they all chose to honor the ideal that Ash had striven for - that they had the power to protect people, and were here being given a higher purpose than just killing Grimm and making money.

So, Qrow gave them the rundown: Their goal was to find Maidens, and luckily for them, they at least had an advantage in that area: They had a shortlist of identities for Summer and Winter and general search areas for them both, and outright _knew_ who Spring was, even if they didn't know _where_ she was. With this information in hand, as Ruby recovered, her team and JNPR spent those days planning their journey. They knew the only Maiden in Vale would have been Fall, but she had died during the Grimm attack, and they knew that Summer and Winter would - or rather, _should -_ be in Solitas and western Sanus, respectively. Spring's location was the wildcard, and the decision was made to focus on Summer and Winter, whose locations and identities they at least reliably guess at, as opposed to shooting in the dark to try and find Spring. In the end, their choice was to make for Vacuo, both because they were already on Sanus and it wouldn't take too terribly much effort to just make for its western end, and because Weiss seemed hesitant to return to her homeland.

Whenever they weren't planning or packing, Ruby was recovering in bed, and the others filled their time with their own activities. Sometimes they left to assist in the fortifications, but most often they were at Ruby's home, training and preparing. Pyrrha did her absolute best to repaint and repair Ash's shield, and when she was done Ruby could hardly even tell it had been damaged - its red and blue surface, and the white star on its center, shone brightly, vividly, and with pride. Seeing it cleaned and fixed like it was almost lessened the pain of having lost Ash in the first place, it almost feeling as though he were still here, still helping them, still ready to charge into battle at a moment's notice. Jaune spent most of his time outside, training with his sword and shield, sometimes with Nora and Ren, sometimes with Weiss, sometimes sparring with anyone around, or sometimes just alone, with a dummy her Dad had set up. Ruby saw him sometimes, and noticed a lot of Ash's mannerisms in the way Jaune threw himself into the fight, attacking with his shield just as often as he would defend with it.

Yang spent a good chunk of time working on her arm, modifying it and learning its inner workings, as well as refining her combat technique, quoting Ash in saying that as much as her rage helped in a fight, just as often it got her into bad spots she couldn't get out of. Weiss spent several days penning one single letter that she never let anyone read, but that Ruby noticed bore the same seal as the one she'd torn in two, days ago, and then the remainder of her time securing a more expeditious transport to Vacuo than their feet. Blake had several visitors from the White Fang, most of whom she sent away, but some who she at least gave some time to, and from whom Ruby would learn the state of goings-on in Vale. With the Fang's help and the four Kingdom's initial fleet presence, the Grimm attacks had been largely contained, and were now being pushed back wholesale, although Beacon remained lost. It was also from the Fang that Ruby discovered the fate of EMS - the lot of them having elected to throw themselves at the Grimm, and by all reports were collectively responsible for ten percent of confirmed Grimm kills.

Five days after she woke up, Ruby was able to reliably activate her aura again, and after a week, was up and at 'em as though she'd never burned herself out in the first place. It was then that things began moving at a much faster pace. Everyone finished packing all that they would need and finished readying themselves for the journey, and after eight days, on a humid Fall morning, RWBY, JNPR, Qrow, and Taiyang, were gathered in front of the house, the latter of whom had his girls gathered up in his strong, tan arms, trying his best to snap them in two.

"I want you two to stay safe, you got it?" He said into Yang's hair. "And if I hear from Uncle Qrow you've been giving him trouble... We'll go out for dinner when you get home." He moved over to kiss Ruby's head.

Ruby giggled and Yang scoffed, as the two broke away. The young Rose wished with all her heart that her father would join them, but he argued that as much as he wanted to, he had an obligation both to his students at Signal and the island of Patch to stay behind for when the Terrans would show up. After much protesting and much crying, his girls had agreed, and now, were bidding him farewell, none of them strong enough to bring up the fact that, with the state of the world - both of them - they may _not_ see each other again.

And, once they finally broke apart, the two assembled teams and their de-facto chaperone-slash-leader gave eachother, and the house, one final look, before embarking on the road to Vacuo.

* * *

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	59. Disaster Dominoes

Chapter 58

* * *

Though the Grimm Dragon was frozen and encased in concrete and thus a threat to no one, it still attracted Grimm to Beacon, and said Grimm still managed to benefit from its presence, becoming smarter to the point of near-human intelligence. Ruby had begged Qrow to allow them to first stop at Beacon to recover Ash's body and give him his due rights, Qrow's response was to tell her what happened to the team of full-fledged, experienced Huntsmen who had gone with him to find and recover Ozpin's cane: The _Grimm_ had hunted _them._ Of the five Huntsmen that had accompanied Qrow, two were still alive, including him, and even he had new scars to show for it.

So, with the idea of recovering his body shot, RWBY, JNPR, and Qrow held their symbolic funeral for their friend at Patch's coastline, the lattermost hanging back respectfully, the former two looking out to the sea, at the setting sun. It was the kind of silence that consumed everything, they couldn't even hear the ocean or the work being put into fortifying the island. Yang, having been the first among them to have met him, stood at the head of the group and had a small headstone in her hands, and appeared hesitant to actually plant it in the ground, as though doing so would be admitting to the fact that he was gone, forever.

The silence went on for longer than she would have liked, so Ruby decided to speak up first, despite not knowing what at _all_ should be done at funerals. Her mother had passed so long ago that she barely even remembered putting her in the ground, only that the day had been at odds bright and sad.

"I uh..." She swallowed thickly, and approached Yang, who turned to face her. "You guys remember when he came in, riding that giant Terran warboat, with the music playing?" She asked, looking hopefully from her sister to the assembled teams, some of whom smiled at the memory, the rest nodded. "I asked him why he did it. The music, I mean." She grinned, "he said..." She frowned through her smile, trying to concentrate. "I... He said something along the lines of putting on a show and tricking people are strong allies when your opponent isn't expecting it -"

Blake spoke up, "theatricality and deception are powerful allies to the unitiated."

Ruby beamed, nodding, "yeah! And he said they were even stronger when your real allies are in a bind. Riding in on a symbol of their strength, having torn it apart himself and taken a few of their guns... Coat flowing in the wind, and all that? It would scare the terrans and inspire us, he said." She paused, and then went for the punchline. "He also said it would have been really fun. How many people really get chances to do that?"

Some subdued laughter spread about the eight of them, and she saw Yang's shoulders slump, as though a weight had slid off of them.

Weiss picked up, "it's always symbols with him, isn't it?" She asked, "you know I asked him why he always wore that garish coat of his." She nodded to Pyrrha, who nodded back. "He said it reminded him of a superhero, and every superhero needs a superhero cape, and a superhero cape, flowing in the wind, it gives people hope. But since he didn't want to tie something around his neck all day, or clip it to his armor, he bought a coat and used that."

Nora spoke up, "but why would he always _drop_ the coat when he'd get ready fight, hm?" She giggled.

To which Jaune blinked, "he never dropped it when we were training together..." He said, resting his hand on the purple hilt of the blade fastened to his hip.

Nora's immediate response was, "that's because you two training wasn't ever really a fight... More like you flailing angrily and him pretending to get hit!" She smiled, big and wide.

Jaune let out an exasperated sigh, "thanks, Nora." He said, as Ren grabbed his lifelong friend by the ear and pulled her back towards him.

Pyrrha then spoke up, "that's not to say he thought less of people, though... " She nodded to the side, "truly, he was the first one I'd ever known to treat me as a person, instead of a famous huntress... He always said he didn't know I was famous, but I knew he was just sparing my feelings." She said, a thin smile playing her features. "He was kind like that... Always willing to listen and give advice. Whenever he came up in conversation with some of my friends, they'd always compliment him with that... Few but him had as much respect, for anyone he would run into... Few but him could give anyone that much hope." She gave Ruby a brief glance at this, so quick that it went unnoticed by most.

Blake, among the few who caught it, slid her hands behind her back, and picked up from there. "This is a man who didn't even judge avowed terrorists until he interacted with them." She said, "I... Knew... The current leader of the Fang, and to see him respect a human like that was astonishing to me. An accumulative twenty minutes together and Adam went from the man who robbed trains and called for war, to..." She nodded out to the east, towards Vale. "What we have now." She appeared halfway between smiling and frowning at this, her brow furrowed as even now she found herself conflicted over how she felt about these developments. "I must admit I still find myself laughing at how he basically knighted Adam, like he did."

Then Ren was the next to speak up, "I think he more than anyone believed in second chances."

Soon, all eyes were on Yang, who, with tightly pursed lips, knew that the time had finally come and that there was no more delaying it. So, with a grunt, she set down the heavy hunk of concrete and stone on the grassy cliff overlooking the ocean. "The first thing he did when he met me was throw the shield at me." She admitted, as she straightened the headstone out. "I took one look at it and knew, 'Oh... I am gonna punch his _lights_ out.'..." She hummed, a distant smile on her face as she stood up. "We basically played tug-of-war with that thing for a good five minutes, before I eventually went -" She lifted her hands to her sides, "- 'oh _screw_ this!' - and thought that if I couldn't get at his face, then I'd break his arms by punching the shield." She chuckled, "I should've known with how much he hid behind it there was something more to it than met the eye. Up until he started flying at Beacon I thought that was his trick, actually - that he could absorb impact energy and reflect it back at people... That he used the shield to make everyone think that _it_ was doing it - because who'd believe it was used hardlight, anyways?" She got some agreeing nods, as she stepped back from the headstone. "But then I punched it, it sent me flying, and that was the fight done... Pretty much set the tone for everything to come: You underestimate the shield, you underestimate him, you lose."

The setting sun illuminated the headstone, upon which was a circle surrounding a star, his name, and his epitaph:

 _Goud Etiolate: A Symbol._

* * *

It had taken an inordinate amount of convincing to be let out and allowed to come here, but Cinder Fall was nothing if not persuasive, even to the lady of the castle. After all, if Salem respected Aldric enough to have buried him, then she would respect him enough to allow his partner the decency to visit him before he decomposed. Of course that hadn't been her _true_ purpose in leaving the castle still so wounded as she was, to be transported across the planet and flanked by some of the strongest Grimm on the world, which so few had seen and fewer still were still alive to tell about it, but to say that she genuinely felt regret that he had died, and wanted to confirm his death with her own eyes would be to display weakness and doubt to the one woman in the world she could not afford to display it to.

Fortunately she had at least been able to finagle some privacy out of her and her escorts, and as such when they arrived at the place she had first met him so soon and yet so long ago, her gigantic escorts and the seer accompanying them split off to patrol the clearing. It didn't take long for Cinder to find the freshly dug patch of Earth in which he was entombed, and loathe though she was to admit, approaching it, she could indeed sense him down there, body so slightly preserved by the cold dirt covering it.

Standing over the otherwise unmarked grave, Cinder peered down at it, what few portions of her face not covered in thick bandages remained blank, her lips pressed in a thin frown and brow just barely furrowed by the light spilling through the gray clouds above. Considering all he had survived, Cinder had honestly once found herself thinking that he, if anyone, wouldn't die until well after their plans had come to fruition. She knew they would one day run afoul of someone with silver eyes, but with how he acted, how he managed to think his way through everything, she thought he would have had a plan for that kind of eventuality. That was the kind of person he was: To see all eventualities and plan for them all. It was why he had been able to take to this life so well.

She did find herself wondering, as she knelt down, her red dress crumpling around her knees, and her good hand slowly brushing over the freshly dug earth, if the reason she was alive now was due to his death in the first place. That perhaps he _had_ had a plan, and that if Ruby Rose had come in Pyrrha Nikos' place, he would use himself as a wall of sorts, something to take the brunt of her attack. Such a thing wouldn't be _impossible,_ especially if he knew as much as he should, having Ozpin's ear for as long as he had, but if that were the case, Cinder didn't know what to think about that. It filled her chest with something strange, a feeling she hadn't experienced in quite this way for many years, since bandits had taught her her life lesson, a feeling she couldn't readily identify.

 _Life is fragile..._ She thought, curling her gloved fingers in the dirt until they made a fist, a small clump of earth gathered in her palm and crushed flat. _But... We were not supposed to be._ Her frown turned into a grimace as, as though summoned, she felt a wave of pain flow from her left arm and into her face, ending only where the scar tissue ended and the healthy flesh began. _Damn it, Aldric. There was so much you could have learned. So much we could have done... Heights to which you and I could have grown. Even your father and his hammer would have paled in comparison to us..._ She turned her one functioning eye towards the patrolling, demonic Grimm, wondering if even Salem herself could have compared to the two of them in a year.

The injured Fall Maiden turned her gaze back down to the ground, she cursed herself for allowing Aldric to simmer in his fear of his own power. She'd wrestled with breaking him of that mindset as early as Amber, but seeing him unconsciously channeling his powers through the 'Power Glove', and seeing him outright focusing them into that belt of his, it had made her think he was slowly reaching the point at which he could have been as unstoppable as she knew he could be. To cease with the fear of what titanic power may bring to oppose it and to instead embrace it, to make those weapons he was so hesitant about drawing, to channel powers he had once considered the stuff of fiction, to think so laterally that the two of them could inspire the other and cause them to endlessly grow. The two of them, so powerful and so strong, nothing, not bandits, not Grimm, not Terrans and certainly not Humans and Faunus could have stood in their way.

It would have been freedom of the truest, purest form. Like nothing else.

But no.

He had to die just before the point of no return. _Right_ when they could have begun that ascent to 'power overwhelming', as he'd called it. Be it intentional to save her or accidental due to a bad roll of the dice, Aldric had died just when he could have reached heights that truly no one else could have. In her mind, she wished Emerald were still alive, such that she could at least still pretend he were too, and when the time came to once again run afoul of Ruby Rose, she could still play up the ruse, if only to relish in the look of anguish in that girl's face when it dawned on her that the friend she cared so much about had been a sham from the moment they had met. But the satisfaction brought by such imaginings were too dashed by being predicated on the wish that another friend were alive, then spawning the realization that Cinder was alone.

Alone with nothing but the power she'd sacrificed so much for.

Standing up, the frown wiped from her face, Cinder realized she could identify the feeling in her chest.

It was hollow.

* * *

Mankind has had ten thousand years experience of warfare and if he must fight he has no excuse for not fighting well.

Blake had told her she'd read that in a book the terrans had translated during the cultural exchange, and at first, Ruby Rose had thought it cool, even after having been on the receiving end of an invasion. Now, however, she realized that it wasn't nearly as cool as it was terrifying, because it took only one month after the 'opening shots' on Earth for the Terrans to create an army the likes of which neither of their worlds had ever seen. During Earth's equivalent to Remnant's Great War, their population had been two billion people, of which seventy million had been conscripted to fight, and it was called one of the most devestating and destructive wars in their species' history.

Ruby had thought those numbers mind boggling, considering she was pretty sure she'd read somewhere that Remnant had a combined two and a half billion, of which perhaps twenty million were soldiers, and a few hundred thousand were huntsmen.

But then Weiss chimed in with what the Earth's population was _now._

At nearly _eight_ billion people, that meant there were perhaps more than an entire _billion_ of them ready to be drafted for a fight, more than _half_ of Remnant's total population left still billions more that perhaps didn't fit the peacetime requirements or could still contribute in less obvious ways. With such a staggeringly, unimaginably high population, Ruby found herself less and less surprised to hear what she had, after the group had made it to Vacuo.

Having secured air travel before Vale had decided to lock their airspace down in preparation for the terrans, RWBY, JNPR, and their huntsman 'chaperone', Qrow, managed to make it to Vacuo a few days after they had departed Patch. Meeting Shade's headmaster had been a strange affair, the man being such a far cry from Professor Ozpin, brash, arrogant, and cavalier almost to a fault, that Nora and Weiss still to this moment were convinced that it hadn't actually been him. Despite his casual appearance and approach to things, he at least managed to understand how much trouble they were in when going up against the Earth, and it was he who dropped the bombshell:

The terrans weren't invading at all.

At least, not in the conventional sense.

Earth didn't have airships, not at all like Remnant did, so to transport huge masses of soldiers and military equipment, the only way they could do it would be through boats. Some of their aircraft _could_ do the job, but not in nearly the same capacity, and to actually do said job, they would need to be able to do it without the risk of being shot down - returning to their warships. This meant their _entire_ capacity to invade Remnant was almost one hundred percent reliant upon their ability to first bring over their warships to clear the way.

With this in mind, all of the kingdoms' plans had been sound: Shore up the wormholes with everything they had. Anything from Earth had to go through them, and that would act as a bottleneck, removing whatever advantages they had. Of course it worked both ways - Remnant couldn't go through to Earth without being put in their crosshairs too - but their intent wasn't to attack, but defend.

In theory, this wasn't the worst plan.

In practice, it hadn't worked out at all, because of one major fact: It was far easier to break Remnant's hold over _one_ wormhole, with a gigantic fleet and hundreds of thousands of fighter craft, than it was for Earth to split their entire planet's navy up between the four portals and try to break them all simultaneously.

And Vacuo's portal had been the 'lucky' winner.

In an attack that had lasted for eight straight hours, thousands of cruise missiles shot across space and time, and hammered Vacuo's fleet, overwhelming their defenses with swarm tactics. When Vacuo was finally forced to retreat or risk total destruction of half of their combined numbers, Earth's ships started streaming through constantly, with dozens coming through every hour and immediately scattering to the seas, making for the coasts of the four kingdoms, and with their unique ability to fight opponents even under water, that meant that the moment they started getting ships through, not even Remnant's oceanic Grimm could challenge them.

With every passing day, Remnant's seas came more and more under Terran control.

Now terrified of the prospect of a land invasion, Vacuo first brought their ships back to guard the kingdom, and then sent word out to the other kingdoms to warn them that the terrans were here.

But the ship was engaged by a cadre of terran jets, and brought down, scant minutes after crossing over the water.

As was the second, shot down a few kilometers off of the coast by a terran warship.

And the third, that went over land to try and bypass the seas and get in contact with their neighbors in Vale, blown out of the sky by a trio of missiles.

And that, the Headmaster explained, was when he and the Council of Three realized that the Terrans didn't truly intend to _invade,_ as they had last time. They certainly could, of course, but with Remnant far more prepared for a ground war than they had been last time, such a prospect would be a lengthy and costly one, especially with a Grimm threat at home to deal with.

No, instead their plan was to isolate the four kingdoms, first from communicating eachother by destroying the CCT network, then from _reaching_ eachother by blowing their airships out of the sky and sinking any oceanic vessels that tried to make a break for it. Earth's intent wasn't to fight Remnant, but to starve it. As self-sufficient as the four kingdoms were, each one had _something_ they needed to import. All of them had at least _one_ thing that they'd long since drained the sources inside the walls of.

Dust.

With Earth's warships blocking the sea, their satellites and jets monitoring the air, they essentially had free reign over the planet, and that meant what soldiers and equipment they did have with them _right now_ could maneuver with nigh impunity, clearing up coastal zones of Grimm to set up forward operating bases, and sending squads into the continent to find Dust mines and refineries and attack them. Some refugees had even come from the city-states and villages unaffiliated with the Kingdoms, telling tales of Terran soldiers rolling in and declaring martial law, and all of them had the same demands: Any exports to the Kingdoms, with a priority on those of Dust, had to stop, or there would be consequences.

Earth's plan wasn't to attack Remnant, it was to specifically _not_ do so. Not until the four Kingdoms were so critically low on Dust, and Earth's conscription efforts had jumped their military numbers so high, that the decades-long grudge match everyone had been expecting would turn into a yearlong example of a huntsman beating a starved civilian to death. It wouldn't be two planets going to war against eachother and fighting until the other was simply unable to do so anymore, but rather it would be two planets consistently and constantly working to outmaneuver the other until such a time that an invasion into the other's capitols wasn't a death sentence for everyone involved.

The _only_ viable plan Vacuo, and the rest of Remnant, had now was to try and take the fight to the Terran navy and send out squads of soldiers and huntsmen to harass their soldiers before Earth could truly establish its foothold, form, and cement its blockades.

And that led them to here and now: With the only risk to terran soldiers coming from towns that would choose to fight back, Huntsmen who chose to take the fight to them, or Grimm that got the jump on them, that meant the Terrans had the agency to use their greatest advantage over Ruby and her allies: They knew who the Maidens were, had a much easier time of finding them, and could send people to do exactly that. Perhaps the worst prospect though, was that since Salem clearly had sources on Earth, that meant when the Terrans figured out where the Maidens were, _she_ would figure out where they were.

Inside of a month, the situation had gone from poor to completely out of control. In the time it took for Ruby and her teams to get in contact with just _one_ lead, the Terrans had set themselves up to blockade an entire planet, and Salem had positioned herself to be ready to checkmate them _all._ They were in a race against time, and time _began_ already almost out. The only advantage they had anymore was that while the Terrans knew _who_ to look for, they didn't yet know _where._

As said by Shade's headmaster, "there are only two things in this world we specifically didn't build inside the Kingdoms: Dust facilities, and the Maidens' bunkers... And the latter is the _only_ thing we build so far out in the Grimm-controlled wilderness that they're essentially satellite kingdoms, forced to be self-sufficient or die." He explained, leaning back in his chair and scratching his bushy gray beard. "So there's that. Those asshole terrans have an entire _planet_ to search with those satellites of theirs. That may buy us a few months."

Now, Ruby knew Qrow when he was drunk, and she knew him when he was sober. One thing she never saw during either of those times was something she was being introduced to now: Qrow _scared._ There was a fear in his eyes that Ruby had never seen before, not in him, not in anyone - the kind of existential dread of a man who knew the secrets of the universe, and was seeing those secrets not only come to light but actively work to destroy literally everything he knew and held dear, right in front of him. Qrow was seated in a big, fluffy chair in front of the lounging headmaster's desk, one of his fists clenched so tightly that the entire back of his hand was white, his nostrils were flared, and his lips pursed.

Ruby looked to the rest of her assembled teams in the room, to Yang and Weiss, who had appropriated a couch, to Blake and Ren, who were leaning against the wall, and Nora, Pyrrha, and Jaune, each following Ruby's example and flanking Qrow. None of them looked any easier than Qrow - Weiss and Pyrrha perhaps looked the worst of them all, their usually controlled countenance bleeding away to barely controlled fear, and not for no reason, either, because she knew all eyes would be on Atlas, her homeland, for how Remnant would respond to Earth's attempts to blockade the planet. As much as the rest of the world could function well enough on their own, the simple fact of the matter was there _wasn't_ a military juggernaut quite like Atlas. Much how Earth's actions earlier in the year had set the tone for how powerful they could be, no doubt it would be Atlas' response that would set the tone for how strong Remnant could be. All eyes would be on the great white north, Human, Faunus, _and_ Terran.

"Then we've got to take the kid gloves off, Dawn." Qrow responded, after swallowing through his dry throat. "You're saying our timeline is..." He shook his head, " _months,_ at best. It usually takes longer than that just for Ozpin to come back, and the friends he made on Earth won't help us if we can't find Salem - and we can't do that if she battens down the hatches after getting the four Maidens. _Literally_ all she'll have to do after that is fucking _wait_ until us and Earth are done tearing eachother apart and then she can just roll right up to the academies and take the relics. We're on track to be our own to end a war that's been going on for thousands of years. We literally _do not have the time_ to play around. You need to tell us where she is, and you need to find a way - I _do not care_ how - to get word to Ironwood and Lionheart. To get them to send word back to us so we can go _straight_ to Summer and Spring." He insisted.

But Dawn laughed, "man, Qrow, I wish I had your enthusiasm." He shook his head, leaning further back in his chair, it creaking under his weight. "Or at least your flask. I don't want to be aware when the world ends, you dig?" He let out a long, airy sigh, and allowed his head to hang over the back of his chair. "How do you expect me to get word to Mistral, Qrow? How do you expect me to get word to _Atlas?"_ He wondered.

"I can think of two ways right off the top of my head." Qrow instantly retorted.

"The Garden stays out of political affairs, Qrow, and I haven't had any coins for ten years." He leaned up, "what's your _second_ option?" He had a curious grin on his face, as he adjusted the thick sunglasses to better frame his eyes.

"The ocean." Qrow responded, "as much as the terrans dominate oceanic warfare, they'll be looking for big metal ships and Grimm. They won't be looking for anything smaller."

"Okay?"

"So send a runner in a small ship to Menagerie." Ruby noticed Blake's head shoot up at this, "if they stay below terran radar they can make it there in days. They talk to the chieftain there and get him to give the message to aquatic faunus. It won't be as fast as delivering it by air, but it would be almost as fast as taking it by boat. They'd get the message out, get our responses back, and when _we_ come back _here_ we can go pick them up at the coast -"

"And where does their choice factor into all this?" Blake asked, shoving off of the wall and crossing her arms, a frown decorating her face.

Dawn nodded from side to side, "I gotta agree with the lady on this one, my man, though not for the same reasons. They're not the biggest fans of us humans. What makes you think they'd help us?"

"I know a guy who owes me favors."

Dawn arced an eyebrow, "this a good guy?"

"He's in the loop." Qrow responded, "and he's a friend in a high place. His word would at least get us some volunteers, and he's in Menagerie right now."

 _"Who?"_ Blake asked, only to be ignored by the both of them.

"Realize that throwing his weight around to help humans would probably cost him that high place, Qrow."

But Qrow shook his head, "that's a risk we'll have to take."

"I'm just being ignored." Blake looked irate.

"Yes." Qrow and Dawn said in unison, each briefly glancing in her direction, before turning back to eachother.

"Realize that even flying low wouldn't guarantee that ship getting by undetected. I'd need to distract _the Terran Navy."_ He said, clearly enunciating each word. "And to do that anywhere near as well as I'd need to guarantee that thing never got spotted, that would require a majority of the ships we have left. You'd essentially be sacrificing Vacuo for _one_ message." He explained, a look of interest replacing the earlier one of flippancy. "They see Vacuo's defenses so weak they'd see lien signs. We can't operate under the assumption that the Terrans wouldn't take their chance to establish a major foothold on Remnant. So you won't be able to rely on coming back after you secure Winter."

Qrow leaned back, cursing. Ruby, confused, spoke up, "can't we just meet them in Mistral? Or Atlas?" She asked.

"That would require us _getting_ there, kiddo." Qrow responded.

"Another distraction, if we're even around by then." Dawn elaborated.

"And as much as it would be easy to call in a favor with your aunt..." Qrow's eyes closed, "I can't get in touch with her. Not without leaving you guys, and I'm not doing that." He rubbed at his face.

Ruby blinked, "my aunt?"

"My _Mom?"_ Yang piped in, head tilted.

Ruby noticed Weiss whisper something to Blake, but Blake shook her head and whispered back as Qrow spoke up. "Her semblance lets her open portals to anyone she has a strong connection to." He nodded to Yang, "you, me, your dad, maybe a few others if they're still alive. She could get us over the border, but convincing her would be difficult, and getting to her would require me going myself, and I'm not leaving you all to fend for yourselves if the Terrans or Salem's Masters are there for Winter."

But the younger huntresses and huntsmen all appeared to be of one mind, and Ruby proved to be their mouthpiece. "This is bigger than us, Uncle Qrow. If she's there and she's safe -"

"Oh she's _not."_ Dawn chuckled. "Safe, I mean. If they aren't already there they will be soon. I've killed five men already trying to break in here."

"Then we can pick her up and leave... Keep on the move until you come back to get us. If not, then we still leave, we just won't have her." She explained.

Qrow shook his head, "kid, they're either going to capture her or take her powers right then and there. Either way they'll be sending heavy hitters, and they so much as look at you they'll take their shot." He explained, "I'm not leaving you alone to that."

Nora piped in, "oh come _on!"_ She drawled, "what's one more guy gonna do?! And what would you do if we got there and there _was_ trouble, huh? This way you'e our escape plan!"

Pyrrha picked up, "it's not like we would have to worry about Grimm, on the way there, or while we were on the run." She smiled thinly and elbowed Jaune, who let out a 'hey!' as he tried not to fall over.

"Better..." Weiss spoke up, "if we can get this woman to bring us to Mistral, then we'd only need to get a message out to Atlas. If saving time is the goal, this would be the best way to do so."

Qrow sighed, still appearing conflicted, so much so that he even cast a glance at Dawn, who laughed and held his hands up. "Hey, you're Oz's right hand, I'm just a grunt with a high rank. You're on your own, pal."

Qrow rolled his eyes. "Fine." He said, "fine... Fine." He shook his head and turned to Ruby, "you better understand though. We're not here to fight. If she's dead, or under attack, or anything that isn't perfectly safe and sound, she's a lost cause, and you'll need to turn right around and get out of there."

Ruby swallowed, but nodded.

"Now..." Qrow turned to Dawn. "You. Fess up. Where is she?"

Dawn grinned a wide, toothy grin.

* * *

"Nekrad." The Fall Maiden rasped, a disbelieving look on her face.

Inside of a dining hall in her leader's castle, Cinder Fall and Salem had been sought out by a Seer Grimm, who had word from a group who had been seeking out a Maiden. Upon its spherical head was the Master and Huntsman duo tasked with finding the Winter Maiden. Hazel Rainart, the bear of a man, had been the one to drop the bombshell, but Cinder found her single functioning eye attracted to the Master of the two, he being the only other Terran she'd ever seen or spoken to in a peaceful setting since Aldric, or those few seconds with his father. 'Ben' was a far cry from the other two she had met, in that he not only held himself in a different way, with his head held high and his arms clasped behind his back and a proud frown on his face, but he was _old._ The man was thin and frail, ancient skin hanging off of weakened bones, eyes squinted almost shut, with him appearing to be in his eighties at the youngest estimate.

The news they brought, though, was what surprised Cinder the most. She knew of Nakred, but not because it was recent news, but because she'd read about the place out of a _history_ book. Once upon a time it had been one of the major Vacuoan cities established outside of the kingdom, a haven of industry, it had stood as a symbol that the planet could be taken back by the Grimm with hard work and determination. But when the Great War began, it was a major target by Mistrali forces, and in two years it went from a veritable modern paradise to a smog-choked ruin, the city having to be abandoned by its kingdom or risk its people dying from exposure. Of course then the Grimm moved in, and ever since it was just left to fall to ruins, the understanding being that it would be far more costly to take and rebuild the city than it would be to first fortify Vacuo and then establish a brand new one somewhere else. A wasteland unto itself, Cinder remembered the history book _actually saying_ it was a place that no one thought even remotely worth visiting again, let alone taking back.

But, it seemed, Vacuo had had different plans.

"Yes, kid. Nakred." Hazel responded, sparing the wounded Maiden only a brief glance before turning back to the witch. "As best we can understand there were already some underground elements built there even all that time ago. They just expanded and fortified it. Figured hiding their Maiden in a city lost in the war and taken by the Grimm would be smarter than heading out into uncharted territory."

Salem hummed at this, dark eyes briefly scanning over the ground as she thought. "Sound in theory... With how fast they abandoned that city, a great deal of valuables were left behind. Chief among them Dust, so what better place to hide a diamond than in ruins filled with other precious prizes?" She nodded, "to say nothing of the Grimm in the city. Do you know where they are specifically?"

Hazel cast a glance at Ben, who nodded once, and spoke with an aged tremolo. "My people have determined their complex to be located near the eastern edge of the city. They're already moving in and getting ready to fight." Despite the age present in his voice, he still spoke with a strength and a conviction that belied his years, nearly causing Cinder to wonder if he truly were as old as he appeared.

Regardless, all eyes were soon on the bleach-skinned Lady of the Grimm to make her decision. She held her hands behind her back and looked up to the ceiling, losing herself in thought for a few moments, before lowering her eyes back to the seer. "Unfortunately as great as this is, Cinder simply isn't in any state to travel, much less fight. So I will need you to retrieve the Maiden and return here with her."

Ben nodded, and Hazel gave a gruff, "understood." Before the seer cut the connection.

Salem turned to her young, wounded Maiden, and, noticing the questioning glance, waved the unspoken question away. "It is better this way, Cinder." She said, "a lower chance of you being further injured or, worse, dying... And I've a theory I would like to test with this."

 _"Oh?"_ Cinder rasped, before taking a sip from her ever-filled goblet.

Salem nodded, "what a wonderful outcome it would be if, by absorbing this Maiden's soul, yours would be revitalized." That gave Cinder pause, as the implications of it dawned on her.

The prospect of having to wait weeks, not months, before she could be healthy again, and more powerful than before on top of that, was an attractive one.

Cinder grinned, and nodded once. "Indeed."


	60. Good All Along?

Chapter 59

* * *

Nekrad was a day's trip from Vacuo proper. RWBY and JNPR, after bidding their brief farewell to Qrow, prepared themselves for a journey into Vacuo's wastelands, and moved with purpose. Unaccustomed to the heat they would be dealing with, their journey was briefly slowed, but they never allowed their pace to be broken, and after thirty two hours, they made it to Nekdrad.

Standing in the sand dunes that surrounded the city, Ruby looked through the scope of her rifle. Even zoomed in it looked hardly any better than it did from far away: Just one great mass of smog-choked, dilapidated buildings. It was almost impossible to see more than a few meters inside the cloud, and even then all she could see with any clarity were muzzle flashes. Three great armies were currently brawling in the midst of the rotten city: The Vacuoan soldiers tasked with defending one of the four most powerful women on the planet, the Terran soldiers tasked with taking her, and the Grimm who sought only the deaths of everyone involved.

The Vacuoan soldiers were taking full advantage of their knowledge of the city, utilizing fortifications and defenses they'd had prepared well ahead of time, retreating to and attacking from places the Terrans couldn't expect or easily counter, seldom actually engaging them on the streets. The Terrans, however, were making full use of their technology and their freer maneuverability, calling down bombs from their drones and attack-runs from their rotor-wing craft, while they themselves would hide in their heavy vehicles or pile into their cars and hurtle across the streets and into flanking positions. However long they had been fighting, it was clear they had only just begun and were already at a stalemate; for every Terran the Vacuoans killed, bombs rushed in to replace them, and for every Vacuoan soldiers the Terrans killed, they were attacked from new vantage points and forced to retreat.

And it appeared that both sides were willing to use the Grimm to full effect.

The Vacuoans were using their superior positioning to fire down on the Grimm and force them to evade them, guiding them this way to the Terrans, who would be routinely slaughtered once said Grimm closed ranks and got too close for their weapons to be effective. The Terrans, meanwhile, were able to use their vehicles and shepherd them, in a way, inside the buildings the Vacuoans were fighting from, whereupon the Grimm would ascend the buildings, find, and kill them.

Perhaps worst of all, though, was that as much death and slaughter as there certainly was, Ruby knew there was only more to come. Be it from more Terrans coming to reinforce, regroup, and advance, or from Salem's forces arriving to punch through them all, things would only get worse from here on. It pained her to know this, to be _watching_ two groups of people throwing themselves at each other, killing each other and destroying everything around them in hatred, and to know what they didn't: That they were doing it for no reason at all! Because neither side could prove that it wasn't the other that had hurt them so, they had turned to violence and war and were just _killing_ each other. Two entire planets destroying themselves for no reason other than that they had no reason _not_ to.

It tore at the young Rose's soul, because more than anything else she didn't know what to do. A part of her desperately wanted to help them, but what _could_ she do? While not innocent, neither of them were really in the wrong, here, they simply had no idea what was really going on. If she saved her people - that is, the people from her world - she'd have to kill the Terrans, but if she helped the Terrans, she'd be damning her people. It was impossible for her to help them both, and it wasn't like she could just stop them from fighting, that chance had passed long ago.

Ruby suddenly felt a pain in her hand, and, looking down, realized that she was gripping Crescent Rose so tightly that her entire hand had turned white, and she could feel it digging into her palm. She forced her hand to open up, and she saw the indentation of its hilt in her now shaking palm. She turned back to the scope of her rifle, just in time to see a Beowolf tackle a terran vehicle and flip it onto its side, it tore into the vehicle's under carriage and disappeared inside, remaining half-hidden until it burst into smoke, and after a moment, one Terran, covered in blood, stumbled outside and into the smog - only to be dropped by a wayward shot, and hit the ground, dead.

Ruby now felt a hand on her shoulder, and she looked upwards. What first greeted her eyes was the red and blue stripes, and then the white star, of a shield held by a friend. For a moment she managed to forget that Ash was even dead in the first place, looking up with some small amount of hope, but that was dashed when she saw Pyrrha standing above her, a smile on her face, small, and weighed down by no small amount of sorrow and anxiety, one that was struggling to stay up, but a smile nonetheless. The prodigy no-doubt knew what was going through Ruby's mind, and Ruby appreciated her effort. She lowered her collapsed scythe, unable to meet Pyrrha's gaze any longer, a sense of shame filling her core as she knew what they would have to do.

Pyrrha gave her shoulder a pat, kneeling down. "Hey." She said, softly, her voice able to beat out the sounds of war in the distance. "We're doing the right thing." She assured the young huntress.

Ruby nodded, she knew that - she _knew_ it - but why didn't it feel like they were? Why did she still feel as though she _had_ to do something _more?_ That there _was_ something she could do despite all evidence to the contrary?

She gave Pyrrha another look, and the Invincible Girl seemed to recognize it, nodding once. "All we can do is go for the Maiden, Ruby. That is the only thing that can stop all of this."

Ruby swallowed through her dry throat, then nodded, and stood to her feet. She took a deep breath to steady herself as she turned around. She turned to face the remaining members of RWBY and JNPR, seeing Nora excitedly shouldering her grenade launcher, and Jaune gingerly pressing his hand to her weapon and lowering it, while Ren kept his hand on the enthusiastic woman's shoulder to prevent her from charging away. Weiss was running a cloth along her sword and watching Yang and Blake make idle conversation, all of them waiting for the two of them to return and give them the lay of the land.

"So..."Ruby began, attracting everyone's attention. "I remember what happened last time I took a lot of people to fight the Terrans." She began, quieting down the group as though a switch had been flipped. "It... Didn't really end well." She straightened up, "and then there's the fact that we can't help everyone here... Picking just one side to help will still mean we're hurting people who aren't wrong. The terrans are warring under false pretenses, and the Humans are just trying to survive. So, all we can focus on right now is finding the Maiden. We need to solve that problem first before we can work on the other ones." She paused, "right?" She looked around, seeing the others equip themselves for battle.

Pyrrha gave her a sympathetic look, nodding once as she adjusted Ash's shield on her arm. She approached Ruby and patted Ruby's shoulder before removing her hand, Ruby smiled, not needing her to speak. So now, Pyrrha turned to the assembled teams, "Dawn told us where the bunker is. We have that advantage over both the Terrans and Salem's forces. We know our goal and we know the swiftness with which we must accomplish it. If anyone needs time, it would be best to request it now, else it is time to move _now_."

No one spoke up, so without further conversation, Pyrrha and Ruby turned to the dead city and led their respective teams, charging down the dunes and towards the hell of bullets, bombs, beasts, and smog. They kicked up sand with each impact of their feet against the ground, they picked up speed with every passing second, growing closer and closer until, in what felt like the blink of an eye, they reached the rotten city's edge and their feet no longer beat against deep dunes but rather concrete blanketed in sand.

Instantly the acrid smell of the thick, dark, brown clouds of smog filled Ruby's nose, nearly making her retch as she ran over the city's dilapidated roads. The two teams closed ranks as their visibility dropped to mere meters, now running by memory of the maps of the city and by the sound of the battles around them, specifically trying to avoid the latter and to stick to the former as best they could. They did a good job, avoiding any kind of combat for several minutes, until they didn't, and they ran afoul of a back of Grimm eagerly running towards the sounds of negative emotions, fear, agony, anguish, and, of course, battle.

Of course, four beowolves versus eight huntsmen and huntresses, the battle was over just as it began. Pyrrha and Jaune took one down, the former stunning it with a powerful throw from her shield and the latter smacking it with the edge of his blade. Ren, Nora, and Yang took down the second, with the latter two using their explosive weapons to throw the beast into the blades of the former most, Weiss and Blake took down a third with the latter using her ribbons to catapult the former into the neck of the demon, and Ruby leapt into the air, flipped over her head, and had hers decapitated in one fluid motion.

Without even breaking stride, the groups sprinted on, keeping to the sidewalks, sidestreets, and hugging the shadows of the buildings, trying to keep as small a profile as they could in the face of the open warfare going on around them. For the most part, it worked - they only had a few interruptions from some Grimm and an encounter or two with soldiers, but they were solved as fast as the first. In ten minutes they found themselves near the bunker's entrance.

When, without warning, all of the smog in the air _vanished._ First being drawn to one point as though attracted and absorbed there, the air going from dark and choked by brown to as clear as day in the span of a few seconds, the change so sudden that Ruby didn't even notice it until it was done. The battles happening around them briefly paused, as the fighters tried to figure out what had happened, but they resumed quickly enough and soon everyone was killing each other again.

The two teams came to a halt in an alley, all eyes alternating from looking up to the bright, blue sky, to eachother, all faces wearing expressions of confusion.

Jaune was the first to speak up, "uh... There was a lot of smoke in the air a few seconds ago, right? I wasn't just imagining it?" He asked, tightening the grip on his blade, and swallowing nervously.

Yang spoke next, "that doesn't just _happen,_ what was that?"

Ruby, however, felt that she knew. She turned to Weiss, then quickly spied a building with a hole in its side; "Weiss, wall-crawl!"

Weiss figured out fast enough and had gravity glyphs on the wall Ruby had singled out; the young Rose sprinted up the wall with her semblance and curved inside the dusty office building, speeding around the cubicles and over the partially rotten carpet it until she found a window she could look out of.

She wished she hadn't, because what greeted her was pandemonium, as hundreds of Vacuoan soldiers were simultaneously fighting a horde of Grimm, and two men. One was gigantic, a hairy bear of a man garbed in hazel clothing currently in the process of ripping a mech in two and using it to beat a soldier to death, the action appearing to take no effort at all. The other, however, was a small, frail-looking, elderly man, thinned from age, his skin hanging off of his bones, and yet he walked with a regal arrogance, his hands held behind his back as he casually strolled through the chaos. One soldier saw him and tried to charge him with the bayonet on his rifle, but the old man merely cast him a glance, and before Ruby's eyes the soldier halted, and then was compressed, as though thrown into a car compactor, his entire body soon bursting and viscera pouring out from the pressure.

Ruby fell to her knees, back pressed against the wall, eyes wide as she realized what this was, and that she'd been right: They hadn't been fast enough. Salem's Masters had gotten here before them.

 _But..._ She gulped, peering over the wall again. The Old Man was again strolling towards what looked like a subway entrance, he lazily swept a hand from one side to another and Ruby watched the world before him _stretch_ , width-wise, a path clearing out before him now completely devoid of any enemies, who now found themselves dozens of meters away, and those few who had the wherewithal to try and run after him found themselves struggling against his power, the ground stretching in the opposite direction, making them run in place as though jogging on a treadmill going just fast enough.

 _Could we have time?_ She wondered, as a Huntsman leapt towards the Old Man, shooting at the ground at his feet with arrows that detonated in huge blue explosions, this being the first thing that made the Old Man stop his advance. _I could run in there... I could find her before they get inside and get her out... There has to be other exits, right?_ She begged of herself, a frown growing across her face, her brow furrowing.

"Ruby, don't." She heard, prompting her to turn around and see the others approaching her, keeping low so as to not be seen from the outside.

Pyrrha was at the head of the pack, and she was the first to take a look outside. She watched the Arrow-wielding Huntsman engaging the Master, his arms a blur as he fired arrow after arrow at the Master, who moved with speed that directly contrasted his age, appearing at times to be approaching what Ruby could reach just before activating her semblance. One arrow shot at him the Master wasn't quick enough to dodge, but when it made it through his defenses he twisted his entire upper body around to catch it with his hand. This had the effect of sending him sliding several feet backwards and into the flank of a Beowolf, still carrying enough force to knock the creature of Grimm down and drag _it_ a few feet before they both finally stopped.

"That's... That's a Master, Ruby." Pyrrha said, the sigh apparent in her voice. "We'd need all of us, and the Vacuoan soldiers, _and_ their Huntsmen, just to have a chance of fighting him." She said, as the arrow the Master caught detonated inches from his face, but much like how he'd wiped away the smog, the smoke and soot from the explosion all coalesced into a single point in space, vanishing as though vacuumed away.

The Master was completely unharmed, showing nothing except for a glow in his eyes.

"But he's distracted..." Ruby argued, "if we could -"

"Ruby." Pyrrha cut her off, "please believe me when I say no one here wants to go in there as much as you and I do... But all they will do is slow him down." She said, nodding out to the battle as the Master wiped the back of his wrinkled hand on his face, held it up, and then the world compress in on itself, the ground folding into itself and creating an almost perfectly flat fissure as he brought his hand in to his chest. Arrow tried to evade this, leaping into the air, but was stopped barely a foot off the ground, as though he'd slammed into a unseen brick wall in the sky. When he hit the ground in a daze, he was soon brought within striking distance of the Old Man, who balled his hand up into a fist and reared it above his head.

"And..." Pyrrha gulped, forcing herself to say, "and not much at that." Old Man smashed his thin, wrinkled fist into Arrow's temple, and that one impact broke Arrow's aura and buried his face into the ground, creating a crater that stretched several feet, even curving into the new folds of the earth.

Ruby was at a loss for words, her big, wide, silver eyes shooting from Pyrrha, to Old Man, who observed his dazed prey on the ground before him, and back to Pyrrha.

It was Jaune who then said, "Pyrrha." Attracting the knight's attention. "We can't just _leave_ without trying." He said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I mean, I don't _disagree_ with Vomit-Boy..." Yang said, falling from her haunches to her rear and sitting down. "But Pyrrha's got a valid point too, dude." She said, turning from Ruby and Pyrrha to Jaune. "Only two options we have are sending someone in to find the Maiden while everyone else stays out here to distract those two... Or we all go in, and inevitably have to fight them underground. Either way, we have to fight someone stronger than _Ozpin_ had been."

Nora immediately cast her vote with, "what's stopping us from blitzing his buddy and then focusing on him?" She asked, racking the slide on her grenade launcher with a wicked grin in her eyes.

"I would think the fact that he would be just as skilled as the Master, and just as great a threat to us." Said Blake. Ruby looked to her, her eyes wide and filled with the anguished frown painting her face. Blake had the decency to look guilty as she elaborated. "I don't want to give up on this Maiden without trying, Ruby." She said, "but the fact of the matter truly is that we would only buy you... Minutes, if that." She said, "and this isn't school. He will be playing for keeps."

Weiss, however, countered with, "what would be more dangerous, though? To face him now, or to retreat and potentially face Cinder Fall with the power of at _least_ two of them?"

The arguments died, however, when Ren spoke his piece. "What would Goud do?"

Everyone quieted down, then turned to him.

He remained stoic, knelt down, hands draped over his knees, pistols clenched loosely in them. "I do believe I needn't explain myself." Was all he offered up after a few moments of silence.

The silence remained after this, as everyone exchanged glances. Ren had a point, as he always did, while also making his stance clear and issuing a challenge to those who disagreed with him. Were Ash here, he already would be out there throwing down with all of them to give everyone else a chance to make off with the Maiden. Life was important, yes, but it was the nature of their job to put theirs on the line if they needed to, and to cower and kowtow about in fear of losing said life was to say they valued themselves over the good of literally everyone else. He'd said it himself: Those with power had a moral obligation to use said power in the service of a greater good, regardless of a personal cost. To think or do less would be disrespecting his sacrifice.

Even Pyrrha appeared swayed, as her eyes glazed over, and something Ash had said to her once in one of her greatest moments of need flitted through her mind.

 _Things aren't beautiful because they exist forever. They're beautiful because they don't._ He'd said, with that damned ever-present smile of his.

She first looked at the shield strapped to her arm, the large, striped rotella with the star on its center. Then she looked outside, seeing Old Man engaged again by the bruised and bleeding Arrow, now reinforced by other Huntsmen in similar states of injury.

Then she sighed, and nodded once. "Okay." She said, conceding victory, and wondering if it wasn't for the best that she did so. "Okay." She turned to Ruby, "but how would we do this?" And, she wondered to herself, if they _survived,_ how would they get away, and how would they explain their injuries to Qrow?

Ruby's gleeful grin suddenly dropped, as she no-doubt realized she again hadn't thought that far again. "Um..." She looked back outside, then to Pyrrha. "Well... Your semblance is polarity."

Pyrrha blinked. "Yes." She drawled, with an unsure nod.

"And we're in a city filled with concrete and metal."

Pyrrha leaned back, "Ruby, I'm not as powerful as you're suggesting I am..."

But Ruby persisted, "how do you know?" She asked, suddenly giving Pyrrha way too many Ash flashbacks than she was comfortable with. "And you all are acting like we'd be _fighting_ them." She said, "When all we need to do is just keep them away from us."

Pyrrha frowned in thought, beginning to catch onto Ruby's train of thought.

Jaune, however, spoke up with, "what do you mean?"

* * *

By the time the two teams of rookie huntsmen and huntresses were finished speaking and planning, Old Man had gone through all four of the full-fledged Huntsmen that had gone up to bat against him, with nothing to show for it. The Vacuoans were beginning to fall back to the subway entrance, soldiers and Huntsmen alike blasting away at him, his partner and their Grimm escorts as they slowly approached, like a wave of doom on its way to destroy everything in front of it. With the Terran and the Human at the head of the pack, and a growing horde of Grimm behind them, the Vacuoans knew this was their last stand.

What they weren't expecting was for a _building_ to suddenly begin listing over to the side with the shrieking sound of bending metal and shattering glass.

Pyrrha had been the first to sprint out of their hidey-hole, but she had been the only one to not sprint for the subway entrance. Instead she had run for the nearest, tallest skyscraper she could find. She still completely doubted that she was strong enough to do what Ruby had suggested, and this doubt colored how she went about in attempting to execute it. Because she knew she couldn't pick up an entire building and drop it on someone, but Ruby's challenge, how did she know, and how much it had reminded her of her late friend, inspired the tiniest amount of lateral thinking she'd come to admire the man for, and that lateral thinking had inspired one specific thought:

Why lift the entire building when she could just drop it?

Lumberjacks didn't cut through the entire trunk of the tree, demolition teams didn't obliterate entire structures, and fighters didn't just wail on an opponent until they fell. They chopped at the tree until it couldn't support itself, they destroyed key points in the structure, and they exploited weaknesses until such a time that the opponent could no longer fight.

Pyrrha didn't have to tear the building out of the ground, hoist it into the air, and then plant it in front of Salem's approaching horde, all she had to do was crush its support beams and _drop_ the thing. Topple it in such a way that it would destroy the Grimm and block the Master and his partner.

So, sprinting towards the first building she could see that fit the bill, Pyrrha crashed into its lobby and, taking a few quick breaths of air, felt out with her powers. As though touching them herself, she instantly could feel the thick layers of steel pillars and girders around her making up the building's base, and the higher up she felt the more numerous they became. For now, however, she had to focus on the bottom - the building's foundations, upon which the entire skyscraper had been established. If she crushed even just half of it, it would topple over in the direction she wanted, like a lumberjack felling a tree.

 _Were it so easy..._ She gulped, clenching her jaw and tightening her chest, as she reached out with both hands, and prayed.

Inside the brick and mortar office building, RWBY and the remainder of JNPR waited with baited breath for Pyrrha to figure something out. It took ninety seconds before they thought they noticed one of the buildings beginning to move, and then forty five seconds after that before the movement became so obvious it was impossible to miss. Soon the sound of metal shrieking and bending, of glass shattering and showering towards the ground, and the awesome sight of an entire building listing to the side and quickly gaining speed as it hurtled faster and faster to the ground, filled the air and everyone's eyes. At the size they were playing with, wind resistance began playing a huge factor, slowing it down enough that it almost appeared as though it were all happening in slow motion, only increasing in speed as it grew closer to the ground, and everyone in its path realized what was happening.

The Vacuoans, crying in terror, fled underground. The Grimm, unawares, kept moving forward. The Bear, frowning, turned to his partner. The Master, a curious tilt to his head, lifted his hand.

The building, and the glass, sand, and debris that had fallen from it, _stopped._

It floated there in mid-air, unnaturally held aloft, as though it weren't a building weighing thousands of tons, but rather a projection, a painting against the sky.

"Uh -" Jaune said, as everyone, even _Ren,_ stared at the display, slackjawed. "What?"

Ruby, snapped out of it by Jaune's speaking, acted fast and did the first thing that came to mind: The leapt to her feet, expanded her rifle, planted it on the wall, steadied it, took aim as fast as she could, and fired. The slug shot through the air, crossing the distance between her and her target in a second, buried itself into his shoulder, and evaporated into steam.

She, however, provided the impetus for the rest of the Vacuoans to open fire and try to trip the Old Man up, and soon he was being met with a wall of gunfire, some of which made it closer to him than others, and distracting him at least enough from trying to find out where the sniper had been who'd started it. The Grimm soon bolted forward to absorb the gunfire, and the Huntsman exchanged unheard words with his partner, who nodded once, turning his gaze back up to the building, still held in the air.

The building began to radiate heat, then glow white hot, and then soon it began separating into a dozen titanic chunks, all spinning into giant, superheated spears of metal and glass. They all moved until they floated overhead, and then Old Man unceremoniously dropped his hand, whereupon they began obeying gravity.

The Vacuoans, appearing to conclude that the only way to fight this monstrous master of magic was with someone - _anyone -_ with any modicum of control over their aura, retreated behind the sudden charge of their Huntsmen, all of whom tore through the Grimm in their mad dash for the Master. Neither he nor the bear of a man next to him even budged, content to allow the giant superheated spears they'd created do their jobs for them.

So one could imagine their surprise when one of these spears was caught in a black glow and thrown off-course, colliding with another spear and, alongside it, knocking into several others and sending them careening away to land harmlessly away from the entrance to the bunker.

"Go!" Ruby called out, "go! This is our chance!" She gasped, before, alongside her allies, she hauled herself outside and dropped to the ground.

The Master gave the display a curious glance, watching as another giant spike was taken ahold of, but this one, instead of knocking others off course, compressed downwards and shot down to the subway entrance, molding around it and constricting what had once been a wide open hole in the ground to something barely the size of a person. Unfortunately, this was all Pyrrha had the time to do, as the remaining four spears fell to the ground, burying themselves several meters and causing the earth to quake and buck with each impact, sending scores of Grimm and more than a few Huntsmen flying away.

RWBY and JNPR landed on the ground and instantly rushed for the now occluded subway entrance, sprinting as fast as their feet could take them, with Ruby and Jaune at the head, the former dashing through the Grimm and stunning them so the latter could smite them with his sword. The two groups carved a narrow swathe through the horde of Grimm, circumventing the Old Man and the Bear, who soon were engaged by all of the available Huntsmen on Vacuo's side, the sheer number and power present at play even managing to occupy the man who'd torn apart a building with ease.

They made it to the subway entrance just before a huffing and puffing, exhausted Pyrrha did as well, and the two teams slid through the tiny entrance she'd left for them. Inside, however, they instantly found themselves faced down by hundreds of firearms and a lot of angry soldiers with quick trigger fingers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Yang, the loudest of them all, shouted over the rising din of soldiers telling them to freeze. "Winter, Winter!"

It took a few moments before the soldiers recognized the passphrase given to them by Dawn, and a few moments after that before weapons started lowering, and a Captain, sporting officer's bars and several gaping wounds, limped out to the front and demanded to know who they were, they weren't expecting any reinforcements _period,_ let alone people pale enough to pass as Vale citizens.

Ruby stepped forward, hurriedly saying, "we _are_ from Vale, but Professor Dawn sent us anyways!" She said, as Jaune hurried over to Pyrrha, who was drenched in sweat and gasping for air. "He knows about those men outside, and the Terrans, he sent us to get her and get her out of here!"

The Captain frowned, briefly looking down, but another quake of the ground made his mind up for him. He rounded on his men and called out, "we've maybe about five minutes before those two get down here! If they do we've gotta give 'em hell and make sure they get that girl out of here, buy them as much time as we can, am I understood?!"

A chorus of battle cries and 'yes sir!'s met his question, and he waved the two teams through, shouting, "take exit bravo! She'll know where it is!" as they sprinted past, before he turned to his men again and helped them prepare their defenses and what, in all likelihood, would be their last stand.

RWBY and JNPR descended further into the subway tunnels, following their maps and going ever deeper underground, none of them willing to think too hard on what the soldiers must be going through as time went on and the quakes grew less and less frequent. Ruby knew they only ran for a handful of minutes, but with the way her heart was hammering in her chest and with all the thoughts running through her mind it felt like hours before they reached the sterile white lights and the stainless steel floors and walls of the bunker proper. A few guards were there, but they let them through after getting the same passphrase and being told of the situation topside. A promise to hold the line was all that was given after they shut the door behind the two teams.

Inside they discovered an armory that had hastily been emptied of everything inside, a cafeteria that appeared to have been abandoned halfway through mealtime - though with most of the food rotten beyond consumption - and dozens upon dozens of immaculate barracks left barren and devoid of life. RWBY and JNPR frantically raced through the bunker, towards the room indicated to them by Dawn, looking for the Winter Maiden.

They reached it just as the ground shook again and the lights in the bunker flickered. Ruby felt her throat go dry as she and her allies exchanged glances; the rest of RWBY and JNPR took up defensive positions. Ruby herself turned to the door and frantically twisted at the knob, shoving it open to reveal a deceptively tiny room, completely empty and void of all life.

Ruby blinked.

"What?" She breathed, looking around the sterile white room, and seeing no one inside. Not on the tiny bed, not in the dark bathroom, the room was empty. "But..." She felt her heart begin beating faster and her throat go dry as, for a moment, she wondered if the Maiden were even here at all, if they'd rushed headlong into a fight with a Master for nothing at all.

But then she saw it - just the faintest of movements underneath the bed, the shifting of its blanket. Ruby dashed over to the corner of the room, grabbed the blanket, and flipped it up, before kneeling down and looking underneath the bed.

Ruby hadn't quite known what to expect, but the six year old girl, with wide, steel-blue eyes and an expression of barely contained terror, hadn't been it.

The Maiden cried out in fear, gasping as she pressed herself as far against the wall as she could, trying to make it such that Ruby couldn't reach her, but the silver-eyed huntress held up her hands, shaking her head. "No, no, no! I'm - I'm a friend! Professor Dawn sent me, we're trying to get you out of here!"

The Maiden gave her a look of fear, but at least appeared to be willing to listen to her. "What's... What's his password?" She asked, in a high voice, shaking with the terror of a child who simply didn't understand what was going on.

Ruby squeezed her eyes shut tight for a moment, before they snapped open and she said, "the man with two souls says hello!"

The Maiden blinked her big eyes, appearing to be in shock that Ruby had passed her test, but once she recovered from it, she scrambled forward, throwing her arms out to Ruby, who secured her scythe to her back and picked the small child up. "Uh -" She stuttered, "are - are you okay? Are you hurt?" She asked, looking over the tan child, checking her torso and her sandy hair and seeing no blood or torn clothing. "What's your name - uh, kiddo?"

"Bluebell, and I'm okay. What's happening outside?" She asked, "Commander Cody just told me to get under my bed and not come out."

Ruby frowned, "okay Bell, I'm - er, I'm Ruby! So, um... Listen, I'll tell you everything once we get out of here, okay Bell?" She said, with a nervous smile. "Right now we're not safe and we need to get out of here. Some bad men are coming and if we don't move soon they'll -" But she was interrupted when the air began shaking and she could feel in her chest the bass of the gunshots suddenly filling the hallway right outside this room. "I want you to hold on tight, okay?" She requested, as Bluebell tightened her grip around Ruby's neck.

The young Huntress sprinted to the door and peeked outside, the sight making her heart drop: Old Man and the Bear were being assaulted with everything RWBY and JNPR had that they could attack from a distance with. Old Man had a hand held aloft, and all of the bullets, rockets, slugs, and shards of ice and metal were all slamming into an unseen barrier and turning into snowflakes, falling harmlessly to the ground and melting underfoot. Ren was knelt down right next to Bluebell's door, firing wildly at the approaching duo. He glanced at Ruby for a moment and, seeing the child in her hands, his eyes widened, before thinning again with determination.

He said one word: _"GO!"_

Ruby hesitated, looking from Ren, to Old Man and the Bear. Pyrrha, in front of Jaune at the center of the pack, enveloped in a dark glow and tried to bury the Master and the Huntsman in the metal that made up the walls and the ceiling of the bunker, covering them in it and trying to crush them as tight as she could. The Bear, with a deep and loud growl, wrenched his body to one side, tearing through the metal covering him through sheer strength alone, before he ripped his way out of it by yanking himself to the other side and then tearing his legs out of the metal one foot at a time. Old Man, meanwhile, merely glanced down at the jagged metal immobilizing him with an annoyed look in his squinting eyes, and the metal just melted away, liquifying and running down his body until it pooled up at his feet as though it were a puddle of water.

Ruby realized she had no other choice, and she _ran,_ dashing past her friends and around the bend in the hall with her semblance, leaving only rose petals in her wake before she continued sprinting, calling to mind the map of this place and knowing that all roads led to one of two places: The front entrance, or the emergency exit.

She barely made it thirty feet before bluebell screamed right in her ear, "Miss Ruby!" And pointed at something over her shoulder.

Ruby looked over her shoulder and saw Old Man lazily walking towards them, his arms held behind his straight back, crossing unnaturally large amounts of distance with each calm step, a determined, if annoyed, frown on his heavily wrinkled face. The hallway behind him compressed down to a point, sealing everything off behind it and appearing almost as a picture stretched out in an image editor. Ruby turned back forward and took in a deep breath before darting to the end of the hallway with her semblance.

But she didn't move an inch.

Every step she took at her greatly enhanced speed seemed to make the hallway stretch even further away, the further forward she ran the less distance she crossed. Looking over her shoulder again, Old Man wasn't even moving anymore, he was just standing there, watching Ruby effectively run in place. Gasping for breath, Ruby realized the futility of her actions and stopped trying to run. She dropped Bluebell behind her and drew her scythe, extending it fully and holding it defensively.

Old Man arced an eyebrow, then turned his gaze over his shoulder, gazing behind him a moment before turning back to Ruby. "He can't see us, little lady. Why not talk?" Ruby blinked, but didn't say a word, instead reaching behind her and pushing Bluebell such that she was shielded by her body. "Come now, please. I kill because I literally have to when I'm around him, but he's dealing with your friends right now and there are seven of them. He won't last too terribly long..." He hummed, "though they are in a hallway. Narrow paths negate advantages of numbers... Hm." He groaned as he lowered himself to the ground, the previous youthful energy to his movements vanishing and being replaced with the age so readily apparent in the folds of his skin.

Ruby felt her heart picking up as she tried to figure out what Old Man's game was, and as Bluebell tightly took ahold of her skirt. "I won't let you have her." She told him, tightly gripping her scythe.

Old Man grinned somberly, "one thing so few young people these days realize is that the operative word there is _let."_ He said, "of course you won't _let_ me have her... But really, what do you expect to do?" He asked, before another voice spoke up from directly behind her. "When I can do this?"

Ruby gasped and Bluebell screamed as the former whirled around and the latter was hauled into the air by the Master. The Maiden weakly pounded and kicked at his face and his chest, even as he picked balanced her on his hip, unflinching as though her assault was like being beaten by a feather. Ruby, panicked, looked behind her, and saw that Old Man was indeed gone from his original position, but then turned back forward and found him gone again. She felt her heart stop, but then heard Bluebell cry out again from behind her.

Ruby whirled around, but lost her balance when the bright lights, the sterile white walls and the gray floor of the bunker were all gone, replaced by a dark sky, hundreds of towering trees, and a grassy ground. Old Man was standing a few meters away, holding Bluebell at arms length and shaking his head.

"Oh, hush hush hush hush, little baby." He said, before balancing her on his hip again. "Remind me of my grandchild, I swear." She was squirming in his arms, but that stopped instantly when he ran his hand over her eyes, as though closing them on a corpse. She fell limp and began lightly snoring into his chest.

Ruby now held her scythe in front of her, baring her teeth as she gripped it tightly. "Give, her..." But something stumbled her, as the clouds above her parted, and revealed something she'd never seen before:

A moon with no orbiting fragments.

"Back..." She blinked, voice petering out into a whisper.

"Oh, yes, child." Old Man nodded, adjusting his grip on Bluebell. "I had quite a similar reaction when I saw _your_ moon for the first time. Thought I'd gone absolutely fucking senile." He hummed, a fond grin on his face. "But then Hazel found me and granted me my power, and I must admit... Even when I was young, I never felt so young." He let out a long, satisfied sigh.

It was so sudden that Ruby didn't even realize it had happened until the light from the ceiling made her blink. One second they were outside in a forest, the next, they were back in the bunker, right where they'd been standing. Ruby was holding Bluebell now - she didn't even remember picking her up! The weight was suddenly just _there_ in her arms! - Crescent Rose was leaned against the wall, and both she and the man were sitting, the latter with a cup of coffee in his hand, already halfway up to his lips.

"Let me tell you, hon. I asked my powers once for 'the greatest cup of coffee', and by God they delivered." He said, after taking a sip of his drink and shivering. "You should try it, please." Ruby hadn't so much as blinked than was Bluebell back in his arms and his coffee in her hands; this time she at least had the presence of mind to shriek and throw the cup away.

It tumbled through the air, crashed onto the ground, rolled for several feet, the handle appearing to just phase through the floor, and the liquid inside not even moving an inch, before it came to a halt and then just righted itself.

"Right. Germs, my bad." He nodded once, "I guess I'll just get to the point, then: Despite what you have no doubt seen this last... Fifteen? Twenty minutes?" He shrugged, "I don't actually enjoy the killing. I simply do it because to _not_ do so in present company would arouse more suspicion than it wouldn't. Without his presence, however, or when he isn't looking, I can quite easily spare lives, though at a cost, usually to them, sometimes to me." He ran his wrinkled hand through his thin, white hair. "And as he isn't here and there is clearly nothing you can do..." He leaned forward, "despite your rather pretty eyes... I would deign to allow you to live. This instance specifically being quite important because, for the first time, one of us has met one of you." He said, straightening his back. "Please enlighten me: Is Professor Ozpin yet alive? Or is he still in limbo, so to speak?

Ruby frowned, and that motion alone prompted Old Man to be on his feet, with Bluebell tucked up against the wall.

"I see." He sighed, "unfortunate... But as you clearly serve him, I pray you can send this message and a token of goodwill and good faith." He folded his hands behind his back, waiting for her.

Ruby looked down, seeing Crescent Rose as a rifle in her hands.

 _How could someone be this strong?_ She wondered, noticing a tremble to her hand. _I... I'm... I thought... Isn't there something I can do?_ Qrow said she had the power to basically _negate_ those of people like him, but neither he nor she had any idea at all as to _how,_ and it was clear to her that, right here and right now, the only way out of this, the only way to rescue Bluebell and stand even a _chance_ against this old man, was through her eyes.

She had to buy time, time to come up with an idea, something - _anything -_ that would let her crack into whatever let her hurt Cinder and freeze the dragon. "What... Message is it?" She asked, suspiciously. "And... Is the token of goodwill us taking Bluebell?"

The Old Man hummed, a thin smile on his face. "I admire the gumption child, but no. There are many reasons we _must_ take her and we _must_ acquire the other two after her. My message is simple: The Masters you think are your enemies are not. Though our numbers have dwindled, and the best of us may be dead, so too is the worst of us, and those who remain, old as we may be, are united against Salem. We need only the opportunity to strike. As to what I can offer... It is knowledge, and an opportunity." He said, "the knowledge is twofold: Earth, and as such, _we_ already know where the Summer Maiden is, and my German counterpart and his ally shall have her within the month, perhaps only the slightest bit longer. It depends wholly on when the Americans decide to attack Atlas. The opportunity, as a result, is for you to focus your efforts on finding Spring. To shepherd her away, hide her... Fortify her, and when we inevitably find her, you can take your chance to kill our allies who are not of Earth. Make the final battle against Salem..." He blinked, turning his head over his shoulder, "hm." He sighed, "quite bold, quite interesting." He turned back to Ruby, "as I was saying, to make the final battle against Salem less titanic. I would explain further, but it appears we are out of time..."

And suddenly Ruby was in the air, a hand clenched around her throat and cutting off her air. She looked down the arm and locked eyes with the Master, and froze, as for the first time she could actually _see_ his, two onyx orbs appearing to absorb all light that entered them. "I promise you will feel no pain." He shook his head. "I do hope you take my offer, the lives we could spare as a result are incomparable to those that would be lost if you don't. Regardless, I wish you luck, and I promise you will recover -" And as he spoke, Ruby spied the sealed off wall shuddering violently, covered in a dark glow, slowly splitting open from its center. " - quickly."

The wall tore open, and Pyrrha, Ren, and Jaune sprinted through, the formermost right after throwing her star spangled shield so fast that it crossed the distance between her and the Master in the blink of an eye. Said Master could only frown before it slammed into the back of his neck, bouncing off and causing him to stumble forward. He dropped Ruby to the ground, and Ruby coughed, gasping for air and clutching at her throat.

"Gods, Ruby!" She heard Pyrrha call out, from what sounded like miles away.

Ruby blinked once, turning to Pyrrha, her head feeling as though it weighed a ton. She soon couldn't hold it up any longer, soon collapsing to the ground.

Where did all that blood come from?


	61. Homo Sapiens' Lusus Naturae

_AN:_

 _So Volume 6 is starting up.  
Figure this may be the point to rip off the bandaid: I don't watch the show week-to-week.  
That's not a negative review and that's not to say I hate it (would I be writing this if I didn't like the show?), only that I feel that as of late it's gotten very samey and average. I'd argue that was an issue that has lasted since day one, but at least back then we had the world's lore **and** Oum's action to balance it out. These days (at least in my opinion) we've only the lore, and while that gets me to watch it, I only do so once the whole volume is up so I can just binge the whole thing in a day or two._

 _Until then, I'll do with V6 what I did with V5: Absolutely nothing until the various RWBY facebook pages explode, at which point I'll stroll over to the wiki to see what the fuss is about (see: the Ozpin reveal)._

 _As well, if it isn't obvious by now, through sheer necessity some things here are going to diverge from canon, not so much events (holy **shit** are those long-since impossible by now), but rather namely the identities of the remaining two Maidens. I'm not psychic, after all, so I can't predict exactly who or what Summer and Winter are, thus for both I've decided to play just a bit, make their identities less important than the impacts they'll have on the story and the 'extra lore' (for lack of a better phrase) I'm injecting into TPATS._

 _What do I mean by that?_

 _Well..._

* * *

Chapter 60

* * *

Ruby wasn't sure what was going on. Her vision swam in front of her, and every time she opened her eyes she saw something different. First she was in Bluebell's bunker and could see half of JNPR charging at an enemy she couldn't see, while the one who'd led them during their school years crouched down above her, gathering her up in his arms, face painted with frantic worry. The next, she saw a clear, open, blue sky above her, and could feel an oppressive heat building a layer of sweat all over her. She thought she could hear people arguing, but it sounded as though they were all underwater to her, nothing was clear. After that, she felt she was in someone's arms and they were walking, and it was a lot colder - but simultaneously a lot more humid - and a lot more green, to the point where the sky was green, now.

Or maybe they were leaves?

Now, however, when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a tent, and both her vision and her hearing were a lot clearer than they were the last few times. She blinked twice and groaned as she slowly raised her stiff body up to a seated position; a fur blanket fell off of her shoulders and bundled around her waist. Ruby's eyes widened when she beheld the thick, heavy bandages wrapped around her chest and her stomach. She couldn't tell how fresh they were, as some of them had some spots of red bleeding through the layers of gauze, but what surprised her was that she didn't feel any pain, nothing but the stiffness of having not moved for however long she'd been out.

Experimentally, she poked at these bandages, but still, nothing.

"Weird..." She murmured, lifting her gaze -

And finding Ren there, sitting in a corner, lazily flipping through a book.

"Uh..." Said Ruby, staring at Ren. "Hey, Ren."

Ren spared her a glance, then gave her a nod.

"How long have you been there?"

"Since this morning." He turned back down to his book, which, from the cover, Ruby recognized at one of Blake's.

"How long have I been out?"

"Eight days."

 _Whoa._ Ruby felt a little light headed after hearing that, it barely felt as though the Master had her by the throat just a few seconds ago. "Where are we?" She asked, lightly.

"The Branwen Tribe's camp." Ren said, after flipping a page, little but the sound of paper scraping against paper filling the void after he finished speaking.

Ruby frowned, breaking her gaze with him, until a thought occurred to her. "Wait, isn't this Yang's Mom's tribe? Is she here?"

Ren nodded, humming. "That is why I am here and not her. They have been speaking for the last several hours."

"And Qrow, and the others?"

"Nora and Pyrrha are training with Jaune. Weiss is working on her semblance. Blake is at a local village, sending off some mail, and is due back any day." He turned another page, eyes not breaking away from his book. "Qrow is heading to Atlas. He said it would take him ten days, nine ago." He then produced a book marker from underneath his thigh, and used it to save his place in his book.

But Ruby gasped, "what? No!" She felt her heart quicken as she tried to get to her feet, "no, we have to get him back!"

Ren was beside her in an instant, one hand on her shoulder, one under her arm, slowing her ascent to a more manageable one, not aware of how little her injuries were affecting her. "What do you mean?"

"The Master... He said his name was Ben." Ruby said, after getting to her feet, "he - whoa..." She now realized why else Ren was there: She hadn't eaten in days, and was swaying heavily, the world spinning around her. "Whoa..." She groaned, hand going to her head.

"Let's get you some food and water, Ruby." Ren prompted, "while you eat, I shall gather the others."

Ruby nodded dully, and Ren, after throwing a sweatshirt over her chest and zipping it up, guided her outside. Here she beheld the rest of the Branwen camp, and found herself surrounded by dozens of other tents similar to the one she'd been in. Around them was a giant encampment, surrounded by ever more tents, some scattered, small fires, and walls made out of felled trees jammed into the ground and secured by razor-wire. In front of her was a dirt path beaten through sheer attrition and having been walked by so many people, across which Ren led her until they reached what looked like a communal area. Some chairs and benches, the latter crafted from chopped trees, were scattered about, surrounding a bonfire and several cauldrons and improvised grills, and the occasional bandit indulging in an early meal.

Ren sat Ruby down alone, and soon supplied her with some food and a jug of water as big as her head, before leaving to find the others. Ruby dug in, but soon began to feel the hairs on the back of her neck jump up, as it dawned on her that she was surrounded on all sides by the very people she'd once dreamt of fighting, some day. It made her feel naked, and unsafe, and soon she began wondering how many of them were looking at her. She wondered how many of them had aura, and how far her Aunt's word stretched here.

She ate faster, her hands soon becoming a blur as she shoveled food into her mouth, only occasionally broken by her taking large gulps of water. She could _feel_ her energy returning to her, in proportion to her stomach filling up, and it made her feel less exposed. This effect was amplified when Nora practically came flying in to give her a bear hug from behind.

 _"Oh!"_ Nora groaned, "Ruby's awake!" She called out in a singsong voice, "and here Jaune was all beside himself worried that he might have poisoned you with his semblance!"

Ruby blinked, turning to look at the Valkyrie over her shoulder. "His what?" She asked, as the orange-haired fireball let go of her and, alongside the rest of her team and Weiss, circled around, gathered some chairs, and surrounded Ruby.

"His semblance." Weiss repeated, "when he saw you on the ground after your ill-fated fight with the Master, he awoke it." She nodded to the blonde, who was sheepishly rubbing at the back of his head.

"I can, ah... Transfer my aura to people." Was what he offered up as a response. "But I didn't know how it worked... If it was okay, if it could be toxic to you... Or what." He shrugged.

"Whoa..." Ruby said, airily, "you're our healer!" She smiled wide, noticing Pyrrha taking a cloth to Ash's shield. "That's so cool, Jaune!" But then she remembered, and gasped, "wait! The Master, that's right! You guys will never guess what he said to me!" And soon she told them the story of her 'fight' with the Master, going into great detail about how he claimed to not be their enemy, but rather an ally - a spy working against Salem, even! - and she told them that there _were_ four, apparently three good Masters and one evil Master, but how their leader found and fought the evil one and they killed eachother.

Then, "but then he said that they'd already found the Summer Maiden, in Atlas!" She said, lightning-fast. "That the Terrans were hoping to attack Atlas before they could work out a plan of their own, and that they'd be going after her too! Salem's people may already be there, right now! If we go there, it will be Nekrad all over again!"

Some of them looked thoughtful about this, but it was Weiss who pointed out, "have you considered that he was tricking you?" She asked, leaning forward. "How can we trust hm? He could have just known about your abilities and not wanted to risk triggering them in a fight, so he fed you a story."

Ruby's face fell at that, "but..." She hadn't thought of that. "Oh..." She looked down, frowning.

Pyrrha spoke up, "can we _not_ trust him, though?" She asked, "think about what Qrow told us. Salem's Masters were taken from a random airship, pretty much on accident. What is more realistic? That all four of the survivals were of such poor moral fiber that they would so quickly turn to evil? Or that some of them would instead recognize her as a madwoman and try to make her _think_ they were working for her, such that they could better maneuver themselves to take her down?" She proposed. "Such an assumption would be tantamount to thinking taking any four civilians from here and dropping them on Earth would have them immediately plotting to destroy their planet because they were picked up by a terrorist cell." She gave a melancholy smile, "I would like to think that we have allies in her circle... People mitigating what it is she does until such a time as we can find and end her threat."

Ruby smiled at this, and even Weiss gave a nod of the head, conceding the point.

"So if they really are good... Why haven't they tried to kill her already?" Jaune wondered, "why all the subterfuge?"

Weiss played Devil's Advocate here, "if we take Ben at face value... And with what Qrow told us, Salem was as strong as Ozpin even before she made extensive use of the relics. It's been thousands of years since then and she apparently already has Vale's... Plus Cinder absorbing the power of the Maidens, and, for a time anyways, there being the fourth Master loyal to Salem, it isn't impossible to think that they were worried that they simply wouldn't be strong enough to face the three of them. Perhaps they were hoping for a chance to separate Salem from the other Master and Cinder and face her together, hoping they three could dwarf her on her own." She shrugged, "and now that there are only two of them, and with their hand partially played by one of their number betraying her by killing another, they no longer feel that confidence, now thinking that their best option would be to try and attract us to her by helping her obtain the Maidens and their relics."

"But that would mean Cinder would absorb all four Maidens, and Salem would have all four relics!" Ruby pointed out, a horrified expression painting her face.

"A Queen's Gambit." Ren spoke up, "but remember that _we_ would possess armies of Terrans, Humans, and Huntsmen. The former two could destroy her Grimm, the lattermost could divide Cinder and Salem, and the Masters could keep Salem from using her relics." He nodded once, "not an impossible venture. Rather one that merely holds the greatest chance for success, and concurrently, failure." He then looked up, over Ruby's shoulder, and nodded.

Ruby turned around, to see Yang, fuming and red eyed, stalking over to them, something clutched in her metal hand, tight enough that it was convulsing.

"Hey Yang!" Ruby smiled, before following up with, "was Auntie Raven that bad?"

Yang blinked, eyes turning back to their violet shade. "Huh?" Then she shook her head, "oh, no. She's... Pretty much exactly what I expected, but she's not the one who's got me mad." She sat down on the stump next to Ruby and gave the Rose a one-armed hug and letting out a long, calming breath, before holding her metal arm forward, presenting what was in her hand for everyone to see.

A long, gray tube, with black, rectangular grips at its bottom, a clip with which it could be hung from a belt, and a red button close to its top. Ruby gasped when she realized she recognized it:

It was Ash's sword.

The same sentiment dawned on everyone, and the group soon turned to silence as all waited for Yang's explanation.

She clipped it to her belt and rolled her eyes, a frown stretching across her face. "This guy, some shady, grungy-looking douche with a mullet, one of her thugs, said he'd looted Beacon, even made it into the tower. Found this and took it, said he'd recognized it from the videos he'd seen of the Terran invasion. I wanted it back, said it wasn't his and he didn't deserve it. He said no and I punched his lights out. He took offense to that and was about to throw down but one look from his chief had him give it up."

"Wow." Jaune hummed, "Raven had people in Vale?" He asked, eyes wide.

"She can rip open portals through time and space, Jaune." Weiss rolled her eyes. "She probably has people probing Vacuo, too."

Yang scoffed, "yeah, and the chance to send a bunch of guys to loot an abandoned Huntsman academy? Steal a bunch of dead students' weapons and maybe score some Dust? She wouldn't miss that chance." She said, with no small amount of disdain. "But..." She waved it away. "It doesn't matter... You're awake, and we've got it back. When this is all done we can bury it at his headstone... Be a little more proper than what we did." She turned to Ruby, "how're you feeling?"

Ruby stretched her back, "really well, actually." She admitted, "you missed it, I just finished telling everyone what I learned from one of the Masters."

Yang arced an eyebrow, "you mean the guy that almost cut you to pieces?" She clarified, "and you _believe_ whatever he said?"

"Well -"

"It is worth note that the same man held a building aloft long enough to liquefy it and turn it into a dozen spears." Pyrrha spoke up, "Ruby was alone with him, and yet she still lives."

Yang wasn't amused, "what's your point?"

"That he has no reason to lie to us." Pyrrha responded, "with the speed they're killing Maidens and stealing their abilities... It would serve no short or long term gain. Better to scare us than to give false hope."

Yang quieted down at that, and soon the conversation ground to a halt, the only sounds being that of Ruby digging into her plate.

"So..." She said, after too long of a silence. "I haven't seen her around." She murmured, thoughts going to that tiny child so effortlessly stolen from her in Vacuo's bunker. "The... Winter Maiden."

If things had been quiet before, they were _silent_ now, even the air of the camp appearing to fade away. Jaune was the one to break the news, "we tried, Ruby. But nothing worked."

* * *

Two Maidens, in just as many months.

So used to the pace at which they had maneuvered before the Fall of Beacon, Cinder Fall found herself somewhat astounded at the sheer speed at which things were falling into place now. First she had taken the remainder of the Fall Maiden's powers, and now?

Now, as she stepped out of the dropship gifted to her by her late partner, she would take for herself the powers of the _Winter_ Maiden.

Stepping out into the dry, arid sands of the desert kingdom, Cinder repressed a flinch at the feeling of the sun beating at her scarred flesh. Hanging from a belt wrapped around her long, red dress were the beans Aldric had once promised would heal their injuries, and she hoped they would, because if Salem were correct and taking Winter's power would heal the damage done to her by Ruby Rose, she could waste no time at all acclimating herself to another meteoric rise in strength.

The whine of the engines died down and the bay-door finished lowering, digging into the sand. Cinder stepped outside, flanked by two ancient Grimm and a Seer. In front of her was Hazel Rainart, the giant bear of a man, and his polar opposite, the ninety year old Terran Master, Ben, who stood with a straightness to his back that betrayed the weakness one would initially perceive from the wrinkles on his face and the thinness of his white hair.

In between the two was another Seer Grimm, and in front of it, waiting for Cinder, was her.

The bandaged Fall Maiden paused a moment, looking at the pale child, who knelt on the ground, arms tied behind her back and a gag wrapped around her mouth. Cinder hadn't expected someone so young, she hadn't known Maidens could _be_ so young. As she picked up the pace again, the Maiden's wide, blue eyes shone with fear when she laid them on Cinder's one orange orb. Clearly the girl had been told about Cinder by her protectors, told that someone was out there, stealing the powers of her sisters, working towards goals she was too young to understand. The Maiden feared Cinder, and appeared to only now be grasping what was happening, and what _would_ happen to her.

She tried to struggle in her bonds, tried to get to her feet to run, but the Seer planted a tentacle on her neck, and Ben and Hazel each planted an arm on her shoulder, forcing her to remain on the ground, as Cinder slowly stalked towards her.

When Cinder reached the girl, she knelt down in front of her. The girl's eyes were reddening from the tears now freely falling, her chest was heaving with each haggard breath and her body was beginning to shake. Cinder remained silent, simply frowning as she wondered why she hadn't been told she would be so young. Was this Salem testing her resolve? Or had the Master and his ally seen it as so inconsequential as to not be worth mentioning?

Regardless, Cinder realized, with a light clench in her chest, that she recognized the fear in the girl's eyes. It was the same fear she'd once seen in herself so many years ago. Now, however, instead of seeing it in the shard of a mirror in a dark room underneath a half-broken bed, Cinder was seeing it in another person, barely as old as she had been; and now, unlike then, the person radiating this fear wouldn't get to run away, wouldn't live to define her life by it.

In a way, Fall envied Winter for that.

As she stood up, though, and clenched her good hand tight enough that her fingernails dug into her palm, seeing this fear also strengthened her resolve. This was exactly why she was doing what she did, and this was exactly why she _would_ do this _now._

She didn't want to feel that fear ever again.

And she _wouldn't._

So Cinder opened her hand and held it in front of the sobbing and struggling Maiden. A swirling vortex of red energy formed in her palm, and out of it dug an insect, oily black and with a pure white carapace. It hooked its many legs around the portal from which it came, and locked its many eyes onto the Maiden, who was now trying to back away, but was being held down, forced to stay in position. Her eyes glowed with an otherworldly energy and soon Cinder saw Hazel visibly straining to keep the girl in check.

As the bug shot its stringy black tendrils over the Maiden's face, Cinder saw, just out of the corner of her eye, Ben's lips purse, as he turned to look away from the proceedings. The Maiden screamed through her gag, and Cinder felt a warmth, not at all harsh and overbearing like that of the desert sun roasting her flesh, but pleasant and welcoming, rushing in to fill that emptiness she felt in her chest. The Grimm Bug's tendrils glowed with the Maiden's energy and it drained her dry, her agonized screams growing weaker and weaker, and her skin paler and paler, until she had naught but a deathly pallor and a trickle of aura sliding into Cinder, whose eye widened as she felt an almost orgasmic high at the _lack_ of _any_ pain in the weaker half of her body. Moreover she began to have feeling in her bandaged arm once it was done, Cinder realized she felt _whole._

The bug's tendrils slithered off of the Maiden's face and back into its inky black body, and the Maiden slumped forward, eyes glazed over and mouth agape, her face appearing burned by the bug that had latched onto it. Her breaths were hollow and shallow, and her entire body was limp now. Cinder, on the other hand, towered over her, body seizing up as the now multi-Maiden's body adapted to the sudden influx of energy. She gasped and twitched, fist clenching tight and muscles spasming under her skin.

 _This..._ She thought, as she slowly turned her head to the arm slung in a thick cast. _This is..._ The cast burst into white hot flames and almost immediately began to crumble away into ash, revealing the red, scarred, leathery limb beneath it. _This is power..._ She thought, as she took her newly working limb and ripped away the bandages that kept her ruined eye covered. She ran her scarred hand over her scarred face and reveled in both how she felt the sensations and how she _didn't_ feel the pain that had been there just minutes earlier.

 _Is this what he felt?_ She wondered, single eye turning down to the beady bag hanging from her plucked the bean bag from her hip and pried it open with two of her fingers, before digging one of the beans out. She regarded it curiously for a moment, it briefly occurring to her that Aldric could have been playing with her, as he was wont to do. But, deciding she had nothing to lose, she popped it in her mouth, bit down, and swallowed.

The effects were instantaneous. Like a spash of cold water waking one up out of a deep sleep, Cinder was suddenly assaulted by first her eyes - _plural -_ both functioning perfectly, the one she had lost just suddenly _being_ there, growing back where it belonged so quickly that she almost didn't realize it. Then her once injured arm lost its scars and its leathery skin, it fading away, practically shrinking until it was gone, and the same with her face. In a scant second, Cinder had gone from almost crippled to perfectly healthy.

 _No..._ She thought. _More_ _than healthy._ She grinned, clenching her once injured fist, wreathing it in white hot flames.

She lifted her gaze, a sneer stretching across one half of her face. Ben had finally turned back to face her, but his expression was guarded, almost concerned. Hazel's was neutral, uncaring for the situation, and the Seer was as unreadable as ever. Cinder was about to speak, when she looked down and beheld the Maiden. Her hand slowly going limp and her expression changing from one of confidence bordering on arrogance to one of shock and confusion prompted her allies to do the same.

The Maiden wasn't dead.

With a confused frown, Cinder knelt down in front of the Maiden, grabbing her head and lifting it up so they could make eye contact. She didn't know what to expect, but what she got wasn't it: The very instant she touched the girl, she screamed. Or rather, she didn't scream, she wailed. Long and loud, deep and throaty, but also soft and numb, this wasn't a scream of any kind of agony or pain, it was one born of a lack of all of those things. Something fundamental was gone in this girl and she was so unable to process it that all she could do was scream in some infantile means of trying to summon help.

Unfortunately, she got the exact opposite: Ben and Hazel both retreated a step, and Cinder's hand recoiled like it had been burned. The only one among them not to move was the Seer, which hovered in place, still as death. The multi-Maiden frowned at the girl, head tilting as the latter ran out of breath. The former Maiden then inhaled deeply, and wailed some more, pitch growing until something primal entered it: Fear.

Eyes still glazed over, the former Maiden limply reached forward, trying to grasp the one who had stolen her powers. Cinder watched and allowed it to happen, but slapped the girl's hands away when they touched her. Despite the sun baking everyone present, the heat of the air, and fires just toyed with by the multi-Maiden, the child's skin was as cold as ice, enough so that the brief contact between the two was enough to shock Cinder. Furthermore, she was beginning to notice a change in the girl - her skin, still bleach-white and of a deathly pallor, it was being filled in. Cinder could just see something dark underneath it, her veins, turning black as coal, as though filled with an oily ichor.

But this was all Cinder would see, as the Seer floated forward, and wrapped its tentacles around the former Maiden's neck. With a violent yank, the child's neck was snapped into pieces, and her body dropped to the sand.

It vanished into black smoke before it was even halfway there.

* * *

"Oh... Wow." Ruby mumbled, getting her first look at her combat gear since she'd woken up.

"Yeah." Yang hoisted the crusty, blood-stained skirt up with two pinched fingers. "This isn't salvageable, Rubes." She said, twisting it about and revealing the many gashes running up and down it. "You can try but, after a certain point you just have to get some new ones." She tossed them to the side. "I gave Blake your measurements though, so she should be able to scrounge something up on the way back."

Ruby blinked, then turned to her sister, the two seated inside their shared tent. "Wait, you gave _Blake_ carte blanche to make my next combat outfit?" She clarified, "Yang!" She whined, "she won't put any red in it!"

Yang laughed at the young Rose's overly pouty face and rolled her violet eyes. "Ah, give her some credit. Maybe she'll -" But she was interrupted by a lot of raised voices off in the distance.

Blinking, Yang looked over her shoulder, then to Ruby, who shared a concerned expression. Yang strapped her gauntlet to her fleshy limb and clipped Ash's sword to her belt, while Ruby hefted her collapsed scythe into her hands and the two carefully slid outside. Their confusion appeared to be shared by everyone present, as Weiss, JNPR, and the Branwen tribe all were looking around, trying to figure out what exactly was going on, and where.

"Almost sounds like it's coming from Mom's tent..." Yang hummed, before patting Ruby's back. "C'mon."

Ruby followed Yang and the two rushed off to the back end of the camp, whereupon they found the leader of the camp verbally squaring off against -

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby gasped, elated, before this bled off to confusion. "Wait, I thought he had to be _in_ Atlas for Raven to transport us there? Why did he come back?" She wondered, looking up to Yang, who also appeared confused.

"And what are they arguing about?" She voiced, nodding to the two. "Look at Mom, she's _pissed,_ and Qrow looks pale."

Ruby hummed, and then slowly strolled forward, taking the lead both to get the two moving again, and because she was dreadfully curious as to what was getting Qrow so animate.

"- _down and they're already on the trail of the third, Raven! You can't pretend to not be seeing the writing on the wall!"_

 _"I left that man for this exact reason, and you know this!"_ His sister shouted, _"I don't want a damn thing to do with this war, the kingdoms, or now, the other planet!"_ Her hand was resting on her blade and her eyes were thin with rage.

 _"The Atlesians figured out how to fight the Terrans and Salem will have a third Maiden in a week!"_ Qrow roared, _"and you yourself -"_ He threw his hands into the air, "- you've long since thrown out your chance to not be involved with this shit!"

Raven, silently fuming, briefly glanced over to her lieutenant, before turning back to him. "What did he say to you?! What _exactly_ did -" But she trailed off when she got her first look at the approaching sisters.

This prompted Qrow to turn and look over his shoulder, and upon seeing them, he deflated almost instantly, taking in a deep breath and letting it out as a long sigh. "Hey, girls. Surprised you're alone." He mentioned, pulling his flask from his hip and upending it into his mouth.

"So... A lot of raised voices in here." Yang mentioned on approach, "what's the story?"

Qrow wiped some of the excess alcohol from his lips, "a long one." He rasped, "but we can't go to Atlas."

Ruby blinked, "why?" She asked, not able to resist the urge to sneak a peak at her aunt, the woman not quite what she had expected.

"Yes, tell them Qrow. Tell them how Ozpin's grand plan fell apart _again!"_ Raven leaned against a wall and crossed her arms, waving Qrow on. "Or are you about to really insinuate you _still_ have faith in him? After _all_ this?!"

Qrow shook his head, "It only took me three days to fly there. I spent the rest of the time talking to Ironwood and getting the lay of the land." He revealed, "and I finally left after what he told me today. He's been spending these months getting intel. On Salem, the Terrans, all of it. But he's new to this whole game, the war. Newer than most everyone else, and seeing Ozpin fail so many times... He's thinking with his gun. He deemed the more important fight being the one against the Terrans, and he's going to take the fight to them. I told him that he's playing into Salem's hands, weakening us all, but he doesn't care. So Salem and her Masters are just going to waltz up to the Summer -"

"But the Masters aren't really on her side!" Ruby blurted out, not wanting to hear whatever worst-case scenario Qrow would give out.

Qrow blinked, turning to Raven, who appeared just as confused, then back to them. "Huh?"

Yang tried to curb her sister, placing her fleshy hand on her shoulder. "Ruby -"

But Ruby, seeing perhaps the only chance to mitigate what she knew could be the worst possible choice Ironwood could make, pushed on. "In Nekrad! The Master we saw, before he knocked me out he talked to me! He said that they were on our side, that they were spying on Salem, trying to get in close!" She explained, "he said that there used to be four of them... But their leader died fighting the only one of them who was loyal to Salem! That the rest of them are good guys, they just haven't had the chance to speak to us!"

Raven burst out laughing. "Yeah, and Vernal is -" She raised her voice to a higher, more feminine and innocent volume. "- _certainly just an innocent traveler, good sir!_ " She rolled her eyes, "- _not at all trying to trick you to lower your guard so those kind gentlemen behind you can stab you and take your money! No sir!"_ She shook her head, "what are you, twelve?"

"Hey!" Yang stepped forward, "you leave her alone!"

"Enough!" Was Qrow's whip-crack interruption, before he turned to Ruby. "Tell me what he said." He demanded, eyes locked onto hers with such an intensity that she shrank beneath them. _"Exactly_ what he said, Ruby."

Ruby blinked, "uh, he said that -" She gulped, "he said that their numbers have dwindled... That the best of them was dead, but so was the worst of them, and that the last ones were old, but they weren't loyal to her." She stammered.

"Pack your things." Qrow barked almost instantly, "right now. Go tell the others we're going to Mistral." He gave Raven a scathing look, "and you better be there."

"Qrow, with any luck I'll be on Earth when all this starts going down." Raven deadpanned.

"Wait, I'm confused -" Yang began, casting a confused glance between her mother and uncle, "why are we going to Mistral?"

"Why can't we go to Atlas?" Ruby all but begged, "if we have the chance to save the Maiden, we have to!"

But Qrow shook his head, "no, that Maiden's as good as dead." He said, taking another deep tug of his flask, emptying it into his gut. "And Spring will be too... If we can't get through to her in time." Yang noticed Vernal give Raven a brief look at this, but Raven's frown didn't budge. "And besides, if that Master is to be trusted, he tipped his hand to give us time to fortify. To either get Spring to come with us or fortify Haven and protect its Relic. If Spring is the last on their list that means Haven will be their first target once they get everyone... And more than that:

"We need to wait for Ozpin."

* * *

"What..." Cinder coughed, waving away the oily smoke and realizing belatedly that her throat was functioning again, as though she'd never been injured in the first place. "What _was_ that?" She looked up to the Seer, seeing Salem's face begin to form inside.

Salem held a thin smile underneath half-lidded eyes, both of which were lowered as though she were deep in thought.

"My lady?" Ben spoke, his aged tremolo barely making it to Cinder through the dead, dry desert air, while his companion was busy glaring at where the former Maiden had been.

But Salem shook her head, "a development, Cinder." She spoke from many millions of kilometers away. "A not unpredictable... But certainly unforeseen one." She hummed, before raising her gaze to the multi-Maiden. "I can see clearly now your injuries are gone, young one." She noted, pride evident in her voice and her smile. "I am glad to have been correct in this account."

Cinder, hesitantly, nodded, and raised her once injured hand, holding a sphere of white hot fire in her palm, and allowing the flames to flow and dance between her fingers, before they flowed down her arm and sank harmlessly into her skin. "I am glad, ma'am. I must admit I had grown accustomed to moving around as I once did, before all this..."

"With the young Master." Salem nodded, knowingly. "Well you should have your chance again." She turned, her head facing Hazel, "Hazel. You and Ben shall move to Mistral and await Tyrian's locating of the Spring Maiden. I want you to scout both the Mistrali and Terran forces stationed there, in preparation for our attack on Haven." She turned back to Cinder, "you, my dear, shall advance to Atlas. Helmut and Arthur are on the trail of Summer, and it is only a matter of time before Ironwood's pride or Atlas' intelligence finds some way to convince him to attack the Terrans. I want you with them, ready to attack _her,_ when the crossfire begins."

Cinder nodded, and Salem's face faded away. She made to turn back to her ship, but Ben coughed, attracting her and Hazel's attention.

"Young lady, I must ask... Have you any idea what..." He nodded to the small disturbance in the sand where the Maiden's knees had been, the only remaining evidence of her having existed. "I mean... You've our mutual Mistress' ear. I would hope you would have at least some inkling of what it is she thinks."

But surprising her was Hazel, who stepped up and said, "it doesn't matter. Ozpin's people will no-doubt know we intend to strike Atlas next, and with little time to regroup, they'll inevitably choose to find the Spring Maiden first and take her to Haven to fortify it. We need to go there, to prepare."

Ben shook his head, "young man, I know your world is intrinsically different from mine but even you must understand the benefit that knowledge brings." He said, even though he began walking to the east. "Imagine where you would be had you no idea Ozpin's deaths were temporary affairs..."

Hazel shook his head and followed the old man. "I understand what you're saying... But I think what we witnessed is among those few things that shouldn't _be_ understood. Because you know as well as I that with understanding comes the ability to replicate. And if that was what I think it was...

"Imagine what would happen to the world if..." He cast a look over his shoulder at Cinder, who recognized it as a warning glare. "Someone... Figured out how to make Human Grimm."


End file.
